Siesta Video Message from LPV on Vimeo.

Hi Siestas! This post is going to have information for you about a block of hotel rooms at a special group rate, hotel room scholarships that we are giving out, and a few other tidbits. We will also use the comments in this post to allow you to connect with each other regarding the event, especially those of you who are traveling solo.

Special Hotel Rate

We were able to confirm a block of rooms at an Omni Hotel for our Siestas so that you will have the option of staying together. The Lord came through for us in a big way because initially they were not able to accommodate us. Praise Him! This is a nice, newly renovated hotel just 2 miles from the church and they have given us a reasonable rate. Here’s the information you need if you’d like to reserve a room there.

Omni Houston Hotel
Four Riverway
Houston, Texas 77056
Phone: (713) 871-8181
1-800-THE-OMNI
Tell them you want to book a room with the Siesta SMT Celebration for the night of Friday, January 22, 2010.
The room rate is $80.

*This is NOT the Omni Westside. That would put you much farther from the church and you wouldn’t get our special rate.

Hotel Scholarships

By God’s grace, LPM is able to scholarship 100 Siestas in 50 double rooms at The Omni for our Scripture Memory Celebration. We are thrilled to be able to do this!

-We will cover your stay for Friday night, January 22.
-You will share a room with another siesta in which there will be two double beds.
-If this will allow you to attend the conference, please email [email protected]. She is going to give scholarships to the first 100 women who email her.

Jenn and I are both part-time LPM employees with small children, so it may take us a couple of days to answer all the emails. Thanks for your patience!

Things to Do

If you’re staying the whole weekend and will have time to play, here’s a great web site to help you plan. You can even request a visitors guide.

www.visithoustontexas.com

What About our Husbands?

We have been asked if men can attend the Siesta SMT Celebration. This is going to be a very intimate group and we want our ladies to feel the freedom to worship and study with just the girls. We love our Miestas, but we would like to keep this event for women only. Thank you so much for understanding.

Connecting with Others

We know many of you are traveling solo and are hoping to connect with a travel buddy or even someone to split rental car and hotel costs. We want to open up comments in this post to allow you to do that. Just make sure you provide a way for others to contact you.

We hope this information will be helpful as you plan for our big weekend. We can’t wait, Siestas!

Our church hosted First Fest on Saturday night. We went every year growing up, so it’s fun to go now with my own kids. Back in the day, mom was the women’s fitness director at our Christian Life Center, so she was always dressed in a costume for this event. On our way there, we were recalling some of her best ones, which included the year she went as a plumber (our family was in the plumbing business) and another year when she was a present. She wore a huge, wrapped cardboard box. I would give anything to have a picture or two. I don’t have those, but I do have these!

Here is our little tiger giving a loud roar to let everyone know he had arrived.

The best part of First Fest is all the inflatables they have. Jackson loves these. Curtis and I had our wedding reception in this outdoor area at the church. I think our groom’s cake was pretty close to where this thing is.

I’m really blessed because my groom turned out to be a fabulous dad.

There’s our tiger getting ready to take the plunge.

Me and AB, who happened to be A Bee.

Why is Santa Claus at First Fest and why isn’t he wearing red? Oh wait, that’s Noah, as his name tag clearly states! Meet Pastor Gregg, who was preaching about Noah the next day. Next to him is Bethie and our little bumble bee who was trying to figure out if she should grab onto Noah’s beard.

Here’s Jackson getting his face painted by Cinderella.

My camera battery died on me, but my friend took this of our family.

Here’s the Queen Bee at home.

And here’s her brother in a sugar high frenzy.

He kept saying, “I love candy!”

These shots are all the same – Annabeth looking a little iffy and Jackson thinking it’s hilarious.

Annabeth is 9 months today. I can hardly get over it.

We are planning to do another post on Thursday about the Siesta Scripture Memory Team Celebration. We’ll have some info about a block of rooms and a group rate at a great hotel. We’ll also give those of you who are traveling alone a chance to connect with each other. Be looking for it on Thursday!

