I hit the wall around 3:30 am Saturday night/Sunday morning. I was feeling wide-awake until then, thanks to several cups of coffee, working on my next screenwriting assignment while simultaniously guarding all exits and keeping an eye on the handful of teenagers who were fighting sleep. The other chaperone had crashed on her pallet on the floor, but another parent had arrived at 2:30am to relieve us, so I pushed my homework aside and folded my upper body across the table, cushioned by my pillow, just like I used to do when I was working in the chemical plant lab...except back then I didn't have a pillow.
By 6 am I was wide awake again...I felt like I had gotten eight hours of sleep. I even stayed awake during Mass. But as soon as I got home, I ate a cupful of banana pudding leftover from the retreat and melted into my bed. Within minutes I was out and slept all day. I woke up for a couple of hours in the evening, then by 9:30 was out again.
The retreat was a great success, though. We had close to thirty kids show up (for our small town, that's a great turn-out!), plus twenty from the University of Texas STRONG group (Sharing the Rewards of kNowing God). We had plenty of parents helping out with food, serving, and cleaning. The band that performed was wonderful (Justin Graves), the food was delicious (Firehouse Subs for lunch and for dinner we had brisket cooked at a Rudy's restaurant - not technically Rudy's BBQ, but it still tasted as good and we even had little bottles of sauce and banana pudding!), no one got hurt, no property destroyed, and although we did have one toilet leak, just a phone call brought a parishioner running who had it fixed within the hour.
Now I'm covering for the church secretary, who very wisely took vacation on this week before our church Oktoberfest - it's crazy! Phones ringing off the hook, lots of emails, and visitors dropping in. The bonus is I'll be here for the garage sale on Friday...
Here are some glimpses of the retreat...
Extreme musical chairs - one of the favorites - enough to make the mom in me scream "Stop before someone gets hurt!"
Mmmmm....soon-to-be two pans of banana pudding...
I don't know what this game was called, but it involved lots of running and laughing - it was a gorgeous day...
Kendall and some friends in the late-night ice cream social...the boy with the banana, Evan, is a very talented artist - he designed the retreat t-shirts for the second time - the theme was rock band...
Kendall found a verse to go on the back..."The voice of the Lord rocks..." Psalm 20:8. Perfect!
