KS Staff Retreat

Last week, the KeyStone staff and their families all went up to Pentwater to stay in some cottages as a retreat. We had 27 people there at one point--what fun! And I'll say this about the staff: there is never a dull moment! We left after church on Sunday to go up and stayed until Wednesday morning. We brought tons of food--I felt like I was eating all weekend long! Gene found a 14-year-old girl, Mackenzie, to babysit Ashlyn and Kaitlyn so that those of us with babies could relax too. Over the course of the week, we could do things like salmon fish, go on sailboat rides, take a canoe/kayak trip, go into town, sit and relax with a book by the lake or by the fire, and enjoy each other's company. This staff/family is so much fun to hang out with and we sure had our share of adventures!
Kyle was one of five people (Nick, Erica, Kyle, Tina, Jane) getting up for a 5:30am salmon fishing charter on Monday morning. He was frustrated to say the least that they didn't get much action, but they did end up catching 2 big salmon and a lake trout. The two salmon they caught fed our entire group...with lots of leftovers!! Nobody beat the Aasman family (and Jane), though...they caught 12 fish!! They were generous and shared bags of salmon fillets with everyone :)

Just relaxing at the cottage! Sharon and I steered the boat into the sunset...literally! And if we veered off course at all, we got FIRED!
One of our many adventures...on the last night, with ALL of us on the sailboat, we ran up on a sandbar! It was dark out--about 10:30--and we got completely stuck! After trying a whole bunch of things, Adam, Dave and Mark jump in to try to swim the anchor out as far as they could so we could pull ourselves off the sandbar. It wasn't working out so well, but luckily there were a few guys out fishing (why so late, I don't know) who pulled the anchor out about 150 yards for us. Finally, at about 11:30pm, we got free of the sandbar!

Another one of our crazy--not-such-a-good-idea--adventures was the canoe/kayak trip. 13 of us went canoeing/kayaking on a river that nobody--that we knew of--had been down yet this year. We were the "guinea pigs" if you will. Well, not a good idea to go down that river! I was in a canoe with Tammi and Ashley. And Gene warned us that it wasn't a good idea for the three of us to go together since we're not exactly "lightweights"! (the first of 2 times he alluded to that fact) But we wanted to go together so we braved it. At first it seemed like it was going to be easy...until we got to the first fallen tree. There were about 20-30 fallen trees that we either had to lie completely flat to go under or we had to get out of the canoe entirely to drag it over the tree! All of that wouldn't have been quite so bad if it hadn't been for the huge number of spiders and horse flies that plagued us the entire trip! About halfway through we thought we weren't going to make it back, but then the river started to get wider and there weren't any more trees or flies. It was actually nice--if not a little cold--for a while...then the thunder and lightening started! With three "not exactly lightweights" in the canoe it didn't really go all that fast. Luckily--for everyone involved--Gabby (9 years old) got tired of paddling her kayak and decided to ride in the double kayak with her dad. So I got out of the canoe and into her kayak and paddled my butt off to get back before the storm hit. It had only started sprinking by the time I made it back to the cottage, but I was freezing, tired and sore. Even though it was a crazy adventure, I was kind of proud to have made it back :)

You'll notice that Ashlyn isn't in any of the pics...that's because she was sleeping most of the time! I was a little worried about how she'd do with 27 people in two cottages, but I shouldn't have worried...she went to bed at 8 every night, woke up at 8, and took her two 2-hour naps each day. Some of the kids were bummed that she slept so much because they wanted to play with her :)

Even with our adventures--and probably because of them--we had a great trip. A true retreat with no work and all play!