Joni and Friends: Family Retreat - Day Four

I know, I know, it's been a while. I've been pretty busy. Life has been a bit crazy. But here we are!

The fourth day of week one was a great one! It started out like every other morning with Short Term Missionary (STM) Devotions, breakfast, and the normal scheduled programming. It was going to be a very normal day. Until dinner time. Wednesday is Adult Night, so the caregiver of the individual with a disability gets to have a dinner with other adults! Many of the parents don't ever really get a break so Adult Night is a real blessing. Most of them dress up, do their hair and makeup, and just look amazing! They can have a nice quiet dinner, fancy food, encouragement, and a boat ride around the lake. These parents and adult siblings are working with their loved one 24/7 so we want to give them a well deserved break.

While the adults are out, the STMs take their campers to dinner and help serve them food. My partner and I felt confident that we would be able to get through dinner with our camper. Nothing went wrong, and we grabbed some cherry tomatoes (his favorite thing we have him) for him to snack on before we left. We were both glad we had packed them (and the fruit and Cheerios we had stashed from breakfast) later. After dinner, the kids groups say through a super fun puppet show that they LOVED. Once it was over, we went outside and checked out the fantastic petting zoo that had been hired for the night. With shouts of joy and squeals of happiness, the campers and their siblings went to see the bunnies, chicks, chickens, goats, and so much more. Our little guy really enjoyed petting a bunny. His sisters talked about which animal was softest all the rest of camp.

After it was all over, the STMs and their young campers went to watch a movie in one of the classrooms. We sat and watched Charlie Brown and are popcorn while we waited for the parents to come pick up the kids. Lots of laughter and cuddles from the little ones. Eva (my partner) and I at this point had some really good reflexes. So when our camper would try to grab someone else's popcorn, we were able to stop him just in time. We also knew the look he would have before he was going to snatch something, so we were able to preemptively remove any issues before they could occur.

The campers were picked up by their parents, the STMs had their debrief, and the day came to an end. The next day was going to be out last full day with our families and we definitely felt it. I had grown really attached to my camper and knew that I would miss him when he left. I really didn't want it to end.