haha I thought that would be a fun title since I am writing about the women's retreat that I went on with the wonderful women at WACC (Whittier Area Community Church). We went to the Murrietta Hot Springs for the weekend and had a wonderful time. As you can see from the photo above, it was a beautiful place. I only took this one picture of it. lol Didn't even take my regular camera. Guess I needed a retreat too.
6 people to a room doesn't sound like much fun, but it was. My roomies were my mom, Shauna, Kim, Ekaterina, and Amy. We had such a fun time doing everything together.
The first night we got all checked in (thanked God we weren't the lady who broke her leg) and went to dinner together. It was fun eating all together in the big hall so we could see the other groups who were there too. Then we went over to our big room that we had the opportunity to meet our speaker. She was wonderful. What a natural gift this woman has. While walking back to our rooms and being very tired, we checked out the hot springs for the next day. Don't know if you have ever been to them but boy do they stink. lol Supposedly like sulfur but to me it smelled like rotten eggs. We didn't care. We just knew we had to experience it while we could. So we went back to bed and slept. Every one was so tired.
The next day we started with breakfast together followed by our morning session with the speaker and worship. The theme of the talks was friendship. We learned about Barbaras, Pamelas, and Tammys. The need for having friends that are Barbaras are friends that are like Barnabus was. There for your friends no matter what. They live life with you and are willing to pick up your mat when you are too sick/tired to do it for yourself. Friends who are Pamelas are friends who are like Paul. A mentor relationship. Someone who has been there before. Someone who can pour into you, as Sherry would say. The third are Tammys. These are friends who are like Timothy. Friends that we can mentor. Someone new to the path you have been on. It was awesome learning all of this.
After that talk we had many different options of workshops we could go to or chose to do nothing at all. ;) I thought it was great that they emphasized that this retreat should be whatever you want it to be. So if you wanted to have activities, there were many to choose from. If you wanted to sleep all day you could do that too. Loved that. We chose to sign up for one workshop and have fun the rest of the day. We went to Anne's workshop on Building Healthy Relationships/Boundaries. Some good reminders about having healthy boundaries and sticking up for yourself really. A hard challenge but worth it.
We then went to lunch and parted ways. Some went to lunch outside the retreat and others went to other workshops, while 4 of us (mom, Shauna, Ekaterina and I) went out shopping after our lunch. There was a mall right down the street. A few of us got mini massages (10 min. shoulder ones). It was worth it. We got back to the retreat and decided to go into the hot springs. WOW, is it hot! And we were supposedly in the cooler one. The natural rocky bottom was so hard to sit in or on. It was amazing that we didn't stink like it afterward. We all still took showers after just in case. ;) Then we all got ready for dinner. After dinner was a wonderful night with worship and the speaker one last time. There were also other mini talks here and there throughout.
After that we had a bonfire with smores and spontaneous baptisms afterward in the hotsprings. The speaker had talked about her church and they did a polar bear baptism for someone who insisted to get baptized right away in natural water (not an inside pool or bath). I think people were inspired by the story and by the Holy Spirit of course. It was wonderful that so many people (7) decided to be baptized.
We actually left right before the baptisms and before the bonfire was over so we could get to our movie in time. We went to see The Hunger Games. The movie didn't end until 1 something. We were pleasantly surprised when the rest of our group was still awake when we got back. They had been relaxing in the hot springs late. The movie was good, but the company was even better.
The next morning we met for our last breakfast there together. I ended up getting an allergic reaction to the bread (manufactured with peanuts I found out). So I spend the rest of the morning in a daze of sleepiness due to the Benadryl. We had a great morning recapping our wonderful weekend. So many women talking about their experiences. I even felt the need to share. I got up to share how wonderful it was to spend some quality time with friends. To be somewhere, where I knew a lot of people, and got so many wonderful hugs from people. I think God knew I needed to be there. To experience the love of friendship this weekend. It was a rather emotional morning. We went to look at the bookstore before we left.
Thankfully my mom had offered to drive me to her house because there was no way I could drive. We were already planning on going to Whittier. I was just going to drive home to get everyone and Scott drive to Whittier. So this way my mom drove me to Whittier and Scott and the kids met us there. We got to hang out with my cousin Nicole while she was down from Washington and her fiance Greg. We had to leave way too soon. We waited quite a while though after taking the Benadryl to leave because I had to drive one car home. The weather going home didn't help. Windy, rainy, foggy, dark.
Got home safe from the retreat finally like at about 8 or so at night. What a wonderful retreat with my friends and family. But it was so nice to be back home. I missed those kiddos and my hubby.
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