Fall In West Virginia

This is a view from the hay ride up on the hill at Sweet Apple Farms. Aren't the trees beautiful?


I've got a lot of catching up to do so the two posts below are from today.

Mom and Dad's visit

We've been extremely busy. My parents we're here for almost a week and we had a wonderful time. I'm bummed that they had to go back home but am extremely thankful that we had so long to spend with them.

They got here on Monday. They road their motorcycle. Yes, they are crazy but, they have fun. There friends Danny and Kathy road up here with them. They stayed at the Layfette hotel Monday night. We went over their and went to the Becky Thatcher for dinner. If you were thinking of going to the Becky Thatcher (it's a river boat on the Ohio River) Let me save you some money and tell you that it was horrible.

Tuesday, Danny and Kathy went back and mom and dad came here for the rest of the week.
Emma had a tea party like every five minutes. My mom spoiled her rotten playing with her. Mom would go in there every morning and the first thing Emma would say was, "You wanna have a tea party Nonna?" She had a blast. Wednesday. We went to "Sweet Apple Farm". It's a really neat place. And the trees were beautiful. The leaves are changing and it's so pretty!! They had goats, lambs, cows, chickens, and rabbits. We went on a hay ride and froze our rear ends off. We had a really great time though. On Thursday, we went to Amish Country. I thought it was a little over rated but then I found out that we didn't go to the right places. We still had a good time. And, we got a pumpkin for Emma which dad helped her carve while we were at the retreat.

Friday, dad and I road around looking at some houses. We're thinking about buying one to have as a rental. Then we got ready and left for the retreat. Details from the retreat are below. Emma of course had lots of fun with my parents while we were gone and then we took her trick-or-treating when we got back home (Our town did it Saturday night).

Then, Sunday morning mom and dad left to begin their long journey back home :(. We'll get to see them again in three weeks so that isn't too bad. Then Adam's parents are coming for Thanksgiving so that should be fun too.

Well, I've spent alot of time writing this so I guess I better get some other stuff done.

I'm looking forward to your comments hint hint.

Love from above,

Dana

PS, the post below is a post about our retreat.

Orbit: Revolve Around the Son-- Fall Retreat

The Retreat was great! The Theme was Orbit: Revolve Around the Son. Adam did three great, thought prevoking lessons. Everyone got along great (as always). This group does a great job of loving each other. The hotel had a really neat set up with an indoor pool and a hot tub. It looked like a jungle when you walked in. We enjoyed that tremendously. I learned a new game.. Animal Ball. This game is played in the pool and can get quite violent. We were having a great game of very involved Animal ball, when other people, not with our group got in the pool. The teens did not even hesitate when I told them we needed to quit since there were other people in there. They did a good job putting in to practice the things that Adam talked about in his lessons about not thinking the world revolved around us. Like I've said so many times before.. They are a great group and I'm very proud of them.

Lindsey and I found an awesome deal on blue jeans at the mall. They were marked down from $75.00 90% off and then an additional 15% off that. They ended up being like $6.00. We were extremely excited about our awesome fashion deals.

We ended the trip with a trip to a place with indoor go carts and laser tag. We had a girls against guys game of laser tag and the guys beat the mess out of us. I think that Scallywag Tag in Cincinnati spoiled us because no one was that impressed with their laser tag facilities. The go carts however, were a different story. We had a lot of fun racing each other. And, though we tried very hard, we had a little contact where we wasn't suppose to.

Almost everyone in the youth group went. It was a great turn out and tons of fun. Thank you Angie Knost for being a chaperone and thank you Ryan and Jessie Ice for all your hard work!! We love you guys so much!!

Now, let me describe the pictures.

1) This is a picture of most of the people that went. Sorry if you aren't in it. I forgot to get an "official" group picture. I snapped this one while Adam was buying tickets.

2) Picture of some of the girls in the jungle pool room.

3) Jenna and Kylee signing warm fuzzies on our galaxy beach balls.