Middle School Retreat Report

Not having wifi in the cabin was no fun because I couldn't blog during the retreat but here's a wrap-up of some of the events of this past weekend.

We had 13 youth and 5 adults. We were supposed to have one more youth but she was sick and couldn't go. Jon, David, and I braved the trip as the only males with 15 females. Needless to say it was a very high-pitched retreat. There are a couple of our lovely young ladies who enjoy screaming way too much.

On Friday we had possibly the smoothest travel and check-in of any retreats that I have been on. We definitely did a good thing in moving the weekend away from Presidents Day. We actually had dinner ready right on time and for the first time ever we ran out of spaghetti noodles. A couple of us enjoyed Steph's great sauce with the assistance of our garlic bread. After discussion session #1 we digressed into random play time. When you put 8 or so people in a hot tub meant for 4-6 it overflows a bit. The first floor deck was showered by the participants in the second floor hot tub extravaganza. When we got around to watching a movie (Mean Girls) we had 9 people on the pull-out sofa. Poor thing is a little bent now :)

On Saturday we were giving the kids a chance to sleep in. There was nothing scheduled until lunch. Steph however wanted to take pictures of everyone sleeping so at 8:30 it was my turn to be photographed. As I woke up a steady stream of kids ended up in my bedroom and even a couple in bed with me. Silly me. I had set my alarm for 10:00. I thought going to bed at 4 meant sleeping in a little. Ice skating was quite amusing. Needless to say we will not be participating in the winter olympics speed skating events. Our trip to downtown Gatlinburg was fairly uneventful. We went to our normal spot for our group picture and returned home. After group discussion #2 we ate dinner. Boy did we eat. We definitely did not run out of anything. Discussion #3 was excellent as were the others. If you want to know what we talked about ask the kids as we are doing the same thing with the high schoolers and I don't want to spoil it for them. We had a little visitor Saturday night. Our little raccoon was quite friendly as he hung out for a while. I think the screams got the best of him because he disappeared after a while. Since there was basically no water left in the second floor hot tub we ended up with 9 people in the first floor hot tub. Poor thing didn't have any left in it either.

Sunday was tough to get up. We were able to leave the cabin at 9:05 and get back to church in time to unload and take a quick breath before the service.

Julie, Jami and I have now been on 4 winter retreats together and Jessica has been on 3. Steph was initiated into the club as she was on her first. The chaperones were great and the kids were too. I have left out many many of the stories. You are welcome to add them via comment if you want. We all came back tired but I think we also came back having grown together.