ladies retreat!!!!!

This past weekend i went to a ladies retreat at stormer lake. The retreat started friday evening and went through sunday afternoon. I was asked to help decorate for the retreat and to make muffins for breakfast. I went w/ cranberry blueberry bran muffins...one of my favorites :) Friday morning linda picked me up along w/ 2 other ladies and we headed back to stormer to start decorating. I have should have taken "before" pictures because i seriously had doubts about whether or not we would be able to make the place look warm and inviting...alas, all i have are the "after" pictures.

we went w/ a fall theme for the dining area. thankfully several ladies had quite a bit of decor that we used to spruce the place up :)


there had been nasty ol gray curtains over the windows, so we took them down and put this up :) much better!!!


linda made little loaves of bread to help decorate the tables :)


she also brought along some of her pickled preserves and homemade jelly...actually, the "homemade jelly" is jello :) brilliant!!!

decorating the upstairs dining room was a lot of fun :)


the downstairs was a bit more challenging to say the least!!! we were supposed to set it up to look like a spa...converting a cold, damp smelling, cement basement into a spa...yeah...


but we did it! :) we hung up fabric to separate the different areas. we put up lights and lamps. we put covers over the very dated and ugly furniture. we decorated as best we could, and it actually turned out really well :)

i took along the little electric fireplace that dave got for our bedroom, and the ladies sat around that reading and chatting while they were waiting for their turn

the retreat started w/ registration on friday evening. we got cute lil welcome bags w/ journals, chocolates, and other fun little items.

following registration we had an amazing chocolate fountain!!!


with all kinds of fun things to dip :)

we enjoyed all kinds of food over the weekend!!! pretty sure they fed us 5x a day...


katherine murray from british columbia was the speaker for the weekend. the theme was: growing in itimacy with the Father, satisfying the hunger of our souls.

we had worship before each session by these beautiful ladies :)

friday night we played a bunch of games which allowed us to interact and get to know each other a little better.

saturday night was the spa night, and we basically just got to pamper ourselves and be pampered :) mmmmmm....

we had facials, pedicures, manicures, and waxing!!!
also, while the spa was happening downstairs there was a tea party happening upstairs :)

the hats for the party :)

wendy modeling one of the hats :)



mmmmm...let's just say, we weren't at a lack for food this weekend!!!! and guess who did all the cleaning, washing, and prep work!!!

the boys :) there were about 5 of us women who had husbands who came along to help w/ the food...kinda liked having my hubby along for the weekend ;)

it was a good weekend of refreshment and refocus...and i especially enjoyed the opportunity to get to meet a few more of the ladies from the area :)