{Weekend Wrap-up // Lauren Daigle, a day off, taking shelter, Texas State Fair}

Happy Wednesday! What a week it has been so far. I couldn't muster up enough energy on Sunday after the fair to write a post. Then Monday was the AT&T Armageddon that swept across Texas. If you didn't hear, lightning struck facility a bit north of us and caught fire. We were without Internet for over 13 hours. It was a nightmare. I mean, if I didn't work at home full time I wouldn't have minded it. But, it was stressful not being able to do my job. And we live in somewhat of a black hole and with the weather we had almost zero cell service at home. It was a long 13 hours. Anyhow, Tuesday was spent playing catch-up on all the things. So, a weekend wrap-up on Wednesday it is.

We are going to start this post with our Thursday since that is where our weekend really began! We had suite tickets to see my favorite Christian singer, Lauren Daigle. Nathan's cousin is married to the mayor's (of the town the concert was in) son and they hooked us up! The suite was awesome!! And some of our friends from high school ended up being just two suites down from us. A couple of guys opened up for Lauren Daigle and then a guy named Jason from Food for the Hungry spoke about sponsoring children from less fortunate countries. He started off by asking the crowd if they knew what hope was and I am certain Mason was one of the first to throw his hand into the air. Then he asked if any of us had experienced or felt hope. Again, Mason's little hand flew into the air. Then he talked about visiting a country where 10 and 12-year-olds lead households of 2-6 children. How most of them only had a small area of walls built with mud with no roofs. How most of them didn't have proper clothing or school supplies and so they couldn't attend school. My heart broke right there in that auditorium. And so when they offered packets to sponsor these children and to provide them with that same hope that we feel you can bet that Mason's little hand was again one of the first to go into the air. We got our little packet and we are now sponsoring a sweet little boy. Mason can't wait to write him letters and has the biggest dream of meeting him someday. I pray we can make that happen! Anyhow, the concert was amazing. Lauren Daigle didn't play until well after 8:45 which was about 45 minutes past Mason's bedtime. He was exhausted but sang his little heart out at the top of his lungs. I couldn't have loved the night anymore if I tried.

Such a great night of worship! Lauren was very entertaining, too! Nathan got to see a glimpse of why I love her as much as I do.

Nathan and I had Friday off and Mason ended up having it off too! The concert ran late and we didn't get home until 12:30 am. We let Mason stay home on Friday. We originally were going to let him go to school until he was counted there and then check him out. But we couldn't do that to him. He would have been miserable, He had an eye doctor appointment anyhow, so it worked out. We went to visit Nate's mom at her school, went to Duluth trading company, eye doctor, lunch and then to some friends house to hang out and chat. Mason loves visiting his Nana's high school and seeing all of his friends!!

Saturday morning I had a grocery pick-up scheduled. My boys went with me and we got donuts before going home to unload groceries. A friend texted and reminded me about an adorable boutique that had an 'everything is $10' sale so I got ready for that. Nate and Mason went to visit Nate's parents and our nephew. While we were shopping we had some severe weather move into our area. There were tornados and they were coming from my town to the town we were in. Instead of driving straight into the storm I followed my friend home and hunkered down with her and her family in their storm shelter. We've totally got to put one of those in at our place! It was frightening, but we got through it just fine. That evening Nate and Mason built a boat we had left over from Boy Scouts and we played with it in our ditches that were flooded. Later Mason played in the water hose (because there wasn't enough water already!) while Nathan and I piddled around in our shop. We made pizzas and stayed in binge watching some shows we've been wanting to see.