First full day of Retreat 9!

Yesterday, our families arrived at the Lighthouse! It began storming right after check in, and cleared up just in time for Mexican night! It was a beautiful night because it wasn't extremely hot!

Today was the first day of Common Ground and flip-flop. The children had a blast at the pool! Right now, our wonderful volunteers are preparing for our special Italian dinner tonight! Please pray that God continues to work through Retreat 9!

Starting the last summer retreat!

On Saturday, we said our "See ya later's" to all of the 180 wonderful people who came to Retreat 8. Yesterday, our volunteers for Retreat 9 arrived, and now we are preparing for the retreat families to arrive soon! This is our fourth week in a row in Gulf Place. We have never done a retreat this first week of August, so a lot of our volunteers and families are new! We love the energy and ideas that new volunteers bring. We cannot wait to meet the families that will arrive today! The final summer retreat of 2011 is off to a great start!

Retreat EIGHT: Off to a GREAT Start!

Gulf Place welcomes TWELVE wonderful families to Lighthouse's eighth retreat of Summer 2011! We also have a "small" group from Northpoint Community Church here to volunteer and bring a LARGE amount of energy to our flip-flop groups and dance parties! We have some talented dancers this week, so we can't wait for the weekly Talent Show!

Here are some pictures from our first few days:

We have had some storms this week, causing some technical difficulties, but the Lighthouse fun prevails over the rain! The Sharks initiated an intense "Skins vs. Shirts" football game Monday, Tuesday we got to decorate cupcakes, and today we had a relaxing "Baby Spa" with nail painting and massages!


Last night the kids enjoyed the famous ice cream sundae bar and movie style popcorn, while the parents went out to dinner! More updates to come--have to run off to the Luau and Talent Show!!!

Sending off summer, and summer staff

Here at Lighthouse, we love our summer staff! They add so much energy, excitement, and creativity to the ministry, mostly behind the scenes. No two days of their summer looked alike. They work in the office for a few weeks, and help with the retreats for a few weeks. As they leave us and go back to school, we are sad but grateful for all they have done for us.
Here is a video of their dance at the retreat 6 talent show, choreographed by Kiley.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jg_LIYKklU

Here are some of the photos of our beautiful summer staffers:

Midweek Check In

Where has the first half of the week gone??? We have truly had a fantastic and fun week here at Lighthouse. Tonight, the parents went out on a date night while the family partners brought the children for an ice cream party and outdoor movie. Here are a few pictures from the day!

Limbo Limbo Limbo!

Blowfish -- hoorah!

Party bike!!

Enjoying some ice cream

Retreat 7 - we're in Heaven!

We are back in Gulf Place for Retreat 7! There are 12 amazing families, a cross country team (Lighthouse calls them a track team), and many fantastic volunteers! Right now, we are preparing for our surpise dinner tonight! Here are some photos!

Sad to see retreat 6 come to an end :(

Retreat 6 was incredible! We had so many great enthusiastic leaders, selfless volunteers, and greatful retreat families. Pretty much everything was PERFECT. The storms we prayed away all week finally rolled in last night and caused a crazy uproar at our pool/dance party! We all swam back to our condos, and waited to watch the slideshow this morning. Our "see ya laters" this morning were the most tearful I've ever seen. Everyone was teary-eyed and in awe of how God used the ministry this week to help deserving families. We are sad to see it come to an end.  However, RETREAT 7 IS ABOUT TO START!!! God has provided several retreat  families at the last minute! Several of our volunteers this week have been here many times, but they will be surpised to see all the new creative touches this week! We will keep you updated! In the meantime, here are a few personal pictures from a precious retreat mom!