Our Favorite Family Vacation day 1

`What it's all about: 

At both U.S. and International Family Retreats, special-needs families receive encouragement and care in the comfort of a safe and accessible family camp environment. They enjoy fun and fully-accessible, age-appropriate activities, along with meaningful conversations with families who understand the challenges of life with disability.


 How it works:
The retreat offers a change of pace where you can have fun together in a safe and accepting environment. You'll be able to get away and enjoy God's creation…you'll meet and fellowship with others who face similar concerns…you'll build lasting memories together as a family…as well as a renewed hope in God. While each camp or conference center has its own unique facilities, every Family Retreat is packed with exciting adventures for the whole family. Several sites have amenities such as climbing walls and ropes courses, boating, hiking trails, mud pits, and a host of other activities to energize the week.

Family Retreat STMs (short term missionaries) must be at least 17 years old. They are committed Christians with a desire to serve families affected by disability. They are flexible team players who are able to offer friendship, support, and general assistance to help families get the most out of their week. STMs must be able to serve the entire length of the retreat and attend training prior to the retreat.

Last year was our first time at this wonderful camp. We were teamed up with Mrs. S and her 4 kids. It is a good  match for our family.

Time for the kids to catch up while I was organizing the rooms. 

My kids and our STM's. 

The Tshirt of the year!  In case you couldn't tell the theme for this year is "hope overflowing".

We took a tour of the new and very beautiful building!

I am hoping to find some time to sit on this balcony with my book and a cup of coffee...

We have two adjoining rooms, a total of 3 twin and 2 queen beds.

 We also have 2 bathrooms, one fully handicapped accessible and one smaller one. So awesome with my big crew!

The non accessible bedroom...

The plaque on the wall, that I noticed after a rather traumatic evening. 

We felt so loved....

Opening ceremony.

We toured the rooms where the kids will be doing programs each day. Lee and his friend T are KAOS.

They are in a class with Mr. and Mrs. H. 

The rest of my crew is in the Captain's group.

 This should be a fun group!

Playing on the playground... the girls loved spinning on the tire swing.

Finished up the evening with a ride on Mr. H's wheelchair...

 We arrived around 3 pm. We were warmly welcomed. Reconnected with the S family... then did a quick tour of the building and the kids class areas.

The kids really wanted to play in the  yard where they had all kinds of fun sensory items set up.  So we stopped for a moment to play. I always feel extremely frazzled on the first day. Despite doing everything possible to make it calm and smooth, I was not really successful.

we regrouped as a family before dinner and I was able to do some unpacking and calming of children...

Dinner was delicious as usual. But the best part is always that fact that I didn't cook it or clean up after!

My 2 youngest get very over stimulated in the loud dining room so it is def not a relaxing experience. lol

After regrouping again,  we headed out for the opening ceremonies. Love their praise and worship music and encouragement.  Following the opening ceremony we had an ice cream social. This is always fun.

My favorite part of the day is the encouraging chats with fellow parents in the trenches.  I also love that no one stares, no one has a problem with Nesiah's noises. It makes for a very relaxing day. 

packing

So packing with the new method... I did not like the mess and time involved with packing this way. It took twice as much time and energy.  Also it made for more battles with my one child who did not like having preselected clothing and some of my other children who are very picky what is theirs and what is not, even if it is the same style color.

First I made piles on the bed for each child. Then I sorted each day's outfit and put that outfit in a pillowcase. It was def more time consuming then my normal method of having them pack their own bags. 

 

I labeled each pillowcase with the day and then packed one extra case with extra pants. 

The final bags,  2 duffels with 4 pillowcases filled with outfits, plus the green bag with my clothes and the pink bag with towels and swimsuits.

So the final opinion will come in at the end of the week! Is this better then the previous method? How do you pack? 

Unexpected Field Trips

When our trip to the chocolate factory did not go so well, we decided to explore some more! We headed to the Pretzel Factory.  We had to walk about 2 blocks to get to the pretzel factory. I was not sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised. They had pretzel samples and for $14, my entire crew could do the tour and make soft pretzels!

It was rather humid in the factory, the two little ones were tired and hot.

I stood in the back with the little ones and let the older 4 participate. They made soft pretzels. The lady doing the tour was excellent. The history of the pretzel was fascinating. Did you know that pretzels were made by monks? Let's see what I rememeber..

1. The three holes represent the Holy Trinity.
2. The Twist somehow represents marriage
3. The pretzel upside down represents prayer.
There was more but I forget...

The rest of the tour was a disaster for me. The older kids did enjoy it and learned a lot! It was a neat experience.

We left the pretzel place and wandered back to the van. The kids had fun checking out the window displays. The theme was "The Wizard of OZ" and "Red, White and Blue".

Lititz really is cool. But it is also very touristy, I prefer the more "real" experiences.