Sweet Blessings: Mother/Son Weekend at Pinecove!

Matthew and I went to a Mother/Son weekend camp at Pinecove in Texas. This is a christian camp and it is absolutely amazing! I was so excited to get to have this weekend with Matthew...no distractions, no chores, no one else to take my attention...it was just what we needed! We went with our good friends, the Brandenburgs, and had such a memorable weekend. We left town right after school on Friday and started our two hour trek to Pinecove! Meanwhile, daddy was at home prepping for his fun daddy/daughter weekend with Molly. He kept her so busy...I don't know if she even missed us!

This is how their weekend looked:

Friday night: Trip to Sweet and Sassy to get Molly's hair, nails and makeup done. Daddy even thought to dress her up in a princess dress to go! Score daddy! The Brandenburg's stopped by on their way home to play with Molly and provide daddy with some adult interaction!

Saturday: Trip to American Girl. They had lunch there at the American Girl Cafe and brought home a souviner. Went to Olive Garden later that night after daddy coached baseball!

Sunday: Hung out with daddy and played! My baby girl was worn out (and so was daddy!). He definitely gets an A+ for planning a super fun daddy/daughter weekend! The only negative...our camera was broken, so we hardly have any pictures! Mark e-mailed me a few from his phone, so that is all we've got from their visit on Friday night. Evidently, the girls had a fashion show!

While they were having fun without us, we were having a blast at Pinecove! After we arrived, we got to go check out camp before dinner. One of my favorite things about this camp was all the fun outdoor activites they had. I mean, simple-life, plain-old-fun-stuff! We played LOTS of ping pong, pickle ball, four square, and miniature golf. They also had a huge treehouse and swings to play on. It was really easy to find fun whenever we had a spare moment. Matthew's favorite thing was ping pong (and we were pretty terrible at it!). On Friday night we had dinner and a session with our speaker before heading to game time, desserts and silly pictures. Bedtime was close to 11pm with a 7am wakeup time...we were tired! The speaker spoke on guarding our kids hearts from all of the bad things that are in this world. All of her illustrations were centered around sports...which Matthew loved. She taught us all how important it is to "guard the goal (your heart)" and based her lecture on Proverbs 4:23, "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life."

On Saturday, we woke up early and headed out for a two on two (mommies against sons) basketball game. Yep, the boys beat the mommies (well, we might have gone a little easy on them!). Then we had breakfast, a quiet time with our sons, a little move and groove worship, our morning session and games. Yes, you will see me feeding my son a banana with my toes during one of the games...we got lots of points for that (and he didn't have to eat it...just had to make it to his mouth). One of my favorite parts of the trip was lunch on Saturday. Each mother and son had a picnic basket that was already prepared with yummy food and a list of questions that were supposed to be answered by both while eating. The only rule was that you had to have lunch with just your son...no groups. Matthew picked a great spot in the woods and we enjoyed hanging out together and answering our questions. The questions were pretty simple (favorite color, favorite Bible character, favorite thing to do with mom, etc.) However, there were two questions that I thought were so good - How can I love you more? What would you change about our relationship? Good stuff mamas! After lunch we had free time from 1-6pm. I let Matthew choose all the activities he wanted to do. We went horseback riding, shot BB guns, did the ropes course and zip line, climbed the climbing wall and went swimming...which included jumping off the high dive and going down the big waterslide (mama too!). After dinner, we had another highly anticipated event...Pitch Black Attack. We had to dress in black or camo. There were several teams of up to four mother/son pairs. You had to sneak around camp and get the clues from different camp counselors and try not to get your "chip" taken away by the mean counselors. It was pitch black and kind of scary. It definitely got my adrenaline pumping! Our team got third place. I was super proud of Matthew!

On Sunday, we had a brunch, quiet time with our sons and a session before we headed back home. Oh, and of course, a few more games of ping pong! This was such a wonderful weekend and made me really reflect on my relationship with Matthew and how much fun it was to just focus on him and enjoy the moment. We can't wait to go back someday!

We were just pulling in to camp...the boys were excited!