Favorite Families :)

I've always loved this statue of the Holy Family. This year I really wanted a picture of Dan and me in front of it this year. Traditionally we get a picture of the two of us every year, and we got another one too, but this is by far my favorite picture yet. We didn't have a picture of the both of us since I've been pregnant, not like this anyway. I'm so happy with the way that it turned out. It's now my desktop background and I even stopped at Target to get frames for the house and my desk at work.

Sunday on retreat always goes by so fast. I managed to get up before the wake up call and hit the shower before there was a line. Breakfast was cereal and muffins and I even managed to get to confession before mass started. It was difficult with only three chaperones to do things like confession or visit the tables that were selling things, but as far as managing the kids it was easier. We had fewer kids this year than the last time, and fewer chaperones meant that everybody was watching everybody, we didn't do the assume someone else had them thing. For the most part, our kids were great. I'm not sure if I felt like that because I'm used to babysitting 5th graders during lunch or because our kids really were that great, but either way I went with it. We had a couple "18+" kids, who weren't chaperones but didn't require chaperones either, and both of them had been to the mount before so we didn't have to watch them as closely. We really only kept an eye on the newbies who hadn't been before and didn't know where everything was right away. It's not like it's hard to figure everything out, but since we chaperones have been so many times, we know that retreat and campus inside and out. We know what can be skipped or how to get lunch before our group gets called.

The ride home was petty uneventful. We stopped for lunch at Roy Rogers, which I haven't eaten at in ages. I ended up being so hungry that I had to get a second sandwich after I finished my combo! The girls were laughing at me, but told me it was ok because I was pregnant ;) I totally loved the girls we took with us this year. They were sweet and totally willing to go with the flow (which usually means stay with the group) even though they knew people in other groups. Except for our 18+ girl, they were all newbies and it's always soooo cool to re-live the retreat through the eyes of a first timer. It makes me think about what it was like my first time up, it was really different and then again not terribly different.

I was 13, almost 14, and have been coming faithfully every year since (except I missed the year following my first, after that it's been every eyar). Mount 2000 has been a huge constant in my life. It's like a landmark in time, every year, rain or shine (emotionally speaking) Mount 2000 is there. I use it to measure myself and my life by, like how I used to get my height measured in the doorway. What was I doing during last year's Mount 2000? Two years ago? Seven years ago was Dan's first Mount 2000, and our second date. It's so hard to believe it was that long ago. Six years ago we had just gotten engaged right before retreat. Three years ago we had set the wedding date with the church Friday afternoon before we carpooled up to the mount. Two years ago was our first retreat as a married couple. This year, I was six months pregnant. Now there are people in my life that I only see this once a year. Old friends who, like me, can't stay away from Mount 2000. It really it's a family reunion of sorts when we visit the mount. Now we have kids from youth group who have graduated high school and started attending Mount St. Mary's for college. The last couple of years we've had a steady stream of our kids going there who we get to see when we come up for retreat.

Mount 2000 is more than just a retreat. Don't get me wrong, all these years I've been going I still get something out of it every time, I call it "Jiffy Lube for the soul" and it really is. After missing last year, I was going through crazy withdraw, there's just something about it that recharges me spiritually and it's hard to get that anywhere else. But Mount 2000 is also my North Star. No matter what else is going on in my life, it's there. No matter who comes and goes in my life, the second weekend in February, I'm on that mountain, I'm sleeping on the gym floor, I'm avoiding the Saturday night chicken. It's been a constant in a world where the only other constants are death and taxes. The mount doesn't notice that I've had a different job almost every year, it doesn't know we're trying to buy a house, it doesn't know that I've gained friends and lost friends. The mount doesn't discriminate, it doesn't turn me away because I said something hurtful that I shouldn't have, it doesn't close its doors because I have things I need to work on. The mount is there no matter what (unless God dumps 40" of snow on Emmitsburg, but that's only happened once). I told Dan and several others, the only thing that will keep me from the mount is hospitalization. Up until this year, that only meant my hospitalization, now it means mine or Orson's. That's the only thing that will keep me off that mountain. Even the 40" of snow didn't keep me off, Dan and I still drove up, we still went to mass, and we still saw our youth group kids. There weren't talks or the procession or anything like that, but we were there because it's not just a retreat.