Whew! That title was a mouthful!

Siestas, congratulations on making it all the way to Scripture 21. It is finally time to register for the Siesta Scripture Memory Team Celebration! Woo hoo! (From now on you might see it abbreviated as the Siesta SMT Celebration.) This is a free event for all of our Siestas who have been working hard to memorize two Scriptures a month in 2009. It will be held at Houston’s First Baptist Church on January 22-23, 2010.

Before I tell you how to register, I need to emphasize one thing. We know based on the size of HFBC’s worship center and the number of comments that we get on our Scripture memory posts that we can accommodate every single one of our Siesta Scripture Memory Team members. Praise God! We are not in danger of selling out this event, for lack of a better word. Please know that you can take your time registering. If you’re not sure that you can really attend, please wait to register until you know that you can. We won’t close registration until two weeks before the event. Having an accurate count will help us tremendously as we plan for that wonderful and long-anticipated weekend. Thank you so much!

Registration Step One:
Please read our event FAQ page for all the details. If you have a question that isn’t answered, it will explain how to handle that.

Registration Step Two:
Follow this link to our registration page and register thyself!

We were a little nervous about rolling out registration on a Sunday because our web masters are not on call. But we really wanted to do it in conjunction with today’s verse. So if you have any trouble registering, please know that we will do our very best to get it sorted out on Monday.

The whole LPM staff is so excited to spend a great weekend with you, Siestas! We can’t wait. Thank you for taking this Scripture memory journey with us.

*You will see the post for memory verse #21 right below this.*

Scripture Memory Team, we only have four more verses and we’ve made it! I am so happy! We’ve come so far that it’s even time to register for our Siesta Scripture Memory Team Celebration in January. I hope so many of you can come! Please see the coinciding post for registration. It’s free of charge but we do need to know how many Siestas to look forward to having. We are beside ourselves with joy.

Now, onto our present purposes: our next verses!

I cannot overestimate how much God has used the verses in my spiral this year to speak strength and faith into my journey. I was laying in bed early this morning reflecting on a present mountain that I would love to see “move from here to there” (Matthew 17:21) and said aloud to God, “I need a verse! Lord, give me a verse to claim over this situation!” My mind immediately began to flip through my spiral and I felt like He was reminding me that He’d given me 20 of them thus far to equip me for this very situation. And, as we walk together and new needs arise, He’ll be faithful to supply me with more. I don’t know about you but sometimes I ask God for a word He’s already given clearly to me. I love the thought that, when we live a life with Christ in His Word, He is constantly equipping us for the future (2 Tim. 3:16,17).

This time around, I’m drawn again to a portion out of Psalm 119, an unparalleled chapter of Scripture for anyone who loves the Word or wants to. I’ve checked several versions and I think it resonates with me most out of the NIV. It’s a portion that asks Him to simply accomplish what He’s already promised. I love that. Based on what I shared with you in the previous paragraph, it couldn’t be more appropriate. Here it is:

Fulfill Your promise to Your servant, so that You may be feared. Take away the disgrace I dread, for Your laws are good. How I long for Your precepts! Preserve my life in your righteousness. Psalm 119:38-40 NIV

And, just for good measure, in case what spoke most clearly to you in this post was the reference to moving a mountain, here’s that portion:

I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. Matthew 17:21 NIV

No, I can’t explain everything that statement means to us living in this era, under this covenant, and in this insane world but I find this most stirring: it’s in the same chapter as the Transfiguration and I don’t doubt for a moment that the mountain Christ pointed to when He made the statement was the very mountain where three disciples had seen Him transfigured. So here’s what I get out of it: Ask Jesus to give you the faith to command your mountain (your huge obstacle) to move then do it with all your might. If it doesn’t budge, climb it and see Him transfigured.

Stay with it, Siestas! We’re getting closer and closer to the finish line!

You are loved and prioritized here at Living Proof.