Retreat!

This last weekend was our summer youth retreat. For something different this year, we didn't go to the beach. Okay, part of that was due to lack of early planning on our part. But it still seems to have gone off well.

Most everyone left Friday morning. They headed to Pyramid Lake, which is part way up the Grapevine on I-5, probably about 35 minutes from me. They spend the day tubbing and wake boarding before heading to a nearby campground for the night.

Clint and I were supposed to head up after work and join them, picking up pizza for dinner along the way. You'll noticed that I said said supposed to. The traffic was horrid! There was an accident and they had the 5 closed except for one lane just north of town. We never got on the five but took a parallel surface street. We were moving faster then the freeway, which isn't saying much. It took us two hours to get to the campground. Fortunately, someone ahead of us had stopped and gotten the pizza, so they weren't still waiting for the food.

Fortunately, that was the worst part of the weekend.

Saturday, we hit the lake, which meant that some people hit it again. Kurt had his parent's boat, and one family came up, so we had two boats. The water was really choppy, so the we just went tubbing that day. I hadn't been tubbing since I was in college, so it was fun to do it again. I think Kurt was driving faster then Mr. Patterson used to. Either that or I've gotten older. Must be that Kurt was going faster. I had some bad spills that hurt a little at first (including one where I landed face first in the water), but I had fun.

When we weren't out on the boats, we were hanging out at an isolated picnic area or playing in the water. Some of the guys found some clay/mud and completely covered themselves in the muck. We just hung out and talked. It was nice and relaxing.

But it was hot! I think it may have even been hotter then it is here. I thought it might be cold at night, but the first night I was too hot to sleep for a while. Everyone was hiding in the shade as much as possible. In fact, we all hit the pool after coming back from the lake.

A guest speaker came and talked about what loving God means from I John. I was doing okay with the first two message (Loving God mean obeying his commands and loving your brothers/sisters), but that third message hit me between the eyes. The theme was loving God means not loving the world. I was thinking I was fine with this one, too, until he started talking about pride of life. And God used it to convict me about my pride in position. No, I don't boast about what I have, probably because I don't have much. But I boast in my rank at Amazon and, to a much lesser extent, my position at Epinions. I'm not sure how I can balance writing reviews and not worrying about rank as much, but I need to find a way.

Anyway, we came back yesterday early afternoon. Fortunately, Kurt worked things out so I could get Harry Potter on the way back. (Yes, the youth pastor spoils me.) Between catching up on the internet, talking to my family, and watching Monk and Psych, I only got a little over 100 pages read. After lunch time, I'm not on page 200. But I do already know the big picture. I'm quite anxious to see how all the pieces fall into place.

Unfortunately, I won't get that far tonight. I've got an ultimate game again.