Scrapbooking Retreat

This weekend I had the opportunity to do something I haven't done in quite some time... going on a scrapbooking retreat. My friends Sheila and Julie were organizing it, and it was a "no frills" retreat - aka cheap! So on Friday afternoon I headed down to the Bar Harbor Inn, scrapbooking bags packed in the back. Once at the Inn, I met up with Sheila and the other ladies, and they helped me carry all my junk upstairs. Sheila then told me that the room we were supposed to stay in ended up having a pipe burst, so they had to change our room.... this could be really good or really bad. Well, it turned out to be wonderful! We had a 2-story room! You walk in and see the bed, sitting area, bathroom (with a tub with jacuzzi jets), and desk. Then, you go to the left, and there's stairs leading up to the next level, where there is a king-size bed, another sitting area, another bathroom, and an 0cean-view deck. We had a sweet suite!

After getting settled, we headed to the scrapbooking room to get started. I had not been able to get as many photos developed as I wanted to, but I did have enough to get to work. On Friday night I completed 20 pages (without journaling). Woohoo! That night I went to bed later than usual, but still early for a retreat weekend. Saturday we had a lovely breakfast and then headed back to the room where we were working on our albums. We had a great time working Saturday, and I completed another 18 pages in my Heritage album (no journaling). Then I got caught up on my journaling in my family album and also worked on journaling in my youth group album. I realized on Friday night that I had forgotten something very important - my paper!! Thankfully I had thrown in a few new packs which allowed me to do the heritage album, and I was also able to mooch off a few friends. But I didn't get caught up on the youth group album since I really wanted my brighter papers for that. Finally, today I completed a little gifty album for someone and caught up on last touches of journaling.

It was a very productive weekend, with lots of laughter, fun, but also scrapping. I told the girls when I got there that I was going to be serious, and I was! In total, I completed 38 pages (20 with journaling), caught up on journaling in 2 albums, and completed a small gift album. Plus we went out to dinner Saturday night at Geddy's, which was very yummy. And I took a bath both Friday and Saturday nights since I never get to take baths at home. Yay!

On the way home, I drove back with Vernelia and Sheila, and amazingly we fit all of our stuff in my car! We stopped for lunch in Ellsworth at the new KFC/Taco Bell. We probably waited 20 minutes for our "fast food". But it turned out okay, because we finally got to eat. I was really happy to finally be home, and Mia and Moxie were extremely excited to see me. It was quite cute. Then I snuggled on the couch with Scott while he watched a movie, and I ended up falling asleep. Finally, I woke up and did a few things around the house. Now I'm ending the evening watching "Extreme Home Makeover". Overall, a great weekend.

Blah

That is how I'm feeling today. I started the day by going to the dentist's office waaaay too early. Upon returning home, I read a little bit and then curled up for a nap. Then I was up to do some business for a few hours, although I don't feel that I accomplished very much. Then I ate some food, followed by some surfing the net. After this I convinced Scott to watch a movie with me, so we watched "Enchanted" which I got on netflix today. That was very cute, but I did start to drift off to sleep at the end.

I wasn't feeling that great today either, so I had to eat things that were pretty bland - oatmeal, soup, chicken and rice. Now I'm sitting here on my couch - I opted out of going to the Good Friday service with Scott cause I wasn't feeling well. I'm feeling quite lazy, but when I get up and move around, I feel pretty icky. So now I'm watching Jeopardy, which I don't even like, but there's nothing else on. Urgh.

So that's about it... blah. Sorry for the lack of posting lately, but my most recent posts didn't get many comments, so I was punishing you all! Just kidding. But come on, comment people!

Snow Camp Recap Part 2

Ok, I am a bit more awake than I was last night, so I'll try to finish this. I think I left off with Night Sledding, which was so much fun. We finally got done sledding at 11:30pm, so we didn't actually have lights out until 12pm. The next morning we were up for devos at 8am, followed by breakfast at 8:30am. After that, we had some time to get ready (for those who were still in pjs) and then we had our group worship and devotion at 9:45. I actually spoke this year for the first time, which was a little scary, but I think it went okay. Thankfully I've gotten a bit better at public speaking than when I was in high school.

After that, it was time for some more sledding outside!!! This time, we went on a trail through the woods instead of the road, because the road was getting very slushy due to the warm temps and sunshine. The sledding was tons of fun, as usual - I thought it was actually quite fast, and the trail was much narrower which made it harder to pass other people. I took some video of everyone on the last run, which you can check out at my facebook site. It started to rain and it was lunchtime, so we finally went inside (much to some of the kids' chagrin).

Lunch was great, and then we had some free time. I took a nap, or attempted to, during free time. Then some people went outside for snow soccer in the pouring rain (crazy!) and others stayed inside for a game of "Honey if you love me, smile". It was so fun watching the kids play the game - as usual, they were reluctant to play at first, but then they got really into it. This was followed by more free time, and then dinner. After dinner we had another devotional time with Kevin Smith speaking. Then we did another group game which DJ taught us - Signs. It was great fun, and people continued playing for hours (yes, hours) after it was officially "free time". Others did other games such as Cranium.

Saturday night we went to bed a bit earlier, but we lost an hour of sleep. All the girls slept in a bit more the next morning, and we started off again with personal devos. Then we had a breakfast of baked oatmeal - yummy! Then there was time to get ready/pack, and then we had our final worship time together. My wonderful hubby spoke and closed out the weekend. Then everyone got their stuff together, and then we had lunch. After lunch it was a bit of a waiting game, waiting to get everyone down the hill to the vans. The van ride home was filled with lots of mafia playing, which is quite funny to listen to in a van. Once back at the church, the students disappeared faster than I've ever seen - I think they were tired!! Scott and I returned the vans to Ford, and then went back to the church to get my car. Then Scott went to get Mia and I picked up Chinese food on the way home. Finally, at about 7pm, we settled in and had dinner and watched a movie. The end.

Snow Camp Recap Part 1

We are back. I know I've been kind of MIA in the blogosphere, but hopefully I'll do better soon. We left on Friday afternoon for Snow Camp with 33 teenagers and 6 leaders. We had 3 15 passenger vans plus a trailer for all the STUFF. We had a bit of a slow start, but finally got on the road by about 4:15. We arrived at Blueberry Mtn. Bible Camp by about 6:45, and then we had to park the vans and ride up with the staff to the lodge. Once inside, we had dinner which was wonderful - we were all so hungry!! Then we got our bags and took them to the rooms, and then we had our first worship and devotional time. After that was over, it was about 10pm. Time for Night Sledding!!! Let me just say, that is one of the craziest, funnest things I have ever done. Going down a hill in COMPLETE darkness (no moonlight or even stars out) at crazy speeds and not knowing when the next turn will come... yeah, crazy. There was a lot of crashing, a lot of screaming, and just overall fun. Scott and I went down together once, and I got so much snow on my face because everytime he'd use his feet to slow down, it would cause the snow to fly into my face. And we went super-fast when we were together.

Well I am so exhausted so I'll have to sign off for now. More to come soon...