Monday, October 29, 2007

2007 Fall Retreat

We went on our Fall retreat with church this past weekend and had a lot of fun. The weather was good-not too hot & not too cold. The girls had a blast having a "sleepover" with so many friends. There were 18 of us in the cabin we stayed in. 11 of those were ages 12 & under. The room the girls slept in had 8 of those 11 children. Gracie enjoyed getting to stay up a little later than the "little girls" with LA, reading on the porch. They didn't stay out as late the 2nd night, mainly because of the high winds that had started that evening. The screened porch was pretty cold! In the past, Chris has stayed with us, but he stayed with the guys this time so it was just us girls. There was actually 1 guy who stayed in our cabin with his family. He & their little boy were the only males in our cabin. Poor guys, huh?!?!



We left a little after noon Friday (Gracie didn't have any school that day!) and a group of us went to eat at a place called "Yoder's"-an Amish restaurant. We then continued on to camp, getting there late afternoon. We got all of our cabin arrangements squared away-as far as who would stay in what cabin, etc. We then just started enjoying being there! We played games and the kids enjoyed playing on the slide & swings and just running around down by the lake. In our cabin, we stayed up way too late playing a hilarious game called "Apples to Apples." It's very fun! After a too short night of sleep, we got up & got ready for the day which started with a breakfast prepared by a few of the ladies. Mid-morning, we had a lesson presented by one of the men then had some free time before lunch. We played "Apples to Apples" again while the kids ran around. Gracie really enjoyed "fishing." She used someone's fishing pole that didn't actually have a hook, but she sure enjoyed casting it over & over. Katie enjoyed climbing up the slide & going down over & over.
After lunch, there was a big amount of free time. We spent some time in the paddle boats then went to a somewhat nearby apple orchard. It was really pretty up there and they had great apple cider. Unfortunately, the bees also liked the cider so you had to drink it fast! (Chris caught me swatting at the bees-lovely, huh?!?!) When we got back to camp, we sat out by the lake some more while Gracie "fished," Katie played, and Chris took both girls along with a couple of friends out in the paddle boats again.

We had dinner that night then Chris presented a lesson. Afterwards, they had a bonfire where smores were roasted. It was pretty cool out but not too bad. The wind picked up a lot that evening though. All throughout the night, it was blowing really loud. I worried a couple of times about how sturdy our cabin really was! Before going to bed, our cabin + some of the husbands played "Loaded Questions"-another really fun game! Hilarious when you have a few goofy husbands who enjoy getting a laugh out of people.



Sunday morning, we got up for breakfast then started packing up our stuff & cleaning. We had church then continued cleaning & packing. We headed home-tired but with good memories. We stopped for lunch in Greenville, SC then continued on our way. We were soooo tired after getting home mid-afternoon. I took a loooong nap then slept late this morning (Gracie didn't have school again today due to parent/teacher conferences!)



A little before noon today, I headed over to the school to help with passing out cookie dough. Our school sold $40,000 worth of cookie dough (PTA gets about 40% of that!) and today was the day for parents to pick it up. When I got there, the truck had just arrived and the men were bringing the many, many boxes into the cafeteria. Shortly after they started bringing in the boxes, parents started arriving. I helped for about 2 hours then left to go to our conference with Mrs. Z. Chris met me for that. We had our conference about Gracie which went really well. We are very proud of her. She had all A's & S's and Mrs. Z had really great things to say about her!



We then went to pick up our own cookie dough then I went home to eat some lunch. There weren't a lot of PTA helpers, so I decided to go back to help some more around 3 or 3:30. (Chris had taken off today to "recover" from the weekend.) I took Gracie with me and she had a blast playing with a couple of girls who were there helping their Mom & Dad with the cookie dough as well. (Their mom is actually our PTA president so I guess she "recruited" her husband to help!) They "helped" a lot by getting tubs of cookie dough that we needed to fill orders as well as helping people take their dough out to their cars using the carts and then bringing the carts back. They really were good helpers.



Chris & Katie came over around 6:30 and helped a little. We put Chris on the phone to call people to "remind" them that they needed to come pick up their dough. I think Lecia (our president) was going to stay until 8:00, but we left around 7:00. Compared to what we started with, there weren't a lot of orders left to be picked up, but there were still quite a few. I'm not sure what she was going to do with what was left over until parents show up to get it.



I got my first paycheck from my little part-time job! It's not a lot but you know what? It's enough to pay for Gracie's violin lessons + her violin rental, so I'm pretty excited! I hope I can continue doing this work for them!

2 comments:

jettybetty said...

How fun!!! Looks beautiful.

I love Apple to Apples--we need to try Hard Questions!

jettybetty said...

oops Loaded Questions might be what we need to try.