July 28, 2009

Good evening, friends at St. Peter's! Finally, we are on line here at our beautiful retreat house! We are so remote here that cell phone service is intermittent and it took awhile to figure out the pass word, etc.

We arrived yesterday afternoon after passing through some storms and making one or two wrong turns. But all went well! The house is huge and well appointed, and the surroundings are rustic and beautiful. We were busy immediately. Yesterday's events included:

• Wholesome family dinner in the Lodge which is a good 10-15 minute walk through the forest from our Hearthstone Lodge.





• Orientation meeting, journaling and launching our interpretive art project kept us busy after returning from dinner.





• Holy Eucharist with readings on our theme of creation.





• Brief free time and, finally, bedtime.

This morning we awoke bright and early. Well, some of us awoke bright and early. Others just awoke. :) After breakfast in our lodge we had Morning Prayer, journaling, singing, and sharing. Our theme today is "light".

Our schedule today included:

• A yoga session with a specialist named Mary Cardinal. She was excellent, setting the tone for the entire day and preparing us for the events to come.



• Lunch




• Our Challenge Course - oh, my! - was it ever a challenge. It was a fabulous set of activities which required extreme teamwork and cooperation. It was great fun. We got all of us onto a very shaky "boat", we made a square blindfolded, we saved the world from catastophe by distroying a secret weapon using skills that the girls had learned in cheerleading, and we all we able to swing to safety onto a 16 square foot "island". If this all sounds very strange and you wish to really know more about it just ask one of us on our return.





• Dinner followed by playtime on the playground.





• Movietime watching the movie "Facing the Giants"





• Sharing time and





• Compline.

It was a full and great day. So now we are preparing to lay us down to sleep!