Church Retreat '12

This past weekend was our bi-annual church retreat.  We have held it at the same location every time and this was our third retreat here. It's been really special for our family, as each time we've come, we've been in a different stage of life...first on our own, second time with Jack as a 6 month old, and now with our TWO kiddos :)

I always enjoy all the details of organizing this event and love spending time with our church family. This year, we again had around 300 people come, including kids and the weekend went really well. It was a little colder up there than the weather man had predicted but we did get some lovely sunshine.

The past two retreats, we have stayed in one of the hotel rooms, but this year we stayed in a chalet with two other families and this worked out so well for us and was very comfortable...we even got good sleep and naps!

For Andre and me this weekend was harder than we'd expected as Andre's dear American "Mom" Carolyn, who has been battling cancer for the past year, began to fail very fast, last week. On Friday morning, we drove up to say goodbye to her, which was very emotional for both of us. We then drove to Cohutta Springs Conference Center about 40 minutes away to set up for the retreat. We got a call on Saturday morning to say Carolyn had died around midnight on Friday, so made plans to go up to Chattanooga on Monday for the funeral. We were so thankful to have been able to see her and say goodbye.

Thankfully, the weekend was a really good one for us and a good encouragement and distraction and special time for our family. And it was lovely to have Steve and Rach and Baby Wyn there too. We missed Ness and Sean though! Because I was so busy keeping an eye on things, Andre was on baby duty and took such good care of the kids, getting them to bed each night so well. Jack had a kids program each morning but Andre watched Sophie for her naps and would then bring her up to the conference center in time for meals. This really helped relieve my stress and enabled me to be focused on retreat stuff.

The only photo of Miss S!

Dying to try the canoe!

Picking out oars proved to be a big deal!

All ready to go

Beautiful place to be...we enjoyed the evening outdoors fireplaces each night

And the horses, turkeys and chickens were the highlight for Jack

Traveling pro...

One night he wanted to go outside to "hunt deer". As he had just had a bath, we wrapped him up nice and cozy to stand on the porch!

Both the kids LOVED this chair at our friends' house in Chattanooga last night!

All in all, the weekend went off very well and lots of fun was had by all. I am very glad to be home now though, after an emotional and pretty stressful week!