Survive or Thrive

     A couple of weekends ago, I was blessed to be able to attend a women's retreat all in English, although I certainly heard a lot of Spanish since half the women were Mexican.  The theme of our weekend was "Survive or Thrive."  It was such a wonderful weekend with such special treatment from the retreat team.   It is so easy in this life to just survive and not even realize that we are not thriving.  We are eight days away from our first anniversary in Mexico.  We arrived May 12, 2009 and I know in this past year, I have done a lot of surviving but I don't want to just survive, I want to thrive.  I want to step into the river and live life to the fullest. 

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My dear sweet daughter made me some cards to take with me.  They say, "Te Amo Mi Mama" ("I love you mama", in Spanish) and "I love you, have fun." 

Saturday, during lunch, everyone had a birthday party.  We sat at tables based on the months of our birthday.  My birthday is in November and so our table was decorated for fall.  Then, everyone received a pair of earings as a gift.  What a special time.  There was one lady who had never had a birthday party in her life.  What a neat time for her and for many others.

The fall decorations on our table.

We even had birthday cakes decorated for the season of our birthday.

Later in the afternoon, we learned how to knit.  I have knit before, since my grammy had taught me, but I haven't done it for years.  It was so much fun!

There were even a couple of ladies getting manicures and acrilic nails.

Another knitting picture.

There were games available for those who wanted to play them.

Here I am with the guest speaker. 

I made a new friend, Susy, who has a daughter the same age as Erin.

Libby and Kim were there also.  Kim is David's mother, Jonathan's friend.  Libby came with Kim.