Park City Retreat 2014

Last Saturday we had our SEVENTH Retreat at my parents' lovely home in Park City, UT. (This was our 34th Retreat overall - I can hardly believe we've gotten to such high number of motherhood gatherings! You can check out links to reports on all of them here if you feel like it.)

I love our annual Park City Retreat. I love the comfort of being in my parents' house and presenting alongside them. I love the big open great room where we get to meet - the room is so full of light from the big windows and that combined with the light radiating from so many beautiful and smart and devoted mothers makes for a LOT of light. I love that so many of our Power of Moms Board members are always there to help since we do our annual Board meeting the same weekend as this Retreat (their help is so welcome and their supportive presence is wonderful). I love that SO many fabulous moms always sign up and that I get to learn so much from them while they learn from each other and from the presenters.

Here's what my mom wrote about the Retreat:
On Saturday we had the most amazing Power of Moms retreat with 90 moms. Saren and April have become such pros at putting on these events and have a wonderful way of capturing the audience with wisdom and humor. Nineteen of the 40 or so Power of Moms Board members were here and pitching in to help with all their might. The caterer fell through at the last minute so Saren and Koni, a loyal board member who is on staff bought all the food and everyone jumped in to help prepare a delicious lunch and a plethora of snacks for all those women who were not only open and attentive to what was being said, but so helpful to each other as they broke up into small groups to talk about their individual needs and soak in ideas for their own lives. 

And here are some photos - I only had my phone with me as a camera and I was presenting and dealing with logistics a lot but I'm glad I can share at least some sense of what the day was like through the photos I got.

When everyone arrived, we did some "speed friendshipping" (sort of like "speed dating" where people spend 5 minutes asking each other some fun motherhood-related questions and then switch and talk to someone else until everyone's met a few new people and we start the day as friends)

We managed to fit all 90 participants quite nicely in my parents' great room for our large-group sessions that centered on basic principles, self-assessment and brainstorming for how we can take better care of ourselves mentally, emotionally, socially, physically and spiritually as well as basic principles and ideas for how we can set up stronger systems in our home that will help our children behave better and help make our family life more fun and more smooth while we teach our children what they need to know.

My mom did a beautiful keynote speech about the magic and messes and miracles of motherhood:

We did some personal reflection and self-assessment:

We spent a good chunk of the day meeting in small groups, really learning from each other:

My dad talked about prioritizing serendipity in our lives while simplifying our planning and feeling more success through choosing just three "choose to do's" each day (one thing for ourselves, one thing for our families, one thing for our work - be that the house, paid employment, or volunteer/community/church work) that will go ahead of our "have to do's" and help us put first things first.

It was a beautiful day and we got to hold our lunch discussions outside. So nice.

There was plenty of laughter mixed with a fair amount of tears and comforting and solution-brainstorming. Motherhood involves all that - every day.

 And after we said goodbye to our wonderful Retreat attendees, our Board members stayed for a Board dinner and meeting where we had a really great time reporting back on what everyone is working on and talking about exciting plans for the upcoming year. I'm so so so so so grateful for these wonderful ladies (and the 20 other members of the Board who couldn't join us in person since they live all over the place) who selflessly donate their time and talents to the cause of Power of Moms:

What a day! And what a priviledge it is for me be part of all this.