I was super-excited for this weekend. We attended Family Life’s Weekend to Remember marriage getaway. Not a lot of travel, and no exotic location, but we’ve wanted to go to this for quite a while, and were REALLY looking forward to the weekend away, to spend time with each other and enrich our marriage.
My dad and step-mom arrived Thursday evening, and we left them in charge as we headed out of town on Friday morning. We (mostly) turned off the cell phones and the computers, and just enjoyed each other’s company. We don’t do that enough – which we’ve known for a while, but it was made abundantly more clear over the weekend, that we need to spend time on us more often – even if it’s just time doing something together in the evenings at home after the kids go to bed, or an evening out – not necessarily for a whole weekend.
We got to Kansas City several hours before the conference started, so we did a little bit of shopping before getting checked into the hotel. We then had a cocktail, a game of pool and a light dinner before the conference started. Friday evening, all day Saturday, and Sunday morning were in the conference sessions, which were excellent. I definitely recommend the Weekend to Remember for anyone having issues in their marriage, or to just draw closer and get some helpful hints for your marriage. Key topics were: why marriages fail, communication, God's plan for marriage, resolving conflicts, the roles of a wife & mother/husband & dad (men and women were separated for this part). There were also special break-out sessions for engaged couples.
I would recommend if you go to one, to stay at the conference hotel - it was helpful to have that private space to work on the projects in the time allotted between sessions. Also, focusing only on my spouse and the conference material was a big bonus, without having to think about kids and/or things that need to be done around the house. :)
Saturday evening was a planned date night - as part of the conference schedule. We had done some research and found a really nice restaurant, and a fun activity. We made it to our dinner reservation at Bristol Seafood Grill, and pigged out on ivory salmon (Jock) and crabcakes (Lisa). Then we headed over to the UMKC to see a production of Cabaret at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre. We were seated right on-stage, which meant that we just couldn’t get up in the middle of the show – which, why would we anyway?! Being on-stage meant that the cast was no more than 20 feet from our seats, and we were actually behind them, facing the audience. The stage rotated at times, and the scenes were set such that the actors faced both the main seats and the on-stage audience. We also could sometimes see how they did things, and when something was about to happen. It was such a fun experience!
Sunday after the conference we stopped at one more store for a quick purchase, then grabbed a lunch to go, to make the three-hour drive back home to our crew. They survived the weekend, although it seems everyone was worn-out by the end of the busy weekend! My sister and kids came down for part of the weekend too, because one of my nephews was wrestling at the state AAU tournament and one of my neices had a gymnastics meet, so that made things really busy around our house! Kind of wished we could have spent more time with them while they were here, but so glad we were able to get away, just the two of us, for a bit.
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