Stories From The Weekend

Besides enjoying the wintery weather, whether from inside with a hot drink or from outside on a walk, we also had a lot of fun doing other things on our church retreat this past weekend. (One thing I should note, by no means does the entire church go on this retreat. We have about 250 people who attend our church on a weekly basis. There were about 60 people at this retreat so it was big enough to get to know more people but small enough to feel cozy.) Some of those fun events either weren't conducive to picture taking, such as some of the amazing conversations I had with people, and for some of them we were too busy having fun to take pictures, such as the walk outside with Sam and Rachel in the sled. But the following is what we did get pictures of...

While Rachel and Dave napped and Sam played, I did some of my Bible Study homework, along with Stephanie (and a coffee-hot chocolate of course!) who is doing the same study at a different church.

Rachel played with the drum and the Duplo.

Dave finally got to achieve his winter dream of skating with Sam. Sadly Rachel was already awake and I was feeling too lazy to bundle her up and go take pictures of the event. (Although I've heard rumours another parent took some pictures of Sam and we might be able to get them from her.) It was Sam's first time ever on skates and Dave said he had a great time. The ice was bumpy enough Sam could "skate" on his own without Dave holding onto him.

And when he wasn't conquering the ice, Sam was playing, Playing, PLAYING his little heart out. Playing trucks with his friends, playing Battleship with whoever would let him join in, playing Apples to Apples with Molly and Stefan and playing with my Grade 6 Sunday School kids. He just had so much fun.

And Rachel loved hanging out with other adults, especially her "second Mommy" as I started calling my friend Karen. At one point Karen was leaving the room and asked if I would watch Nathan for a minute, I said sure and Nathan didn't even seem to notice she was leaving. Rachel, however, went tearing after Karen, waving madly. Karen came back and said, "I should have asked you to watch Rachel instead!" Ha ha ha!!! I love that my friends love my kids so much and my kids love my friends so much. In fact at one point I said to Dave, "This feels exactly like an extended family reunion for me" and isn't that what being a part of a church is all about?!