Lewis Sister Retreat

On July 10-12, 2008, was our annual Lewis Sisters Retreat. I was in charge of it this year. I feel really bad because I didn’t really have a set theme or a real specific devotional talk set up like the past Sister Retreats, but it still was really fun and relaxing. I hope the girls enjoyed it. I enjoyed just spending time visiting and learning from all my sistas! They’re such great examples to me. The retreat started on Thursday, and poor Sarah, Colleen, and Kelsey with her baby(I believe it was them), had a rough time getting there as Sarah’s car overheated and died as they were getting off the exit, they were so close. It was funny to hear their story of how funny it must of looked with two pregnant women (Sarah and Colleen) standing on the side of the freeway checking under the hood and directing traffic. Finally, but gratefully, they made it to the house. I had reserved a beautiful home out in East Mesa, off the 60 and Crismon, I believe. Anyways, it was so beautifully decorated and I thought it fit us all great. It was 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, a nice patio, pool, jacuzzi, in ground trampoline, nice big screen TV, and I thought we got a pretty good deal, $165 per night. Usually the owners rent the house for only 3 nights or more, but they were so nice to let me rent it for just the two. Thursday night we did our White Elephant Gifts. I ended up getting Julianne’s which was a cute little round Chinese hat, she just bought in China, that had a braided piece of hair out the back. It fit Kade perfect. I loved it! Then we split into two groups and we had to use the gifts we just received to make up skits. My group used our props to silently act out the spouses of the other group of girls and they had to guess. And the other group did such a good job with their tattooed arms and music, and I’m sorry because I remember them doing such a good job and being hilarious, but I can’t remember the plot.ha. But good job. J Friday morning we watched “Dan In Real Life.” That afternoon we went to the temple. We met Grandma Nelson there and she came back and spent Friday night with us. We love having Grandma. Later, thanks to Carolyn, she had brought all her stuff to make little girlie bows and headbands. Then for dinner, Julianne made an incredible Chinese dinner that she learned how to cook in China. I can’t remember what everything was, but she did so much. She even set the table with her new real China dishes and we had to use chopsticks to eat. It was so fun and so good. Then we had our traditional special scripture study and thoughts, and I just gave a little thought. I also read a poem my mom had written several years ago for Mother’s Day. And of course all us emotional moms cried. That is a talent I think my mom should do more, she’s great. Poetry is so hard for me, so I think it’s amazing when someone can write it. Then after all of that, I played a video I had made. The video is what I really worked on the most to try and get done for a surprise at the retreat. Thanks to my brother-in-law, Tim, I was able to learn how to do it and get it burned. For my first video, I really enjoyed it and thought it came out pretty good. Of course, there probably is a lot of stuff I should and shouldn’t have done, but it all worked out. It was really fun to watch with everyone because the video was pictures and video clips of past sister retreats. Throughout the retreat we did lots of swimming, visiting, and relaxing. I look forward to these retreats every year. Thank you Janna for watching Kade all day Friday. And thank you husbands for taking all the kids camping. Can you imagine 5 guys taking 5 girls and 3 boys, all under 7 yrs old, camping? We couldn’t believe it, but they had so much fun and did great. Look forward to Kelsey’s retreat next year!!!