Weekend Getaways

Luke and I have had a string of three wonderful weekends. November 17-20th, we were in Atlanta for the National Youth Workers Convention. We went to a lot of conference sessions and were able to take back many new "tools" for our youth ministry toolbox. They even offered a couple of sessions on marriage and ministry, so we gained a lot of wisdom from a youth pastor and wife (Doug & Cathy Fields) who have been doing this many more years than we have! In addition to the conference, we got to stay in a great hotel downtown, and I didn't have to cook once! :)

Last weekend, we both had Thursday and Friday off for Thanksgiving, so we got to spend a lot of time with family. Just another reminder of how incredibly blessed we are to have such wholesome families.

Then this weekend, we decided to use some of my free hotel points that I've racked up from work travel to have a weekend getaway in Indy. Sometimes it's just nice to get away and forget about the to-do lists at home. Since Thursday was my birthday, Luke had planned to surprise me with a nice dinner in Indy on Friday, but he wouldn't tell me where. My initial guess ended up being correct...The Cheesecake Factory! We thoroughly enjoyed the meal and ended up packing up our unfinished meals to go since they give you so much food. And just for fun, we added in two pieces of cheesecake! After all, who goes to the Cheesecake Factory without getting cheesecake?! Since we were celebrating my birthday, Luke let me decide what we did for the rest of the night, so we stopped in at Home Goods before heading back to the hotel.

Our hotel turned out to be AWESOME! I wish you could have seen the look on Luke's face when we opened the door to our hotel room. I've stayed in a lot of hotel rooms with work, but this was by far, the coolest room I've stayed in--and it was FREE! It was a corner king suite and the ceilings were 12-15 ft. high with floor-to-ceiling windows  on both sides of the room. The pictures below don't do the room justice. It was so nice to relax.

Then today, we met up with a college friend, Cara Thomas, who lives in Franklin. We met her and her fiance, James, for lunch at Cracker Barrel. Cara has had a rough year, and we don't get to see her nearly as much as I'd like to, so it was refreshing to catch up. When Cara was about 10 years old, she had leukemia. For over ten years, she was in remission.  However, within the last five years, Cara has had both of her hips replaced, and then about a year ago, she found out that her cancer had returned to her thyroid. She is such a sweet person, and it's hard for me to believe that she has been through so much in her life. She is having a second operation on December 20th to remove a tumor on her thyroid. This is a very risky surgery since it's located near nerves. The surgery could damage her laryngeal nerves and her ability to speak/breathe, so we are hopeful and praying that God will do a mighty miracle as the surgeon operates on the 20th. The weird part is that she feels great and doesn't have any visual signs that this is going on inside of her. Please join us in praying for Cara! If you would like to follow her progress, you can visit her blog: www.caringbridge.org/visit/carathomas/.