Laura Herr Photography: Breakaway

Tomorrow afternoon, we are leaving for our annual Breakaway winter retreat. This is a youth group tradition that started many, many years ago. Breakaway for Jeremy and I, however, started in 2004 with this amazing group of kids.

For our first year, we actually flew back to New York for the retreat from Michigan, since we were finishing up our last semesters of college. That year, the church had asked Jer to fly out as the speaker.

It was our first experience with the retreat, and it was a great one.

By the next year, Jer had accepted the position of youth pastor at the church, and we had expanded out little family to three.

We commemorated Christian's first Breakaway by laying him down in the snow and taking this picture.

All of these girls, in Jr. High at the time, have now graduated from High School.

2006 was a big year.

It was special too, because this was the year that Jeremy's brother flew out to be the guest speaker. It was also the year that the Seahawks played in the Superbowl, so we had great memories of a post Breakaway Superbowl party that sadly ended in a loss, because the refs made bad calls and determined the game.

In 2007, Ellee attended her first Breakaway.

Many of the kids in this front row started their freshmen year of college this year.

And these guys would grow up to do great things in our youth group.

With each new year, it's just so amazing to see God's great work through this weekend retreat.

Each and every student is so special to us.

It's such a joy to see them grow up and grow closer to God. This amazing kid is now studying at Grace Bible College to train to go into missions. We have been so blessed to work with so many great students.