Jack Pine Retreat 2011

     The Jack Pine Retreat for 2011 has now come and gone.  The theme this year was "Input, Output" and the massages were broke down to cover:

• Why does it matter
• Keeping out the Trash
• Think on these things
• Making the change

      Early in the week we had temps down to 25 but for the retreat it warmed up.  The first night was around 42 and the second night was about 54 With the highs Saturday and Sunday close to the mid 60's.  As for rain - it held off till Sunday morning about the time we were bringing things to a close. I'm not sure how many attended but it was somewhere between 50 and 60 with several new people.  Due to high fire danger we did not have the big bonfire and met around some small campfires in the area where the Williams' family camps for the first three gatherings and under the shelter for the final meeting.

     As for out family - getting there was an adventure. Friday afternoon as many people were arriving we were getting ready not only for the retreat but for a couple of soccer games and the arrival of the cookie dough my daughter sold for the swim team.  Well, after the games, we hit the Dairy Queen for a bunch of $5.00 specials that included a 1/4 burger, fries, pop and a mini blizzard.  From the DQ we headed home to finish loading up and head out to the camp ground only to find that the keys for the topper in which we had put all our sleeping bags had disappeared and we had to go digging through the house for more blankets.  It made for a cool night of sleeping but we survived.

     What was really crazy was Saturday night.  My 9 year old daughter join 4 other girls about the same age and slept not in a tent but in a make shift fort out in the woods, while the teenage boys went to bed early.

     Sunday when all was done we loaded up our car, big van and trailer with kids and stuff in the rain and headed home - now the oldest two are off to youth group and the house is trashed, hopefully it will be back to normal (crazy) soon as we have another week of soccer and swimming ahead of us. Oh, yeah, it felt good to get a showere once we got unpacked.