a weekend at Fort Faith

This past weekend, Brian was the main speaker at a PCA church wide youth retreat at Fort Faith near Ramer, Alabama...about 20 miles outside Montgomery.  Honestly at first I did not want to go.  I just wanted to be home at 36 weeks pregnant.  I was over the idea of having to pack up for a family of 7 for a weekend trip.  Did not sound appealing at all.  I've also been on this productive/organization kick, and the thought of not being home this weekend to get some things done really bothered me.  Plus, I'm just uncomfortable a lot of the time, and the idea of spending the weekend at a youth camp chasing around my 5 boys did not sound appealing.  

However, Brian really wanted us to be together this weekend, and he knew the boys would have so much fun!  I knew they would as well, and really, the alternative of being home by myself with 5 boys the entire weekend did not sound any better.  So I got over my selfishness and packed us up.  

We took our (new to us!) 2006 Toyota Sequoia that we just purchased.  We love our new car!  The search for a van/suburban that would work for us (with all of our car seat issues) was turning into a nightmare.  However, not even looking for one, we ended up getting a great deal on the sequoia.  We maxed out the storage space with packing up for a weekend trip (so we'll have to get some kind of storage for the top rack for longer trips), but the boys were super excited to discover it has a dvd player!  And honestly, so were their parents.  :)

Our weekend turned out to be really fun.  Since Brian wasn't in charge (unlike every other youth retreat we've ever been on), he just had to show up for the sessions when he had to teach.  So we had some fun free time to enjoy the beautiful weather that weekend.  The boys got to go canoeing for the first time; they even went swimming (in November!!  in frigid water that did not stop them at all!); roasted marshmallows at a bonfire, explored the grounds, played basketball, ate cafeteria food, and just hung out at our little cottage playing football with neighbor boys and catching an endless supply of ladybugs.  For some reason, the entire retreat center had a strange infestation of them. They were all over our cottage...I tried not to think about it too much but was so thankful it was just lady bugs.  It could have been a whole lot worse. :)

So in the end, I am so glad our entire family got to go.  A weekend full of fun memories. :)