Valentine's Banquet!

Oh my goodness. What a FUN day we had on Saturday!

In December, Ryan's uncle contacted me to see if I would be interested in speaking at their church's Valentine's Day banquet. He pastors a Nazarene church in Berne, Indiana, which is just under two hours away from where we live. There's something special about your own family members having enough confidence in what you do to invite you to share. Since the event was a Valentine's banquet, and since Ryan and I have always wanted to try out hand at speaking together, I asked if it would be okay if we both spoke. Uncle Dave said that would be great, and that is how it came to be that we started preparing for our first ever combined speaking event.

Since we were going to be traveling that far, and since we have friends who live in the next town, and since our favorite coffee shop was also right there, we decided to make an entire day of it. Oh. What. Fun. We. Had!

Our first stop of the day was the Shaka Shack coffee shop in Monroe, Indiana. This coffee shop was the second one we ever visited in our county tours, and it remains our favorite. It feels so very much like home.

We went in, talked for a while to the owner (AMAZING guy), ordered our coffee, and just savored our time in our favorite place. (PS, I'm not sure if it's my camera or the operator, but my selfie game is in a slump right now. Sorry for the blur.)

Our friends Jon and Julie (who introduced us to this coffee shop) live nearby and they came with their three kids to meet us for coffee and lunch. We had the best time catching up with them while we ate! (Also, their kids are pretty amazing. We are big fans.)

Before we left, we looked to see if we could find our names on the wall. Found out our original visit was almost four years ago to the very day!

We had some time to kill, so Jon and Julie were kind enough to welcome us back to their house for a few hours. We all sat around talking, catching up, telling stories, and enjoying our friendship!

We drove over to Ryan's aunt and uncle's house to change clothes and freshen up for the evening, and then we went to the banquet. It was held at Berne dining, which is a little local place in Berne. They had a meeting room in the back where we met, and it was so nice to have that space, but my goodness, it was packed and hot back there. I had to eventually take off my boots to try to bring my body temp down a bit!

A fun thing for us was that our friends Jon and Julie not only spent the whole day with us, but they were at the banquet too! Again - the selfie game is so bad, but the friendship it represents is so good.

We have lots of friends who support us well, but these two have really invested in our marriage and ministry, and we appreciate them!! (Fun fact: Julie and I met almost twenty years ago. WHAT?!)

Julie also helped me out by serving as our photographer for the evening, so you can peek into our time of sharing. Our talk was called I Choose You, and it was adapted from the bridal shower I did last year. We encouraged couples to choose each other every day by investing in their marriages in specific ways.

(Right before speaking.)

Let the talk begin!

This picture made us laugh SO HARD. Am I singing? Is it opera? What is happening? 

Still singing. And now Ryan is moved to just stand there with his eyes closed.

The people were just so very kind, and we appreciated their openness to hear from a couple of still-newlyweds they didn't even know.

Ryan's aunt and uncle had invited us to spend the night at their house, but we had an eye on the weather and saw that we were supposed to get ice/freezing rain/snow overnight, so we decided to come on home and be safely back in town before the weather arrive.

We did, however, go back to their house for a little bit after the banquet to talk with them, and that was so much fun. They are a couple of encouragers, and we left their house with our hearts full! (Fun fact: Aunt Becky is really a Rebekah, just like me! Twinsies!)

I just have to brag on Ryan: he did a great job with his part of the speaking, and it was fun to talk together! Hopefully we'll have a chance to do that again someday.

The whole day was a blessing, and we were thankful to get to spend time with people who are such good friends. YAY!!!!!!!