The Retreat

A beautiful Friday evening to start our spring retreat at The Center.

After dinner, we colored eggs with natural dyes that Lois had all ready and cooking.  Here is onion skins, red cabbage, daffodils. 

Later, we watched "Miss Potter", the most wonderful movie about Beatrix Potter with Renee Zellweger.  And, before bedtime, we still took time to make little sheep with the wool from the sheep at The Farm.

And crepe paper snowdrops...

and crocus.

Here they are in our little pots; the crepe paper snowdrop and crocus.....and a real little daffodil from Lois' garden.

One of my little sheep...

and another.  They are the sweetest!

A big happy table in the dining room with the best home-cooked meals.

Breakfast, on Saturday.  A yummy skillet topped with eggs, bacon, oatmeal and delicious fresh fruit.

And on to the schedule of the day.  First, making our journals.  I showed them how to put together a simple little book with an easy pamphlet stitch.

All ready for lots of good notes.

Sewing.

A walk over to The Farm and it's again such a pretty day.

Time to cut a few branches to put in water and wait for their blooms.

A red-wing watches us.

And, of course, a visit to The Children's Farm.  This beautiful bunny's name is "Peter Rabbit"!  How about that for our Beatrix Potter theme!

Sweet little chick.

The ladies having a chat on the windowsill.

Just look at that sweet face.

Baaa Baaa!

And the resident barn cat.

Showy magnolia by the chapel; just beautiful.

And daffodill coming up all over.

Back to our creativity, we collaged some Easter cards.

Pastel and pretty!

I did get some of the gals to blow eggs and here are a couple of my samples that I showed them.

Really pretty for hanging on our branches that we cut.

I kept seeing a chickadee fly into this tree stump, so Julie went over to investigate but couldn't see him.

Above are the "pink noses" of the Bloodroot peeking out last Thursday...

and here they are on Saturday, all blooming!

How about this little visitor!  He was sunning nicely under a tree along the path.

So, I finally sat down to journal for a while.  Some quiet time.

with a few pictures included from Beatrix Potter.

"There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story.  You never quite know where they'll take you."  Beatrix Potter

It was Denise's birthday on Saturday too, so for our "good-bye" tea, the chef baked her a beautiful and delicious birthday cake.  Decorated like a quilt for our quilting teacher!

Happy Birthday, Denise!