Do You Know?

How does one recover from a youth retreat? Is there anyone out there with the wisdom of one thousand monks that can answer this thought provoking question?

Last weekend Jason and I took our youth group on the Church of God State youth retreat at the YMCA of the Rockies. Beautiful location.

I got no sleep.

Among the highlights of this very sleep deprived trip:

1. Amy's brother Ryan dared her to eat a piece of bread soaked in hot sauce.

2. Jason started to get a cold which grew increasingly worse, eventually rendering him unable to speak by the end of the trip.

3. I got an infection in my wisdom tooth which caused me so much pain I was taking about 5 ibuprofen every few hours to keep from punching something. Or someone.

4. During free time I got to take a couple of girls on a hike. It was freezing outside but the view was worth it. Eventually we got to a point of the hike where we couldn't go any further because we couldn't see which way the trail lead. The ground was covered in snow. This highlight has pictures to accompany it:

We decided to take the hike to Bible Point.

I even had a little map to follow and didn't get us lost! Oh the wildlife we saw.

One deer.

One rabbit. One mouse. And one Sasquatch footprint.

Along the way we also came across a dilapidated bird house with an interesting message:

Awesome views:

Now, because the girls did not come prepared to hike in snow (go figure) I had one hiking in converse, and Vicki and I were hiking in tennis shoes. Vicki and Savannah could not seem to keep from falling. I, on the other hand, did very well despite the circumstances. On the way down the mountain they asked me to simulate a fall. For memories sake.

My butt was frozen after this shot. Better a numb butt than numb feet.

Jason took the rest of the crew swimming. Yes. inside! Geez.

5. Bonding

The girls and I had some great discussions. I hope they took some lessons home with them to build a foundation on. We talked about the importance of obeying parents without attitude. We talked about boys. And I taught them all how to perfect the messy bun.

2 of our boys stayed mesmerized by video games.

I put this guy in timeout for being anti-social. (not really!)

We still haven't recovered. I get my 2 bottom wisdom teeth extracted next Friday.

All in a day's work.