UNO Retreat

This past weekend we were chaperones on our church's youth group Fall Retreat. It seems kinda weird to be a chaperone...I feel like I'm not old or wise enough to be guiding these kids haha. Especially since my old youth minister was the speaker for the weekend - just like old days.

Friday I slept in a little (THANK GOODNESS) and woke up and packed, did some necessary around-the-house things, and we headed to the retreat around 3:30 ish. We took a bunch of back country roads and finally got there over an hour later haha. We arrived, and suddenly became in charge of the entire group. How? you ask? I have no idea. I had brought papers saying who still owed money, who was in what room, etc. which apparently nominated me for person-in-charge. We set up the registration table, checked in people as they arrived, gave room assignments, collected money....so THIS is why adults aren’t psyched about retreats. Now I understand.
We figured most everything out, went to our theater room, and got started. The weekend was so much fun! All the kids really had a blast. We did fun 'ice-breaker' games, had lessons, did some singing, and had some free time. And of course, the wonderful cafeteria meals - which I must say, were not as bad as you would think. Bravo kitchen.


I really enjoyed getting to know a bunch of the kids better- we've been 'CrossTrainers' now for a while but this was the first actual trip that we have been on. On Friday night I was kept up until 2 IN THE MORNING talking with another chaperone and some of the girls on the trip. As much as I hated being exhausted the next day, and semi-getting in trouble for being up so late by others there, that was one of my favorite parts of the weekend. These girls are SO MATURE for their age! It was just incredible hearing these views of 13, 14 year olds and going 'wow, yeah I never thought of that'. So fun :)
Another person I loved hanging out with was David's little girl Charity who is 5 years old. She is just precious and one of those little girls everyone just "aww's" at naturally. We clicked and she even cried one time because she couldn't go on a hike with me. How adorable. Charity's sister Madelyn and I became close friends too. She even gave me one of those animal bracelet things - do you know of these?

Saturday night we all went to a bonfire and Madelyn was right beside me the whole time. She was hilarious and it was a lot of fun getting to hang out with her- we looked at constellations, talked about boys, the normal stuff haha. The bonfire was good; some cried, some laughed, but we all had a good time. I just absolutely love being out in a field when there are no lights around and it is pitch dark and you can look up into the sky and it just seems never-ending. I LOVE that feeling.
SO it’s my duty to create a slide show for the retreat. With my wonderful new computer I’ve been messing around trying to do a bunch of cool different things. Hopefully I’ll have it done soon and everyone can see it.
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Yesterday Chad and Derek (guy from a couple friend at church) decided to go camping. Where? Cheehaw something? Where is that exactly? I have no idea. They went all out too- the big hiking backpacks, the one cup camping coffee maker, food to cook on the fire, etc. They were so excited haha. I'm waiting to hear how that went....
Meanwhile Derek's wife, Megan, and I decided to hang out and be adventurous too. However, our idea of adventurous wasn't being rugged outdoors and now showering for a day, it involved...sushi. That's right. Both of us liked sushi, but didn't really know all the ins-and-outs of it, so we decided to check out a new place that just opened. We pulled up, and saw there were only 2 cars in the parking lot. Yes, it was Thursday night around 7:30, but 2 cars? That made us both second guess our adventure. However, we were not about to back out or else it wouldn't really count as an adventure, right? We went in and there were only 2 other tables occupied. HA. We sat down, got menus, and were handed - hot towels? What are those for? We said thanks and then both just stared at them. We laughed because neither of us knew what to do. So we did nothing, and there the steaming hot towels sat.
Then came the menu. Like I said, neither of us really knew anything about sushi, just liked the few that we had tried before. We paroozed the menu...saw words we barely knew how to pronounce, saw the word 'raw'...California Roll. YES. We can do that. What else? Shrimp and cucumber. That sounds decent. Done. We ordered and as the waiter took our menu, he lifted up the hot towels and put them in our face asking if we wanted them. I looked at him and just said "no, I’m good" and Megan repeated. He chuckled, and left. We cracked up afterwards thinking of what would have happened if we had taken them. Were you supposed to wipe your hands and hand it back? No idea, better to just leave it alone haha.
The sushi turned out pretty good. Not the best ever, but pretty good. California rolls are still the best...of the 4 kinds I've tried :)


After that we headed to good ol' Cheesecake factory, got some dessert, and went to her apartment and watched a movie. It was really fun to hang out with her - we are a lot alike. And it's always fun to have girl time haha. Sleeping last night was weird - it’s always weird sleeping alone now. Takes forever to actually fall asleep. However, getting ready in the morning takes 1/2 the time because I’m not tip-toeing around and shutting drawers silently, etc. That was nice haha.

This weekend...we don't know what we are doing yet. Many possibilities, what will we choose? Stay tuned...

~*Little Things I Love*~


- this one is kind of weird, but I love when you get a new ball point pen and it has that tiny ball on the end of it that you have to push off before you can use it haha ~

PICTURES!!

Yep, Kevin ripped his pants...