Family Retreat

The end of the whole trip!

After the first day.

I think she was a little sleepy... =)

Playing in the dirt next to the pond.

Riding the horse.

Riding the horse.

Riding the horse.

Just getting on the horse.

Petting Gemini, who had the same color hair!

Playing with Daddy.

She loves being on his shoulders!

PUPPY!!!!

Playing with the big kids.

During our first exercise.

Well, we just got back from a great weekend. Tom, Ellie and I all went up to Lampasas, TX to Gene Tyson's Corner Ranch for a family retreat. We had a great time and it gave us all some real quality time to spend with one another. There were three separate exercises that involved horses. The first was figuring out how to put a harness over a horse's nose. Yea, not as easy as you think. The split the whole group into two smaller groups. Our group had five families in it. There were six horses out there, and we were told to pick horse, harness it, name it and groom it. So we tried I think three different horses. All of them kept walking away from us. A little frustrating. It took us a little bit, but in the end we had to actually split up. Tom took ellie and they went to play with the dog while I went over to one of the three horses that weren't already "taken." I seriously had to pet him for a good 10 mins before I could maneuver the harness on him. I called him ox. He didn't really like to be groomed. At least not by us. Once I had him harnessed, Tom and Ellie came over. Of course I got the horse that wanted to nudge everything. He started nibbling on Ellie's shoe and that was that! She wanted nothing to do with that horse after that! It was a really good exercise for me and my patience.

Another exercise we had to do was harness a different horse, create an obstacle course, and get the horse to cooperate enough to go through it. Well, sure enough, we got the alpha female, which is actually the alpha animal over ALL the other horses, not the male, which comes second in command. For this exercise, Ellie was actually off playing with the rest of the kids. It was an exercise meant for the adults. Anyway, well, it's kinda hard to lead a leader. We eventually had to ask for help, and between the two of us found a way to get her not only to walk with us, but to stop stopping and occassionally trot with us. We didn't worry too much about the obstacles. For us, we just wanted her to move with us comfortably. When asked what we would call the obstacles in the exercise, I jokingly said, "Well, I'd call her stubborn." And then they asked if there was a way we could connect the exercise with a sitauation in our life. A light bulb went off. She was me! How crazy is that! We couldn't've gotten a better horse for that exercise. We were actually commended on how we didn't worry about all the other stuff. We concerned ourselves with fundamentals and we knew when to ask for help. It was a real eye opener.

And that's still the first day! We also had a great lunch and dinner, and s'mores over the fireplace and a hayride! We had some free time and we got to go on a horse ride. I had ellie in my lap and Tom walked beside us. We were in a ring and there was a trainer right there with us, but Ellie loved being up on that horse. Rebel was his name! He even spooked a bit while we were on him, and it didn't scare Ellie at all. It got Tom a little razzled, but he was at a different angle than us.

Poor Ellie was so tired by the end of the day, she only had a 1 hour nap all day! There was so much to see and do and so many other kids to play with! And the farm dogs! She loved the farm dogs! (Does that surprise anyone???) She was OUT when we got back to the hotel.

The next day, today, was a little bit different. This is where the third exercise horse exercise came in. We left Ellie in the day care today because they told us there wouldn't be much for kids under 4 to do on the ranch until around lunch. We took the day for us. They had the deployed soldiers and their kids go the stables and work on the horses and have one on one conversations, and the spouses stayed up at the retreat house and talked about various issues. It was great hearing that I wasn't alone with some of the things I had been thinking. Tom did get to kinda do the exercise, just without Ellie. He took a lot of pictures, and got to groom Rebel. We picked Ellie up after our little sessions and before lunch, brought her to the Ranch, had lunch and let her run around for a while. The ranch was about 2 hours away from San Antonio, so we wanted her to let off some steam before the long drive. She did. =)

All in all, it was a great trip. We both learned a lot and we're very happy we went. We're hoping to go on the couples' retreat next month, but we'll have to find a sitter for Ellie... we'll see how that one works out. I really hope you enjoy the pictures! =)