Ski Retreat 2009

What a great weekend for skiing! 39 Waterbrookers headed out at 4:30 in a caravan on Friday, Feb. 20 amidst freshly falling snow to head to Trollhaugen and the Skonewood Retreat Center in Cushing, Wisconsin. Of course, it took double the time to get there since the new snow caused lots of traffic backups. We arrived around 8:30 p.m after stopping in Forest Lake for supper. It was too dark for a picture the building we hung out in, so I had to take it the next morning. Can you imagine all 39 of use staying in this small building? Well, we did - boys downstairs on the concrete floor and girls upstairs!

Here's the whole group - it looks lots bigger once you are inside!Luckily, they provide nice cushy foam for the kids to sleep on. A couple of the younger boys couldn't stay awake during the late night movie (Transformers - how could they sleep during the constant, repetitious fighting???) so they ended up sleeping upstairs most of the night.Here is my idea of a great bed! Actually, it wasn't so bad.
We had great food - Gina, the Italian mama, is a fantastic cook! This is breakfast on Saturday - a great start to rev you up for a day on the slopes.This is a view of me and one of the girls who had never skied before. Trollhaugen gave our group free lessons for any kids who needed them - and after the lessons, I went up with the kids to make sure they were all right on their own. Alyssa needed a bit more confidence so I skied with her until she finally was ready to fly! Paul even went off on his own this year and did great. The fresh snow made for fantastic skiing.
A few of the girls felt it was a bit cold, so after lunch they became chalet bunnies.

The older boys, however, spent all their time on the boarding jumps seeing who could get the most air.

Back at Skonewood, we continued the Marshmallow Marathon on Saturday night. We had 4 teams competing in marshmallow games. Which team can build the tallest structure out of marshmallows, spaghetti, and toothpicks?Who can slurp up a marshmallow on a string the fastest?...and my personal favorite ... Chubby Bunny! Who can stuff the most marshmallows in their mouth and still be able to say "chubby bunny?" Emery gets the crown this year with 13 of the large marshmallows - however, he couldn't manage the all important phrase, so the Waterbrooke record is 12! That beats last year's record of 9 by a whole bunch!On Sunday morning we slept in, cleaned up, and had a closing prayer time and thought we were ready to jump in the cars when Alex realized he had locked his keys in his car!

The Skonewood caretaker came up with the winning strategy after at least 30 minutes of hangars - hooray!

We had a great time, and the kids were super! Can't wait until next year! Maybe my shins will have recovered by then - can't believe how sore they got from those boots!