Garden City Church Mount Hermon Retreat

This weekend our church had a retreat in the Santa Cruz mountains on Mount Herman.  Art was not thrilled to go since we went camping last weekend, but I thought it would be a good way to get to know other people.  I was wrong, but it was still fun. :)  Not many people outside of our bible study group really interacted with us.  I would say it was not a fantastic time for us, but a pretty good one.  PLUS, I did not have to cook or clean for 2ish days.  We arrived Friday evening, in time for the evening session.  Yea childcare!!  It was held at Mount Herman Retreat Center.  We had a dorm-like room for our family which worked out really well.  A double bed, two twins, and a pulll-out couch.  Perfect!

The first night, after the evening session, we were hoping to go to the ice cream "Shoppe" to hang out with some other people but we found out it did not open until 9pm.  Not worth keeping the kids awake to get ice cream!  So we headed up to the coffee shop.  We got the boys a hot chocolate to share, and some skittles, because they did not like the dessert at the buffet and were disappointed by the lack of ice cream.  We hung out with the Park family for awhile, met the Cryer family and chatted all together for awhile.  Then off to our room to get the kids, and me, into bed.  Art got the evening off once kids were in bed, to go meet up with people, and I would get the second night off.

ZW in their twin beds

we put the couch cushions on the floor for the little guy to sleep on, not trusting he would not roll off the bed.  It was a wise move, because he rolled off the cushions several times.

On Saturday, we had a little break before lunch and many of the families met in the big recreation area and field (the rec center with ping pong etc was not open yet - another disappointment for most of the kids).  I got some games out of the car, and her is Zachary and one of the Lyon boys playing Forbidden Island.  Each neighborhood group was tasked to put on a 1 minute play with the theme of being a church family (worship, sermon, bible study etc).

After lunch we had a quick pow wow to figure out what we wanted to do, and then went to practice.  Here is Shayna being bossy.  :)

Nap time!  Art got an hour or so to himself while I stayed with the boys.  ZW, after their hour rest time was up, joined Art in the rec center to play pool, basketball etc.  Here is our little guy, who has fallen off the cushions again.

Part of our skit was making a pyramid.  Here are the boys practicing their part.

After breakfast, while we sat around and relaxed, the boys colored for awhile before we went to the morning session.

After the kids were in bed on Saturday, I went to the ice cream store and chatted with some people I did not know.  College girls.  And met another family I had seen around at church.  

Art and Yannick swinging before we left on Sunday

Our church that attended - after we all put on our skits.  In our skit, we gave each of the kids a technology device (phone, ipad, etc), and had them say things that "workers in Silicon Valley say"  Zach was the only kid that said his lines, and the adults had to say the lines for the other kids.  Zach looked at his phone and said "oh no, another trip to China.  I had better go home and pack and tell my family".  He got a big laugh.  Then the kids built a pyramid with Z,W, and Jaelyn on the bottom, then Yannick and Noah, with baby Caleb on top.   Of course we have no pictures of that.

We will have to think about whether we will do it again next year.  I am sure by then we will know many more people.