The Kirkmans: Chaplain Retreat Weekend

The beginning of the week was very warm, and I was hot so I wasn't wearing my socks all the time, and at morning devotional Samuel said to me "Mom, you look better with socks on". Silly boy, I guess he doesn't see me much without socks. Caleb and I went to the zoo this week. Caleb loved the giraffes best, but was a little scared of them at first. When we got over to the giraffes, I got him out of the stroller, and as soon as one came over to him, he yells "AAHH...." climbs into the stroller, saying "seat belt, seat belt...hurry" Once he was safe in his seat belt, he relaxed and watched the giraffes for a while, then eventually got back out, but wouldn't look up at the giraffes, he would just cling to the railing and look down. After a while he would finally look at the giraffes. He also liked the penguins, but didn't seem too impressed with most of the other animals. This weekend we went on a Chaplain Retreat to Canyon Springs Colorado, about a two hour drive. Friday morning travis left early (4:30am) and with 17 other officers from his squadron hiked pikes peak (over 14,000 ft. elevation) until about 3pm in the afternoon. His squadron was going up the back side of the mountain, which is very difficult, and they kept losing the trail, and hiking through waist high snow. They made it 4 miles from the top, and had to turn back. As soon as he got down from the mountain, we picked up Travis in the car, and drove to our retreat. We had our own little cabin that slept eight people. There were two bedrooms downstairs, and a loft upstairs with four little beds for the kids. During dinner Samuel held his ear against his head and exclaimed "Mom, my ear is chewing!" I also asked Samuel about a little girl in his class, who came up to me and told me that Samuel had asked her to marry him. Samuel's whole face lit up, and he grinned, dimples and all and vigorously nodded his head. His reaction to this girl's name was so quick and dramatic, that we all started laughing pretty hard. We had fun teasing him about her for a while. I had to pick a tick off of Caleb's head, luckily it hadn't burrowed in yet, it was caught in his hair. Then we had to regularly check each other for ticks. . During free time, we went down to the pond. Travis and Joseph were racing to the pond, and Travis fell and sprained his bad ankle. He then soaked his ankle in the freezing cold pond (the ice had just barely melted) for 25 minutes, than hobbled back up to our cabin, where I sent Joseph back with him to get him settled. The rest of the kids were playing in the kayaks on the pond. Almost all of them said this was there favorite part of the trip. They loved paddling around the pond in the kayaks. I even got in one with Caleb and paddled around for awhile. When Joseph came back from tending to his Dad, he saw me in the Kayak with Caleb, and exclaimed "mom, you can't kayak, you're pregnant, and Caleb's in there with you". I laughed at Joseph and told him, I was just fine. Caleb finally got tired of kayaking, and we paddled to shore. As soon as we got back onto stable ground, all the sudden the temperature dropped about 20 degrees, and it started hailing, and wind blowing like crazy. I quickly called to all the kids to come back to the shore (although they had figured out to come back, once the weather started going crazy all on their own) Betsy was really struggling against the wind, and accidentally dumped a bunch of water all over herself trying to paddle back towards shore. She was just sobbing, and trying to get back to shore, I felt so bad for her. All the other kids made it back to shore, and we had put away their kayaks and life jackets. Betsy finally made it back, and crying and shivering we made our way back to the cabin. Once inside the cabin, all the kids changed out of their wet clothes, (they were all wet to some degree). Then I made a fire in the fireplace, and got Betsy in the bath. I boiled some water and we had some hot chocolate. Then we played board and card games in our nice cozy cabin, while the storm blew itself out. I was really impressed with how well Joseph participated in the singing sessions, most of the songs weren't ones we had heard before, but they had the word up on a screen, and Joseph would sing heartily, even snapping his fingers to the beat sometimes. They had several sessions, where they would take the kids and play with them, and it was just Travis and I, it was really nice. They even gave us some alone time together, to do whatever we wanted. I also really liked not having to cook and clean for a weekend. I'm starting my third trimester this week, and this is the kids last week of school before summer is out. I cancelled our Netflix last week, so no t.v. except whatever movies we have that aren't scratched. We're preparing Joseph to receive the Aaronic Priesthood next month and turn 12. Travis spraining his ankle, leaves me with a lot of extra work. Travis is deploying in just over a month, and then the next month the baby will be born. I feel like everything is coming at me at once, but I guess I just need to keep praying and prepare the best I can, and the Lord will take care of the rest.