Mom's Retreat

This year our annual retreat was from Wednesday night January 11th to Saturday morning January 14th. It was nice to have the extra day. I felt very relaxed but still got a lot done and had a lot of fun. I even had time to go running...

and on Thursday Kelly and I made a special trip to the temple.

I always love this weekend because I get to spend time visiting with the wonderful friends that I miss so much from the Canyon Ridge Ward.

Like the twins...

and my best friend Kelly,

and so many wonderful women who have influenced my life in many ways. These women helped teach me about motherhood and how to raise my children. I look to them for advice and look up to them as examples of righteousness.  They were also there for me during some of my greatest challenges and were a huge support to me. I feel so blessed to have friends like these in my life.

I also look to them to have lots of fun and some of these ladies are downright wild and hillarious. It felt good to laugh long and late into the night. Or even when waiting in a crazy long line for the Friday night dinner...

I'm not a very good late night person but I managed to stay up way past my bedtime to play some games, eat too many treats and watch movies in the packed theater room.

Friday night is always the biggest night at the retreat. I think we had over 50 women there that night. It was amazing and inspiring.

A little later that night 14 of us crammed into the hot tub. Poor Aniesa didn't have very much room and got stuck out in the cold.

And then, Saturday morning I woke up with the flu. It didn't make for a very close "Smith" picture. Nobody wanted to hug the "contagious" one. I was just impressed I managed to stand long enough for the picture. I felt pretty miserable.

So my weekend got extended a little longer when I got home and Ryan took care of everything so I could sit on the couch and feel miserable for the rest of the day.