Hey all! I’ve mentioned a few times about my trip to Allume last week so I figured it was a great time to let you in a little on it! I had a wonderful time with real life girlfriends, online girlfriends and new friends, too! It was quite a bit of time to be away from the family, but I left them in good hands between my mom, father in law and hubby!

As my title referenced, there was a LOT of bacon, coffee (from Avodah!), cake pops and blogtalk! I mean–could there be anything better?! 🙂 I indulged in all the above and want to share some of it with you!

Kristina (another fellow workout partner there!) and I living it up. We workout, so why not? 🙂

First off, WHAT is Allume? It is a Christian blogging conference. There were over 400 women in attendance. WOW! To think that the online world has exploded to this (and in particular the “Christian” market) is amazing! So none of us felt bad when our eyes were glued to our smartphones, or we were taking pictures of the weirdest things. This is quite normal for the blogger and it was refreshing to be in similar company!!

Get ready for a photo deluge!!

♥♥♥

Dinner once we arrived on Wednesday! (Ruth, The Better Mom)

Later that night, Ruth was pushing me around on a hotel luggage cart! These are the things you do when you realize you are kid-free for 4 days! LOL!

My real life friend and one of my roomies, Courtney (blogs at a Women Living Well)

My real life friend, Angela from Good Morning Girls. I got her to workout with me one day! So fun! She is the sweetest and has the most tender heart!

Here is Fawn from the Happy Wives Club. She hung out in our room most nights until midnight! We share a love of exercise, too!

We had about half of the contributor team from RooMag there so we had a little meet-up! Was AWESOME to meet these gals in person and thank them for their contributions to Candace Cameron Bure’s online magazine!

♥♥♥

Are you wondering if we did anything more than eat, laugh and take pictures? Barely, but here are some of the sessions and speakers I attended/watched!

Phil Vischer (creator of VeggieTales and current owner of “What’s in the Bible“) opened the conference with his story of how he lost his dream (VeggieTales) and what God took him through to get to “What’s in the Bible.” He asked us what our dreams were, then asked if we were OK with letting them go if that’s where God lead. Very challenging for us all.

I’m sure you recognize this lovely lady—Sally Clarkson! She is so very “real” and her heart is to encourage women and moms everywhere to be walking with God and being intentional with their children. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that we, as bloggers, have the challenge of balancing a ministry online with our ministry in our homes. It is a tension that I struggle with every day and I am so thankful for Sally to speak  the hard, but true words to us to keep us on track and to live a life of no regret with our families!

Did you know there was someone called a “Problogger”? Well there is and we had him at the conference! Darren Rowse was one of the few men at the conference who blessed us with his knowledge. (He came in from Australia!)He lead a couple sessions and gave a keynote. I expected to hear practical info about blogging from him, but DIDN’T expect him to talk about his faith! He was a Pastor before he was a blogger and his message was very inspiring.

How lucky are we, that we got to hear the ever-inspiring, Ann Voskamp in real life?! The conference was almost worth her 45 minute sessions keynote alone! I have a full page of notes from her which I’ll go into at a later date.

Here is the final slide of Darren’s presentation. I believe that this summed up the conference for me. It’s only when we feast on Jesus, that we live! If I do this, God will give me the wisdom to know where I should go with my blog. He will show me how to best serve my friends and family. He will guide, lead and protect. Jesus is the key to all things I do!

♥♥♥

Whew! Thanks for hanging in there with me! Depending on when you read this, you may still get a chance to vote for the Circle of Moms contest. Ends today (Thursday, November 1st) at 7pm EST (I had the time wrong before. Oops!) It’s been a close contest, but the honest truth, I am happy with any spot I take! I didn’t expect this little blessing in my life and am grateful for it in any capacity! Thank you all for your support!