A weekend away!

This past weekend Rob and I had our first weekend away from the kids since Ellie was born! A good chunk of the adults in our church (123 people) packed up and went to a retreat centre called Wilderness Edge, in a town called Pinawa (about 1.5 hours away from where we live). There are no words to describe how amazing this weekend was. Even though I got barely any sleep, I came home super refreshed...there's something to be said for having all your meals cooked and cleaned for you, and for not having to worry about feeding anyone but yourself! But besides the obvious refreshment that comes from a little break from parenthood, the most refreshing thing was that God's presence was absolutely tangible the entire weekend. He spoke in amazing ways and touched a lot of hearts, including my own. I have a feeling life might not ever be the same.

Rob and I also thoroughly enjoyed having a whole chunk of time to ourselves.We used our spare time on Saturday afternoon to go for a walk. Rob had it set in his mind that we needed to tromp through a field of snow. "It's too deep!" I insisted. "Look, you can see the grass sticking through the snow", says Rob. "Those are small trees," I says. But being the submissive wife I am, I follow Rob into the snow and proceeded to fall flat on my face because the snow was actually up over my knees. Hehe. That's my body print in the snow behind me in this picture:

This is a picture of Rob being sat on by me in the snow as punishment:

After we warmed up we spent the rest of the afternoon playing games with friends:

This was the "old folks" table. My parents are sitting towards the back. :)

Later we spotted a deer in the parking lot outside. Apparently Pinawa is full of them.
The food was delicious...but there were some mixed feelings about seeing the actual pig before we ate it!
Whenever we got homesick we grabbed a few hugs from the most adorable Ezra Micklefield.
And I think only the people who were on the retreat could have a true appreciation for this photo. This is one of our pastors, Dave, throwing me a chocolate mint. Dave has a thing for chocolate mints. (It hit me on the arm about one second later.)

As great as it was to be away, we were downright excited to be back with the kids again. There's no place like home!