Recreate: Lake Arrowhead Part 1

Late last year, our Missional Community decided to take a vacation together. We researched various SoCal hot spots and perused the selection of Air BnB's in our area. We were thinking of renting a house near the city but the more we talked about the trip we realized we wanted it to be out in nature. We immediately fell in love with the idea of a mountain top adventure and moved forward with plans to spend a weekend in Lake Arrowhead. It came to be the perfect opportunity for rest and creation for our little God family. 

Lake Arrowhead is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever visited. A small but quaint mountain village, the city itself sits about 25 miles from it's sister lake, Big Bear. Unlike the larger Big Bear village, Arrowhead is nestled off the main freeways and winds up into the trees and hillsides.

We left Friday afternoon and hit some traffic getting out of LA (as if the city wanted to keep us). It is always odd leaving LA by car, we are reminded of the vast expanse of outlying districts cities laying just around around us. I always find it hard to imagine life in the burbs of LA but there was a beauty to being out in the expanse and so close to the San Bernardino Mountains. We arrived at the Lake around 5:30 pm and got out of the car just in time to see the sun start to set over the mountains.

We found our incredible house on Air BnB and it's rankings and comments insured it was the best choice. The houses in the neighborhood all sit precariously atop rows of evergreens and each seems to feature a steep incline clad with wooden decks and patios. When you looked out over the area it was as if a toy village had been brought to life, the yellow lights from nearby cabins glittered the purple sunset scape. It reminded me of eastern Europe. We tucked into our rooms and played around the deck, snapping shots of the fading sun and giddily laughing about the hours to come.

  

  

 After a while we left the coolness of dusk and entered into the warmth of our new cabin home. We spent the evening eating home made turkey chili and smores by the fire, playing card games and a few sneaky rounds of sardines. There we were, nine grown adults running around the house like children - it was absolute bliss.

Saturday morning greeted us with clear blue skies and sunshine and we welcomed the unusually warm weather for "winter". We had breakfast out on the deck and crammed our plates with pancakes and homemade sausage rolls.

We used the gorgeous morning light (and a relatively open schedule) to have an outdoor discussion about our MC and where we wanted it to go in 2016. As most of our group is new, to either our church or LA, we wanted to make sure we had unity in terms of goals for the year. Going through our covenant was one of the best discussions. We talked about where we hoped God would lead us as well as the attitudes and routines we wanted to adapt together, to care well for each other and for our city. And of course, planning parties and outings in LA would be high on our list. It was the perfect beginning to what would be one of the best weekends I have spent in California. Stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow!

xoxo

~ A ~