BPC Retreat

Last weekend (Oct. 6-8) I went a short company retreat with my little job I have. (In case you forgot, I do a little work for my friend Stacy and her company BigPictureClasses.com. ) I was thrilled that i was invited to come since I only work about 10-20 hours a month. The retreat was up in Washington in a little town called Leavenworth. I LOVE Leavenworth, it is so beautiful!. It's a little Bavarian-style village nestled up in the Cascade mountain range. It is where you go to get away from the city and you feel like you are in another country. In the fall the leaves are beautiful and you can watch the Salmon spawn up the river and in the winter you can ski and cross country ski and the summer is just gorgeous with lakes and rivers nearby. There are lots of fun shops in town to explore. I don't think I had been there since Ashley was a toddler.

I had a bit of a challenge getting there! I should have know that when I got to the airport and my flight gate changed 3 times that I was in for a long day! (and they weren't in the same terminal! I got my exercise!) I had to be leave for the airport at 4:30am because my flight left at 6:00. I was on a flight to Spokane, WA and it stopped in Reno and Boise! Crazy Southwest! We were all meeting in Spokane and then driving the 3 1/2 hours to Leavenworth together. We were all to arrive around 10am and get to Leavenworth for lunch. When I got to Boise I got a text from Wendy asking if my flight was going to make it since one of the girls from Denver had her flight cancelled. I figured something was wrong in Denver and said yes! We are leaving in 5 minutes. About the time we were suppose to land the captain gets on the intercom and says we can't land in Spokane because of thick fog! ugh! (fog in October is pretty strange! ) The flight was headed to Portland next, so that is where we landed. After talking to Kayce and Stacy, we came up with a plan. The fog was not expected to lift, so I rented a car and drove to Seattle and picked up Dani who was stuck there and then the 2 of us drove to Leavenworth and met everyone there. It was fun to get to know Dani, I had never met her, just emailed her. I left the airport at 12:30 and got to Leavenworth at about 5:45... 5 hours and 285 miles!

It killed me to drive through Bellevue and not have time to call my family there! The good news is that is was a beautiful day and I really enjoyed the drive. the leaves were changing and everything was so green! I was in heaven! The retreat was at a place called the Sleeping Lady. It was nestled in the mountains on the Icicle river. It was so pretty! I wanted to spend every minute outside! I kept asking if we could have our meeting by the river! Unfortunately we needed a computer and powerpoint. We did a lot of team building and communication activities. I learned lots!!
 

Stacy and I after an amazing meal. The food was to die for!

Wendy, Me and Stacy. It was great to be with these 2 great friends!

Sarah, Kayce and Dani.

I really wanted to jump in the river. it was so pretty!

Wendy and Stacy

Kathy and Kiley. (Kathy did all the team building and communication activities for us. She is amazing! )

Brandi and Wendy

Wendy and I enjoying the beautiful surroundings!

Kayce and Sarah

The place we stayed was amazing. They had beautiful artwork everywhere! I loved this little guy!

The food was SO GOOD! All the fruit was fresh and everything was organic and prepared so good. On the menu they would list all the local farms that all the food came from. SO cool!

The river we were on...

More art work... a Dale Chihuly piece. It was lit up at night!

Again, the food was so good! Fresh and full of spices and flavors!

The view from the restaurant.

They had these cool fish all over the river bank.

So pretty!

On Friday we spent a few hours walking around the shops in town. It was so fun! Lots of fun things. We didn't have enough time!

Wendy and Dani

The tree's were just starting to change...

I had a great time getting to know the BPC team! I work with some amazing ladies!! I wish I had more time to visit family and friends in my home state... oh well. I kept telling myself I was in Nebraska or somewhere that I knew no one! We drove home through eastern Washington and flew home from Spokane. Luckily my trip home was non eventful! I litterally drove all ove rthe state by the time I went home!