Ladies' Retreat Weekend

This past weekend I was lucky enough to attend the Ladies' Retreat with our church down in Galveston. I say lucky because from pretty much Thursday through today our household has had a stomach bug that has taken us all out. My time at the Ladies' Retreat was a short reprieve in between.

The retreat team picked the Victorian Hotel down in Galveston to host us this year. The theme of the weekend was children's books. Friday night was filled with fun skits, like a rendition of Fancy Nancy, and activities, like Pictionary with children's book titles. When we returned to our room, we celebrated Heather G.'s birthday with a yummy birthday cake.

We got a short visit from wonderful Amy C. and got an idea of what life on the islands is really like, not quite like the movies. She's got such a big heart and she and David are doing such great things with their mission. We were so glad to hear that the predicted tsunami did not hit as the scientist thought it might.

We were also greeted with a bedtime story, milk and cookies that Debra D. made for every single retreater. Thank you Debra for spending your week baking for all of us. Our story was particularly hard to read as I laughed through the first four pages. I turned it over to Kristen P., who in turn started laughing and blaming it on the chair. We finally made it through the book after all our giggles got out. The reason the book was so funny was because it had all of these crazy cow jokes in it. The cow wanted to go to the moon and be a cowsmonaut and so forth. I know, it is silly but it just had me laughing so hard.

Saturday morning we were greeted with chilly weather and a beautiful sky. The waters were so calm and if it had been warmer would have been very inviting.

We had the lovely vocal leading of Joy H. & Dee G. My personal favorite was Rise & Shine, as I remember it from being a camper in college. I captured one of the songs as Joy signed for us and it's just beautiful. I cannot figure out how to get the videos to download off of my camera, but when I do I will share it.

Finally, we had Karen G. as our esteemed speaker. She utilized children's book to help us identify some truths in our lives. I have to admit I cried a few times throughout her talk. I used to get very embarrassed about that, but I'm learning to embrace my feelings more. Anyhow, our project for the next month is to identify and use our gifts that God has given us. I know we should be doing that every day any way, but sometimes we need a retreat to remind us of that.

My favorite book from the retreat was "Tacky the Penguin" as I identified with Tacky. I kind of follow the beat to my own drummer, which can be hard for other's to understand me. I go back and forth on being okay with that, but mostly I'm okay with it. Like Tacky, we kind of all have our own way of doing things.

Anyhow, many thanks to our wonderful Retreat Team and their leader, Debi K. You all did an amazing job this weekend, down to the last details. Those of us retreating truly appreciated all of your hard work. Hope you got to rest after it was all over!