Annual Retreat & Nurturing Friendships
What do us girls and moms do once a year?
What started off as a girls’ birthday celebration and mom get-away to refresh, became an annual tradition to connect and intentionally make time for friendships.
Friendships, like our relationships with our husbands and kids, have to be nurtured. Time spent together is needed to listen and share openly our pain and sorrow as well as our hopes and dreams. Life and our responsibilities get so busy, that sometimes we need to plan a get-away, in order to get together.
From what began as a much needed retreat, I’m now calling mom maintenance. It’s something we now very much look forward to and so it’s on the calendar a year in advance.
Want to get away with your girls too? Here’s what we do and how we decide and hope it can help you and your friends make this a reality too.
We decide on the following:
Time of year - We decide when works for our schedule with minimal disturbance to the family. We also prefer cool weather.
Location and the view - We always look for a new town, with big beautiful trees, and some sort of body of water in view.
The house - We pick this based on great reviews, a minimum of one room per person, and that it meets each of our one wish list requests which include a nice desk or table, a fireplace, and a hot tub. Can you guess who cares about the desk? Yours truly. ;) Read about this year’s Air B&B pick HERE.
Menu - We stop at the market on the way to the air b&b and pick up the staple stuff we all love and can make or prepare simply. (For more about the food, read this blog.)
Outing - We always visit one restaurant and one local shop in the community to support while we’re there.
Agenda - It’s always the same. Do whatever you want, whenever you want. Want to talk? Talk. Don’t want to talk? Just move away or put your ear buds in and say so. It’s pretty simple and straightforward.
What We Bring - A few of things we always pack are a device and speakers for some good music, a good book, journal, pen and a good attitude!
Hope this helps and will inspire you to book a weekend getaway too. It might be what you or your friends need! The same way your soul needs to be nourished, friendships need to be cared for too with intentional time together.
Finding peace by piece:
We can’t always be together and definitely can’t always keep it altogether, but we can find peace by coming together at least once a year.
