So we had an awesome Thanksgiving week. Our church had the annual retreat that was on the Thanksgiving week. This year, it was held at the Trout Haven Ranch in Estes Park, Colorado. I was tasked with responsibility of finding the retreat location. Several options I really liked ended up way more expensive that what we could afford, or had certain restriction or features that we would like, so we ended up with Trout Haven Ranch. Honestly, I didn’t expect much of the place from pictures I saw from their website, but it turned out better than I expected. The lady I contacted for the reservation was very nice and easy to work with. It’s about 2.5 hours drive, which wasn’t too bad, and it was scenic route so there are pretty sights to see along the road. It wasn’t like driving in Kansas wheat field, so I’m not complaining. Grace and Benjamin were well-behave in the car so it’s smooth sailing.
The lodge was big, and nicely decorated with country lodge theme. All the necessary amenities such as side-by-side fridge, counter top microwave, flat top stove.. were there, not counting jet tub, jacuzzi are a huge plus. We split up from the group and checked out our room; it’s clean and enough storage for our 3-days luggage. The tri-level lodge is overview the very pretty half-frozen fishing pond, which is unfortunately closed for the season while we were there. We (me and couple youths) were fascinating with the 2 ducks sitting on the ice in the middle of the pond without moving. We kept their status update on every few minutes or so, with “Ah, he moves few inches to the left”, “Oh I think their legs are frozen into the ice”, “Maybe they’re fake”. There’s a small stream couple hundred feet away from the lodge. We saw a herd of elks, like 100 of them, came down from the mountain to drink water from the stream. They were just so close to our lodge, just separated by the fence. That was so cool. Ironically, on the second day, we drove 4-5 miles down to the field to see maybe 10 of them. Then the next day, 100 of them showed up by our lodge. We could have stayed in, saved the gas!
So, what did we do there for 3 days? Lots! We had lots of foods of course. There are turkey, green bean, massie, pulled pork, chicken sandwich, Vietnamese rice cake (bánh tét), rice noodle (bún), some sour noodle (yeah, it’s like bún, but more sour), sweet banana pudding dessert (chè), oven roasted steak… We were in for a feast. Then, we went swimming in the local aquatic center, in hope burning some of those fat (hahaha… nice try, eh!) It was lots of fun there. We went shopping in the downtown area on Thanksgiving Friday, and see the parade of light in the evening. It was freezing, but it was fun. We didn’t expect there was so many people, so parking was an issue here. We had to walk a mile to our car. Some of us went fishing (I didn’t), and caught 2 trout. We had them for dinner. That was sweet!
The youth group brought the video games so we play Guitar Hero until 4-5AM. We brought Uno Stacko, which is a mix of Uno and Janga. It was midnight or later, you still can here the our scream when one of us knocked down the tower. Luckily for us, no one else is on the premise. It’s just us, so we just let loose. We also played gesture which was a whole lot of fun. Each night, after dinner, we gather in the big living room in the lodge, singing praise and worship. We had sharing and thanksgiving, watching video clips. We sang our theme song, that taken from Joshua 24:15, “but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” On Sunday, we listened Thanksgiving message from our Pastor, summarized the event, had lunch together, cleaned up, took group pictures and headed back home. On the way home, we were caught in the blizzard. So it took us 5, 6 hours to get home which traffic inched around 3-5 mph. We saw many cars were abandoned along the highway. During the trip home, Benjamin was sleeping most of the time, which was great. He woke up hungry, with dirty diaper, so he was fussy the last hour or so, but we are thankful we got home safely. I gotta shovel the snow in my driveway after I got home because it was a foot deep or so.
So, it was a great Thanksgiving Retreat. But what was I thankful for? I’m thankful for the many blessings seen or unseen that God has given to my family. I’m thankful for peace, joy, happiness, for my wife and my 2 kids, for the job I have, for the provision we receive, the house we stay in, the foods we eat. We are thankful for family, relatives and friends who are always there. So, God, we are thankful for you, an invisible friend who is always there, always lending hand, always gives. We are blessed, in so many ways!
See more pictures of the Thanksgiving Retreat in the Photo Gallery, or click here.
