Closing Retreat

Well I'm done! Closing thoughts will come later but for now I wanted to write about our closing retreat last weekend. Thursday the 31st was our last day of work. I stopped to get my last cup of the best chai ever, chatted with a lady who was 5 months sober on the bus, and got home with about 15minutes to pack. We (billy,megan,krista and I)left that evening and drove 3 hours to a campground on Lake Schafer in Indiana.

The campground was cool, it was actually an RV park with cabins and spots to set up tents. We stayed in a cabin.

Friday morning we departed for a day of fun at the Indiana beach amusement park/water park. It was AWESOME. It was relatively small compared to 6 flags or worlds of fun which was nice since we just had one day, and it wasn't super crowded.
Fun Clarissa fact- Iused to be terrified of roller coasters and any carnival rides really. It was a big moment when I finally ride the scrambler in like 6th grade. I finally went on a couple small coasters in high school and eventually liked them. Anyway I was such a big girl and any on a all the rides with my thrill loving roomies! I may have screamed a lot but I didn't cry or get sick or anything real embarrassing haha. Dude it was so fun. We were all laughing and shrieking together and has priceless facial expressions-a few of which Megan caught on camera!

Also at the water park they had a sweet lazy river and awesome water slides (which are one of my favorite things in the whole wide world)

Needless to say it was an awesome day.

Throughout the retreat we had reflections and discussions based on the book we had been reading, An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor (highly recommend this!).
The three chapters we discussed were about grief, prayer, and blessing. I must say reflecting on my grief this year and reading in the book about it was very helpful for me.

Saturday we had free time in the afternoon so we went mini golfing! That was really fun too-megan and I tied for first! Then we cooked over the fire,had discussion, played some cards and went to bed.

Sunday we packed up,had reflection time, and hit the road. We stopped for lunch and sent each other out with individual blessings which was neat. It was kind of hard to imagine that this was really the end, that we won't be around each other much anymore. The blessings were simple but thoughtful and meaningful.

We returned to Chicago and from then on out it was packing and doing last minute bucket list adventures! I'll tell you more about those later though!

Thanks for reading!