2009 Bussey Family Retreat

Each year, around the new year's, my family has a family retreat. The central idea of this retreat is to get together as a family and set our family goals while also having some solid bonding time. Some years we take a little overnight trip, but this year we just stayed home. We all (we are lucky enough to all live close now) gathered for a wonderful Sunday dinner with turkey, stuffing (or dressing as my mom informed me it is called if it is not actually stuffed in the bird) mashed potatoes and more. After dinner we sat together and came up with out family theme, scripture, song and goals. This year instead of having a scripture out of the standard works we are going to use a quote from our prophet. All our goals and theme center around "Enjoying the Journey". It is wonderful to sit down as a family and refocus and remind our selves what is important in life. After dessert we played some rousing games of Uno spin and then an old family favorite, the board game Masterpiece.

The next day we all went up skiing (unfortunately I did not get any picture). Chris and I skied after been absent form the sport for about 10 years. (Yes, I have snowboarded with in the last few years but I haven't skied since Neon, one-piece ski suits were in style!) It was great to be with the family and ski in the total whiteout (from "fog"). I got tired out pretty fast but it was still lost of fun, especially to watch my husband ski, which I have never seen before!

Side note: one of our goals was to have quarterly family service projects, and if you know my mom you would not be surprised that w week later she already had our first one lined up. We got together past Saturday to clean up a family's year that are getting ready to move. It had been awhile since I had had an opportunity to roll up my sleeves and get dirty with some service, which i really enjoyed!

All in all... I LOVE MY FAMILY!