Saying Goodbyes (and other weekend events)

This past weekend, I (Rhianwen) went on a women's retreat up in Phoenixville. I had been looking forward to it all week, seeing it as a special time of rest amidst all the chaos in our lives right now, and of course a time of extended prayer, reflection and fellowship with the awesome women in my life. While there were many highlights, these are the pictures I took. Thank you HOGL women for leading such amazing lives and immensely enriching my life.



Here is the entire group of women at the retreat. From left to right...(just kidding.) Yes, I'm holding a baby. I pretty much do that every chance I get.







The conference center where we stayed had extensive land for hiking and exploring. A few of us ventured out Saturday afternoon. We saw a cool abandoned tree house that made me want to build one. Meet Nathalie, Jessica and Maria. Maria and I also roomed together at our request:) Maria and I have been working on bringing Catechesis to Narberth Pres throughout the past year and sadly now that I'm leaving I won't be as involved as I had hoped.(No, I don't expect any of you to know what Catechesis is, as it was new to me--its basically a fancy word for helping little kids understand God using Montessori methodology. It will be starting at Narberth in the fall.)

Meanwhile, Benner was having a "multi-day" with his friends and a going away party with some of his closest friends on Saturday night, which we'll document in another post soon.

But then on Sunday, we then had a tearful goodbye to our dear church friends. Rhianwen stole Edan from Adam and Megan during the service, despite the fact that they were sitting on the other end of the sanctuary. Not sure how she pulled that off. We were then completely preoccupied with his cuteness.



And here are some of our friends from church.



That's Greg. And that's Benner's nose touching Greg's cheek. I married a weird guy.



FAMILY HUG!!! with Adam, Megan and Edan. They're family to us, we're Aunt Rhi and Uncle Benner to Edan even though he doesn't talk yet. P.S. We're going to miss you guys so much!



More Edan!!!



And more Walls.



This is our friend Justin King (not pictured: his wife Cat, who is in fact a human). We're annoyed that we just met like 3 weeks ago, because we would totally be BFF's with them, or at least just good F's. Hi Kings! (You better be reading this after all the times we told you about this blog.)

Exhausted at this point, we met up with the Papas one more time for our final goodbye. Yet another tearful event.





And after the gathering, wine with our friend Teuni.



The blonde hair and glasses almost makes us look like sisters in this shot. She's a great girl.

Saying goodbye to so many great friends and loved ones makes us sad. Sigh. We'll miss you all.