Youth Conference

Rick was asked to be a keynote speaker at Youth Conference this year. He was asked to give a forty minute talk on "Taking a Stand". The talk was planned to take place at 2:oo pm on a Tuesday, just shortly after the kids arrived to kick things off.

We spent the week prior to Youth Conference doing research, gathering information, and putting the talk together. After timing our end product, the talk ended up being about 50 minutes long. We had to cut a few things out to get it down to 40 minutes.

Youth Conference was held at Fort Flagler State Park on Marrowstone Island, near Port Townsend. Since Rick had to take a vacation day to attend, we decided to make a date of it. We dropped off Gwen with Bob and Cathy in the morning and headed on our way.

The day started with a ferry boat ride- one of my favorite things!

When the ferry docked at Kingston, we were in our car ready to go because we were going to be the first car off. When I tried to start the car, the battery was DEAD. There is a certain sort of panic that sets in when your car doesn't go when it should and there is a line of cars waiting behind you. I told one of the crew members what the problem was, and pretty soon, all of the cars were going around us- and staring as they did so.

One of the guys told us to simply put our car in neutral and they would push us off the boat. Great idea, but my car is an automatic. You can't put it in neutral without the car being on. We started having visions of the ferry leaving to go back to Seattle with us still stuck on it. Rick was starting to worry about being late for his speaking engagement.

While pouring through the car's owner's manual trying to figure out how to get the car in reverse, a crew member finally told us that there is a release button you can push to unlock the gear shift and move it into neutral. We finally located the "secret button" and some weird little tractor thingy pushed us right off of the ferry.

Here's the thing that pushed us off the boat

Rick pouring over the owner's manual

After the pushed us off the boat, they were nice enough to give us a jump start

Once we were finally on our way, we enjoyed a gorgeous drive to Fort Flagler. We made it in plenty of time and even had time to enjoy lunch out on the beach.

We were greeted by deer once we arrived to our destination. There were cars and people around, but it didn't seem to bother the deer at all.

We had a little time before Rick had to talk, so he unwound a little by playing a little Flyers Up with the young men.

It was soon time for Rick to speak and he totally rocked it! The kids were totally listening, and he got several good laughs, which is always a goal for Rick. I was so proud if him, I could barely keep from grinning the whole time he spoke.

I didn't take a photo while Rick was speaking, but here is a photo taken right before when the leaders all went to the stage and introduced themselves.

Rick and his boys. The are an awesome group of young men.

After Rick's talk, we helped keep score for the volleyball tournament

We had about an hour before dinner, so we did a little exploring a walked down to the beach.

Rick and Bishop Briggs turned rocks and a stick into a game of baseball

I pulled Rick away from his game long enough to take a photo with me

After dinner, Rick and I decided we better head home. We had such a great time and it was hard to leave. Maybe next year we will volunteer to stay the whole time.

We took the ferry back as the sun was starting to get low. A perfect end to the day!