Retreat Reflections

The retreat was wonderful!  I don't think I truly understood how stressed my body was until I had three days of not juggling the boys and their needs and being able to really sleep and let my body relax.  I was lucky enough that the organizer of the retreat, D, lived here in the valley so I rode down with her and we were both a bunch of chatter boxes all the way to the airport.  Once we got to the airport we met another wonderful mom, S, from Arizona.  Then the three of us were chatterboxes all the way to the retreat.  In fact we were chattering so much that we may have missed a few turns and had to do some backtracking in order to get back on the right road.

Before even dropping our luggage off I got to have a wonderful massage and then soak in a hot tub filled with mineral water for quite awhile.  It was amazing!  I could feel the layers of tension melt away, while at the same time I was also becoming aware of exactly how tense I had been.

The quaint and really perfect ranch house that we stayed in was a short walk from the resort so after I was done soaking I walked down to take a look and start to get settled in. By late afternoon everyone had arrived and we all sat around the living room sharing bits and pieces of our lives and why we had wanted to get away.  I think we all knew that everyone coming was carrying heavy loads but the reality of all of it was almost overwhelming.   So then we did what any group of girls do when overwhelmed we ate a yummy dinner and then sat around the table and played silly card games.

I don't know what time it was once we all finally turned in.  Even though it was a late bedtime I slept so well.  It had been weeks since I had been able to sleep through the night without being woken multiple times to deal with a crisis of one kind or another.  It was unbelievable to wake up fully rested and able to just "be" until I was ready to function.  It has been an unusually cold and wet spring in Utah so of course you know it snowed just a bit on Saturday morning.  It made the house seem that much warmer and cozier to see the blanket of snow outside while we were all snug inside.

We had uhm...cookies and cake and lots of other sugary sweet things for breakfast.  Then we decided to have lunch.  Because we had no children with us and we could.  *grin* C, brought some incredible tortilla soup (better than I've ever tasted before). . .I still need to bug her for the recipe.  Then we taught D how to play Settlers of Catan.  I'm not sure if she liked the game or not but I think we all had a good time laughing and teasing throughout the game.

That afternoon we went to "The Crater" a natural geothermal mineral hot spring inside a limestone dome.  I thought it looked like a Volcano Crater.  You could see the sky through the opening above and inside was filled with water at the perfect temperature. There was a couple of enclosed areas to soak in.

as well as the other open area where we could "swim" or float.  The pool was over 60 feet deep so we were all required to wear the fashionable yellow float life preservers to keep us safe.  There were also a couple of groups scuba diving while we were there.

When we paid for the swimming we thought we were only going to be allowed to stay for an hour but we were all surprised when we got out and over 2 hours had passed.  I think we were all grateful that they didn't kick us out after our hour was up.  When I got out of the Crater and we were headed back to the ranch house I realized that for the first time in an untold amount of time I was completely relaxed and feeling like a human being again.  I think the other moms felt the same way.  I was so relaxed that I think I took a nap when we got back to the house and then we were off once again for dinner.  Saturday night is the only time we ate out.  The food was delicious and we were lucky (?) enough to be seated a few feet away from a local life singer/guitar player.  I really enjoyed the instrumental portion.  *grin*  I'm afraid that my body just wasn't sure how to deal with not being all stressed out so I kept zoning off into my own little world.

I met some wonderful ladies and I hope that they all had as great a time as I did.  I really look forward to being able to get together again.  Hopefully next year!