AVacation with a Purpose, that is how it is advertised at the Conference Center. We have attended the conference center off and on for the past 10 years.  For the last 6 times or so we've gone the same week.  The kids have made some friends here and look forward to seeing them each year at the conference center. We've made friends here some through our kids some just by eating dinner with other people.  We've been encouraged by the speakers, by the staff, and by other guests here.  We've been exhorted to examine our walk here.  Each year it seems as though we come away with a message that we've needed.  This year was no different.   I look back on the earlier years that we took our kids here. It was so important to have that time that we could really relax and have alone time too.  The kids would be off with their class or we'd sign up for the night of free baby sitting and just reconnect.  For me it has always been a ideal vacation.  We go to one spot and stay.  I didn't need to worry about where we would eat or what to make.  I didn't have dishes to do or beds to make.  It was a vacation for me as well as for everyone else.  For the last few years we didn't need to get a baby sitter anymore.  All the kids are old enough to hang out in the rec center without us and they don't always want us to be there.  John and I had way more time alone, we didn't have our three little chaperons with us.  It felt new and weird almost.  Freedom goes both ways - for the parents and for the kids.  It's a new era that we are entering into.  We gave them a curfew and they followed it.  Except for one night when Isaac didn't come home until after 12:30!  Yikes.  We were angry, worried, frustrated.  I imagined all sorts of horrible things such as passing out from low blood sugar on the beach.  He was with all the other high school kids talking about biblical issues and their lives.  He had told an adult about it, just not us.  How do you get upset about that, he was doing something good and positive with a bunch of kids.