Retreat

Today our house returned from our weekend retreat to Rolling Ridge. We stayed in a cabbin in the West Virginia woods/mountains. It was great being out of the city for a bit. We left Friday afternoon and spent the weekend playing games, hiking, doing a puzzle, sleeping, and working on our house covenant. On Saturday morning I sat on our pourch sipping tea and looking out at the hills/trees when I heard a farmer calling his cows. I had no idea my dad's cattle call was a common thing but I heard it out in the middle of no-where clear as day. It made me miss home and having open space. We could also see the stars which is not possible in a city. I am enjoying my time here but I realized that it has been a month now since I have been in Iowa. That is a rather long time and I still have the rest of the year ahead of me. I am trying to adjust to thinking of the MVS house as my home but there are aspects of the midwest that I miss.

For church today we joined Community House Church for their service since they were at a different lodge at Rolling Ridge. We took along some chili for the potluck at lunch. Following the service we played some games and ate with the members. They also sent all their leftovers from the weekend home with us. We ended up with like a week's worth of groceries. We are all very excited because 1. we don't have to spend nearly as much on groceries this week and 2. we are going to be eating leftovers which means less cooking for all of us.