7 Quick Takes about Lakeside Retreats, Getting Up Early for No Reason, and Secrets to Governing a Household

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! Except that it’s on Sunday. I was planning and executing a 3-day retreat for my Young Women group at church. How was your week? 

—1—

The first part of my week was completely consumed with preparing for this Young Women retreat, shopping for food and prepping for activities and finalizing plans for girls with special needs and planning the itinerary. 

The irony of my life is that I'm told constantly — constantly — that I always seem so unruffled by complicated logistics, when in reality planning stuff like this makes me feel like my hair is on fire and has almost certainly taken years off of my life.

However, I will say it was an absolute privilege and a delight to stay with these 11 wonderful young ladies at the lake house of a member of our congregation. Getting to know them better and seeing them form new and different bonds with each other was the highlight of my month. 

I do need to sleep for about a week now, though.

—2—

We spent a lot of our time having fun at the lake, doing S'mores and kayaking and swimming. 

The kids introduced us to a ridiculous new game called "Diaper Dan," where you put your life jacket on upside down (think: legs go through the armholes) and because of the change in boyancy, it's fun to jump in the water and swim around like that. The things I learn as a leader of these girls...

—3—

The theme of the retreat was "Reset + Recharge," so we had a lot of activities having to do with that idea. The one that was a real hit was this kindness chart, made by my 21-year-old out of the goodness of her heart:

The idea was to "recharge each others' batteries" by filling up the squares with mini Post-Its every time we observed something kind. It made me happy to read the Post-Its throughout each day, and by the end we'd filled all 308 squares so we're taking them all out for ice cream on Tuesday. 

We also had some spiritual devotionals, team-building games, and one spontaneous karaoke party that erupted downstairs while the leaders smiled and listened from upstairs. 

The girls made the food, ate together, and cleaned up afterward.

We also did a service project, cleaning out a dry stream bed drainage system and chopping and stacking firewood for our hosts as a thank-you. I was especially proud of that, because I think the girls went well above and beyond the bare minimum and really worked hard to do their best. It looked amazing when they were done.

—4—

The cabin-owners were SO generous in treating us to a private fireworks show on the last night, and definitely created a core memory for one of our girls who was super-interested so they let her plan the order of everything (she did this for hours) and even let her light the fireworks (with her parents' permission, of course.) 

First time using a blow torch, she was so excited.

The rest of us watched the show from the safety of the deck and the show did not disappoint.

At the end, one of the girls suggested we all yell "THANK YOU!!!" on the count of three and it was just so sweet that she thought of that.

—5—

I was pretty exhausted by the time I got home, not at all helped by the fact that I woke up at 3:40 AM the next day to take my 13-year-old to the airport. 

She was flying as an unaccompanied minor to visit her grandparents, and through a combination of long lines and us just not being there early enough, she missed the flight and we had to wait for the next one later that morning. 

I'm grateful that there was room for her on the next flight, and I'm trying really hard to focus on that instead of the fact that I GOT UP AT 3:40 AM TO SIT IN THE AIRPORT FOR FOUR HOURS.

—6—

Once a week, Phillip and I try to sit down with the calendar and call it "the executive meeting." Ideally, we'd get to our plans for the future and our hopes and dreams for the kids, but we often run out of energy by the time we hash out who is giving rides to who this week. It just depends.

After about five different kids coming in and hanging out and generally being disruptive during our meeting, I finally turned to the 11-year-old and told him, "You need to leave. Dad and I are trying to have an executive meeting."

Undeterred, he said, "But you need to have three branches: the executive, the judicial, and the... uh... umm..."

"If you can't think of the last one, then you need to leave and let us execute."

Luckily, he couldn't think of the third and left on a technicality.

—7—

I don't have any bumper stickers, and I often wonder what I would feel strongly enough about to permanently affix to my car. I saw one this week that I would definitely consider:

Actually, it would explain a lot. It would make me feel better about Take #5, for instance.

Click to Share: