Tulsa Workshop 2013

For years our friends, Katie and Aaron, have talked about the Tulsa Workshop.  We've never been tempted to go until Francis Chan was on the bill for this year.  It was a no-brainer!

We decided to rent a house and hoped to grab one close to the fairgrounds where the workshop was held.  After a quick search on VRBO.com, I found a nice-looking 4 bedroom that was close and reasonably priced.  The Torres family decided to go with us and split the house.

The week before was spent planning and packing.  There's a lot of stuff to pack for a family of 6!  The Torres family had to back out last minute, and we were sad not to get to share the experience with them.  They were generous enough to let the Mathenys take their spot in our house though.

The drive to Tulsa went OK.  Only one child vomited (it was Jonas who never gets carsick, and he made it all in a cup), and we learned that they will NOT go back to sleep if we leave super-early.

We made good time, and our house in Tulsa was walking distance to the fairgrounds!

I knew the workshop would be a challenge to me and my love of being scheduled.  We threw caution to the wind, and the kids LOVED staying up late.  Because we were so close, they were able to nap during the lunch break each day. 

The speakers were amazing and challenging!  I missed Francis's first session thanks to a 12-hour stomach bug that hit Lachlan just minutes before that talk began.  Awesome.  Luckily I could drive him home and Troy walked later with the big kids.

Reef and Jonas loved the kids classes.  For 4 hours each day and 2 in the evenings, there were FREE classes for them, including balloon animals, puppets, the string man, and magic shows.  Plus they got to do all that with their friends Emily, Titus, and Jayden.

Poppy and Lachlan were too little for the daytime classes.  She spent the days in paid babysitting but he felt too old for that.  All he really wanted to do was this:

They had a small play area set up for kids and parents to hang out in together.  He really enjoyed coloring these cardboard houses.  I skipped a few sessions to give him a chance to do that.
We also really enjoyed sharing the house with Phillip and Sara and their family.  We stayed up semi-late discussing the messages of the day and challenges we felt and all kinds of stuff.  Our friendship with them is such a rare treasure!
The trip home on Saturday was not fabulous.  About halfway in, Poppy had a diaper blowout.  Just moments after changing her, she threw up.  And then she did again.  After 4 changes of clothes and one lost shoe, she finally stopped!  We got home around 10:30 pm (again, they don't fall asleep in the car just because they "should" be asleep), and they all slept till 8:30 the next day!
I think it's definitely a trip we will try again next year.  Reef wants to live at the Tulsa Workshop!