Last weekend we got to have our (possibly) annual family retreat to get ready for the new school year. It was so fun! A couple of years ago we worked up a "family crest" with four things we felt we wanted to focus on for a while:
We didn't get to it last year, but we spent the weekend working one up for this year:
Matt and I have spent some time praying over this during the past few months and we finally felt like we had our four things in mind, and the timing was just right for us to have a special family time to talk about each quadrant and "practice" each thing.
I had so much fun drawing the pictures!
We also came up with our family verse for this school year, which you might remember from last year, and we made our first-day-of-school tee shirts. It was a busy weekend!
I realize this is going to be a very long post, since it really covers about 4 days worth of activities, but I've got to document it for next year...
Matt and I got to go on a date on Thursday and we spent about an hour of it talking and planning the weekend's activities in great detail.
I love this stuff.
Please don't even imagine that this it how it all worked out. I'm only including a picture of this so you can see what I thought we might do. Right! It turned out that we could only manage two sessions a day, which was great, since we had the whole weekend to have our little "staycation". We tried to plan the food and everything else we could think of, and then we tried to just stop working/cleaning/organizing/checking email, etc.
Tough, but worth it. We all feel so peaceful when we're having family time together!
We started with making some journals for the retreat with star decorations (in keeping with our verse) while we talked about our first quadrant, "Bring Peace."
Our "response" to that quadrant was to pray for places in Norman that don't feel peaceful--which meant that we prayer-walked around the courthouse and the jail. My favorite part of this time was that Grammy came with us, and Poppy Steve was free for a few minutes and so we got to go into the courthouse to pray for peace for him and for his courtroom!

I realize if I include everything we did it would be too much, so now I've got to switch to a general overview...:)
The next quadrant was "Be and Influencer". We read the first chapter of Daniel and talked about making choices that bring life and encouraging others to do the same. We talked about friends who influence us towards the Lord and then we wrote notes (drew pictures) to them to thank them and to encourage them, too.
And then we had a sleepover! We dragged all the mattresses to our room and snuggled and read out loud. This was so fun!
Saturday was lots of fun-- with a trip to the Gray Owl, the Farmer's Market, and lots of swimming. Matt and I had planned a special outing to the movies to see Toy Story 3, but on our way there we remembered they'd already seen it with Grammy! So we tried changing our plans to something else fun....which was a disaster. We tried Shrek 3--and walked out--and then we tried The Karate Kid--and walked out. By this time, several of us were crying (me) and were feeling sad that our fun plans weren't working out. Matt and I sat in the car and prayed and decided we should do our next quadrant, "Come to Serve". We talked about it as a family and so instead of going to a movie and getting popcorn and drinks...we hiked the storm drain in our neighborhood and picked up all the trash (thanks for the idea, B and A!). Keep in mind this is August in Oklahoma--I think it was over a hundred degrees and so, so humid!
The good news is that in the end, we had a great time. Tears were dried and lots of laughing ensued, especially when we got back to our house and just hosed each other down because we were so hot! This felt so significant to me--the Lord is faithful to remind us that what is "fun" or what brings us JOY really is serving others! That's the thing we wanted the kids to learn, to practice, to take with them...and it feels like the Lord orchestrated our circumstances to do just that. Such a good Father!
We spent part of the day making our school tees (with freezer paper) based on our verse "in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the Word of Life".
That's the last of the pictures, since I forgot to document our final quadrant-- "worship in body, mind and spirit". Our response to this one?
Family Dance Party.
And that's what you really wish I had photos/video of to share, but somehow I was too involved in the dancing to remember that part. :)
It was so fun--so good--to be purposeful and thoughtful for just a little bit before we start a new season. I'm already looking forward to next year's retreat, honestly! There are lots of other ways we are getting ready for school around here, but none can compare with preparing our hearts. I'm so grateful we got to.