We survived the ski trip!  Okay, so we survived it over a week ago … but it’s taken a while for me to recover my blogging abilities and I’m still catching up on the sleep deprivation (having a high school ski trip one weekend, and a middle school winter retreat the next weekend will do that to a guy)!  All that to say, we had a blast.  Forty of us headed off to Shawnee Mountain where we stayed at the Summit Lodge – literally on the summit of the mountain.  Check out the photo at the bottom of this post; we stayed at the top of Shawnee, just a handful of steps from the top of the lift and the slopes.  It was awesome because we could literally wake up and the morning and start skiing!  It also meant we had the mountain to ourselves once the lifts closed down!

Another highlight was Pastor Mark coming along (see photo below)!  He’s our church’s teaching pastor, and a snowboarder!  It was great to have him on the slopes with us, and hanging up in the lodge with the leaders and students.  I enjoyed seeing the difference in how the teens interacted with him at the end of the weekend as opposed to the beginning – definitely a win for building connections between kids and another member of the pastoral staff!