Family retreat

We had our annual church family retreat this weekend. It was really alot of fun. I'll admit to not being exactly "gung ho" about it before I went. The reason is the whole camping aspect of it. To me, it's roughing it. To others, it's a day at the Ritz! There are cabins with bathrooms and a large bath house. There's also a dining hall. There's a big lake which is usually really pretty and it's fun to go out on paddle boats. However, for some reason they had recently drained it, so the teenage boys had fun playing out in the mud. They were mainly showing off for the girls who were watching!

We roomed with Adam and Alissa and their 3 children. It was just our 2 families in the cabin, so it worked out nicely that we each kind of had our own space. Adam did a great job of doing "bedtime story duty" Friday night!

This retreat serves as a good time to relax and not pay so much attention to our clocks & schedules. We get to spend time playing "Phase 10" and laughing with friends as well as worshiping God! We also eat alot! Chris took off with Gracie and some other men with their sons to hike up to a waterfall. My little Gracie just wasn't up to making it the whole way, so they came back early. She was fine with that because she went straight to the big sandbox (aka the volleyball court) and had a great time there!

Some of the ladies had prepared a carnival of sorts for the children Saturday evening. They had fun getting their faces painted, playing beanbag games, painting pumpkins and knocking down bottles with softballs.


The girls had a good time playing on the huge slide and the swings that are at this camp. It looks like Chris had a good time, too!














I was worried that Katie wouldn't sleep well while we were there, but she actually did really well. She had some "moody" times during the day, but at night she conked out! They had some sweet "sissy times!" (A couple of these "sissy pictures" are from when we got home.)