Sunday fun

Our dorm retreat was wonderful! We studied the prodigal son story and looked specifically at each character - the younger son, the older son and the father. We had an excellent dvd by Jason Hildebrand that helped set the stage for the story and our speaker, Steve, really made the biblical truths applicable to our lives. A bunch of other things for different learning styles were used to cement everything in our minds. So thanks to all who prayed for us to have a meaningful time together as families and as children of God.

Coming home was a different story. Five o'clock on Saturday afternoon is NOT a good time to be approaching the bridge with thousands of other vehicles all vying for two lanes on the exit ramp and later two lanes on the bridge. Imagine eight to ten lanes of traffic, not real marked lanes just cars, trucks, lorries, semis, motorcycles and vans, all over the place and moving extremely slowly in a tight space, jockeying for position to get to the toll booth first. We actually rolled down our windows and chatted with the other vans full of students next to us because they were so very, very close to us. In fact, I almost took the paint off a small Toyota car! Being a large 15 passenger van is an advantage at a time like this, especially over some small matchbox-sized car. What should have taken one hour was two by the time we got to the eating stalls on the island.

BUT this is way better than the option Uncle Tim S and Uncle David took. They decided to skip the bridge traffic and head for the ferry. OOPS!! Once they got on the ramp, where there is no turning back, the sign read "1.5 hours wait - 10,000 cars ahead". So their journey home was actually over 3 hours. Kaleb was in Uncle Tim S's van and he said it really wasn't a problem except for the lack of washrooms for those who had drank cans of Coke before boarding the van :)

So today, we decided to let the kids sleep in and not attend church. We had a brunch of coffee cake and omelets at 10 am and Advent devotions at 11 am. Quiet time is usually from 1-3 pm but since most had slept in, I offered to take anyone interested to play on the beach at 2 pm. Only four boys took up my offer but we had a blast making big holes, burying Laurian, wrestling (OK not me just the boys!) and running in the surf.

I did more Christmas decorating later and then we had a feast of Korean food this evening for supper, courtesy of a bunch of Korean mom's who brought kimchi and bogobi. I'm not a kimchi fan (fermented, spiced cabbage) but the bogobi was wonderful. This coming week is busy - Sabrina's piano recital, dorm treat, senior treat here at Chandler, junior class sales after school and at the weekend basketball tournament, appetizer theater which I'm in charge of and Christmas banquet. Only 19 sleeps til Christmas break when we can breathe again!!

Tim was the tech guy and managed to overcome several glitches with the equipment.

Kaleb was trying to get a picture of kids jumping with the journalism camera he brought along but lo and behold! My little, old Olympus did a better job!

Two Canadian girls!

We had a bunch of really great games to play - here's Apples to Apples.

Kaleb and Tyler arm wrestling.

For our last session, we had stations for the kids to go through at their own pace. Here they were to write their sins on a piece of paper and nail it to the cross.