TAIRVLYN: Worship Team Retreat 2008

Last weekend (5th - 7th Sept), we headed to Jerejak Resort and Spa for the annual Worship Team Retreat (WTR). Initially, we were not planning to bring Rachel, my parents were suppose to take care of her for the weekend (anyway, it's only 1 night for me, i.e).

However, my grandmother underwent surgery on friday 5th sept itself, so my mom wanted to spend the weekend taking care of my grandma. Thus, we brought rachel along for the retreat :)

Saturday

Woke rachel up at 7.45am coz we had to catch the 8.30am ferry to Jerejak island. (tairven went to jerejak the night before as he was the coordinator for the whole retreat. The retreat actually began on friday night itself).

Fed her milk instead of her usual oats (no time to feed her oats la..) and then my inlaws sent us to the ferry terminal.

The ferry arrived exactly at 8.30am. It was Rachel's first time on a ferry (excluding the fact that she was on the same ferry 1 year ago when she was 8 months old inside my womb! hehe). She was pretty quiet throughout the whole ferry ride..probably trying to figure out what's happening. hehe.

Her papa was at the ferry terminal on the other side waiting for us to arrive. When she saw papa, she gave him a big smile... :)

after arriving, we then headed to the conference hall where all the activities are to take place. we were just in time to join in the morning worship session. After worship, our guest speaker, Dr Herbert Tan took over the next session which was entitled "Potrait of God". Dr Herbert is a very good speaker. unfortunately, i could only listen to bits and pieces of his session as rachel was being "very sibuk"..so had to find ways to entertain her to keep her quiet. in the end she got restless, so i had to take her outside before she became a major distraction to everyone!

it was raining cats and dogs by then. praise God for holding back the rain during the ferry ride earlier in the morning!

after the morning tea break, i decided to check into the room together with rachel coz she couldnt sit still anymore in the hall. and besides i needed to bathe her! once we got to the room, she started climbing up and down the bed, exploring the cupboards, etc. really kay-po la.. hehe. we stayed in the room till it was time for lunch.

lunch was buffet style. nothing to shout about. rachel actually nodded off to sleep while sitting in the baby chair during lunch! so i had to carry her and let her sleep in my arms while i had my lunch. after makan, decided to go back to the room so that i could let rachel continue sleeping. but on the way to the room, she woke up! and once we got to the room, she refused to sleep! i spent 1.5 hours trying to put her to sleep but unsuccessful! sigh. so in the end, i brought her to join the rest at the conference hall. let her run all over the place (they were having teambuilding activities) until her milk time at 4.30pm. went back to the room, drank her milk and then forced her to sleep!

she finally slept at 5pm and napped for 2 hours! goodness...yes 5pm - 7pm!

we had bbq buffet for dinner, then a birthday surprise for daniel. after that we just hung around, chit chatting, etc. Rachel had a good time playing with the keyboards! (check out the photos below). hehe. because of the 2 hours nap, she slept only at 12 midnight! we were so dead tired by then!

Sunday

breakfast, check out followed by ferry ride at 9.15am.

this time, rachel enjoyed the ferry ride...she was laughing gleefully when the wind blew against her face... :)

got home just before 10am. bathe, get dress and headed to church to attend the 11am service.

all in all, it was a good retreat...an extremely tiring one but definitely fun. i truly enjoyed the time spent with rachel... so fulfilling....

here are some of the photos taken during the retreat.... to view the full album, you can go here.