We spent Easter weekend at the national Lads 2 Leaders/Leaderrettes convention at the Opryland Hotel. This program helps prepare kids for service in the church through year long training and practice in many different areas. At convention, they compete in things like song leading, speech, scrapbook, art, Bible reading, bulletin boards, Bible Bowl and MANY others (37 events in all)! For Will and Wyatt's age, they "practice competing" but don't actually get judged and everyone gets an award for participating. Starting in the 3rd grade, they can compete for trophies. There were about 10,000 people for the Nashville meeting this weekend and they had 5 other conventions going on at the same time in other locations. All total, there were almost 19,000 people! Our church has been participating in this for several years, but this was the first year Trent and I went. We were amazed at the size of this convention! It was so much more than what we were expecting!!
We stayed 2 nights at the hotel and the boys thought it was SOOO cool! When we first walked into the cascade area, both boys were oohhing and awwing and Wyatt said, "Mom, I hope we don't see a giant monkey. Cause monkey's live in the jungle you know!" They were amazed at the glass ceilings, fountains, waterfalls and all the gardens. They were also amazed at the "sky" ceilings in some of the ballrooms. It was beautiful!! 
Both boys were registered for 3 events: Know the Books (singing the books of the Bible both old and new testament); Oral Bible Reading (Will "read" Romans 8:28, Wyatt "read" Genesis 1:1); and Song Leading (Will sang "Up from the Grave He Arose", Wyatt sang "Blue Skys and Rainbows") I didn't do too well with the video camera so no video to post.....
But they dressed up in their "suits" and did very well in each event! Here they are getting ready for Bible Reading with some friends from our church.
At the awards ceremony on Saturday night, they invited ALL the preK - 2nd graders that participated to come up on stage for recognition. It was several hundred kids up on the stage and my boys got right in the front row!! I was so proud!
This was one of the favorites for Will - and Wyatt was haming it up pretty good!
They had so much fun!! Will wants to add a few events like Good Samaritan and Speech for next year. It makes us so proud that they are developing these skills at such a young age!
It was great to spend quality time with friends from church and what a fun place to do so!!
From the minute the boys spotted the "boat ride", they were begging to do it. We finally gave in and they were all smiles!
In the above picture, I said, "hug guys". So they did. Then they said, "oh no....too tight!!"
It was beautiful and the boys were in awe again....
taking it all in....
So much to see!
The boys even had fun on the fancy elevators!
And Weston was with us too! He didn't get as much camera time, but he tagged along like a trooper! Doesn't this look like trouble waiting to happen!
We woke up Easter morning and headed back home. It was such a fun weekend and we're excited already for next year!
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