It’s been over a week. Our first week of SOWER work here at Lake Swan Camp is in the books. The monthly SOWER newsletter is complete and scheduled for next week. The backlog of emails has been sorted through, credit card statements have been printed and reconciled, and I finally feel like I have enough time to give proper attention to assigning words to last week’s Sisters’ Winter Getaway.
I think in order to truly convey how precious this time with my sisters is, a little back-story is needed.
In the years since that pre-cruise post, we’ve actually had good success in adding a Winter Getaways to the rotation – once in Florida and then last winter at a sweet cottage on the southern tip of Lake Winnipesauke in New Hampshire.
So that brings us up to Winter 2022. Elna’s cancer has not gone away. Nor do we expect it to. But she’s holding her own and we stand amazed at the kindness of our Heavenly Father, who numbers our days, that he has given her these last four (mostly) good years. (And of course, we continue to pray that He gives her many, many more. We’re selfish that way!) Between cancer and COVID and the fact that none of us is guaranteed tomorrow, we knew that Winter Getaway 2022 needed to happen! The cottage was reserved, the airline tickets were booked, and we prayed earnestly for good health for all of us (and our husbands!) so that nothing would impede this precious time. (With Omicron galloping through the country, I confess I stayed out of crowds for the three weeks preceding the trip just to be on the safe side.)
And in God’s goodness – nothing did!
From our first meal together
to our last
(and actually the only two meals we ate out!)
it was a grand time.
Once we got to our cottage, it was pretty much a repeat of last year’s goodness.
*Bird watching (from the comfort of the cottage)
(How many birds can you see in this picture?)
*Avocado toast eating (complete with ‘crunchy salt’ and Everything Bagel Seasoning)
*Game playing (Boggle, Wizard, Speed Scrabble (aka Bananagrams), Skip-bo were our favs this year)
*Puzzle puzzling (4 – 1000 pcs puzzles!)
As you might have noticed, we had an special guest over the weekend. We welcomed Joie’s daughter Christiana (a recent Vermont transplant)who came and helped with the puzzling and gaming and eating!
And since she was here for the mini-blizzard (they called for 6-14 inches but we only got 4-6)
she did also a great job of digging us out!
For us, this is the perfect blizzard day activity.
As for the chocolate eating – while there are no specific pictures of the chocolate that was consumed, if you look carefully at the first puzzle picture, you’ll see that it was always close by!
Such a beautiful week. Memories made, memories refreshed. I still don’t think I’ve found quite the right words to describe just how precious time with my sisters is, but this feeble attempt will have to do. What a lovely miracle from God when the sisters you were born with turn out to be your very best friends. And we cannot thank God enough for every moment we get to be together.
If you’d like to see some additional pictures – you can check them out HERE!
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I rejoice with you that the Lord has given you this precious time and these precious memories. I don’t know your sisters, but somehow, knowing you, it doesn’t surprise me how special they are, too!