Church Retreat - to the mountains

Our church always takes an annual retreat to the mountains every year during Golden Week. This year was our first time to go while living in Tokyo. I am so glad we went. Rather than taking the bus up with the rest of the group, we opted for the train. When we got off at the station, we assumed we would just get a taxi to the retreat center. Well, there was NOTHING at this station - not even a bathroom or a vending machine. Thankfully we had cell phones and a signal so we called the retreat center. Once the man heard kids in the background, he offered to pick us up in a minivan rather than make us wait 45 minutes for the next bus to come by. Miss M asked what all the trees were around us - I told her it is called nature, a forest. She ate her first hot dog on the retreat. Maybe that is a good thing that she is 4.5 and just now eating a hot dog, but you get my drift...she had to ask what a forest is and tried her first hot dog. The stars were beautiful and we were able to see a few more cherry blossoms. We had devotions from our pastor throughout the retreat, discussed them in small groups, and relaxed in the mountains. I took Miss M out on a paddle boat one day. The hubs played soccer and threw a football. The kids ran and played and we shared a room and I went to bed with the kids and got ten hours of sleep each night. It was so nice to get out of the city, make some new friends, smell crisp air, and expose our kids to nature.