Weekend to Remember

Jesse and I went to Mars this past weekend--Mars, PA that is. That's near Pittsburgh and less than an hour from both his parents and Katie & Ryan.

We stayed at the Four Points by Sheraton and enjoyed Family Life's Weekend to Remember. Our registration for the weekend was provided by my cousins who had attended the conference and found it to be very valuable. (Thanks Eric & Sunny!!) We also found the conference to have a lot of valuable advice.

As we'd gone through a good pre-marital counseling series less than a year earlier and had some read some excellent books recommended to us, we found much of the information was not new or profound. On the other hand, it was great to get a better grasp on some of the ideas through the stories and examples shared with the speakers. It also encouraged us to renew our intentions to seek God and build up each other.

Friday evening, the conference began by identifying five types of problems that cause barriers to the oneness that is desired in the marriage relationship. This was a great place to start. Things have gone very well for us and we are still very happily married, but it gave us a way to identify potential problems and more concrete situations that we could think about for the rest of the weekend.

Saturday morning, we actually made it up in time to have breakfast at Bob Evans before we went to the morning session beginning at 8:30.

Saturday morning, the conference talked about the purpose and plan for oneness, including defining oneness as when both the husband and the wife are pursuing God's will together. This is where they talked about some of the basic differences between the way men and women receive and process information. (Cordless antenna vs. USS Enterprise sensor array). The morning also included a presentation of the gospel message and a challenge to renew and maintain a relationship with Christ.

One of the morning breaks was an hour and Jesse was feeling a bit hungry, so we headed back over to Bob Evans to get a bite while we worked on our assigned project. When it was time for the lunch break of 1.5 hours, we were more tired than hungry. We talked about a 20 minute nap and then lunch. We ended up setting the alarm for a 35 minute nap. After a couple of hits at the snooze button, our nap ended up being an hour long and we skipped lunch.

Saturday afternoon, they began on a series of sessions on communication, starting with basic communication techniques, such as active listening. The afternoon ended with a session on sexual intimacy, suggesting that this area of a couple's relationship is entirely dependent on every other area of their relationship; not an area that can be improved independent of how the rest of the relationship is going.

Saturday evening was set aside as a date night. Jesse took me out to Shakespeare's for a very good dinner and a relaxing evening chatting and discussing what we were learning!

Sunday morning, we didn't get up quite as early, but still had time for the breakfast buffet at the Eat 'n' Park before the morning session. For the Sunday morning sessions, men and women were split. Each had a session focused on their role as husband/wife in working on oneness in the marriage relationship and on their role as a father/mother.

The conference allowed for a long lunch again on Sunday. We finished packing up and checking out. CiCi's Pizza was for lunch, with plenty of time again to discuss the assignments we were completing and what we were learning in the sessions or thinking about.

Sunday afternoon, the final sessions looked at setting rules for conflict so that it could be done in love and resolved; working to prevent conflicts by avoiding the tooth-for-a-tooth attitude and being blessing to your spouse; and finally the result of modeled oneness becoming a legacy to children and a witness to other families.

With the conference finished, we headed over to Katie & Ryan's. Jesse's parents and Margaret met us there for supper and visiting before we all had to head back to our own homes. Jesse and I drove for a couple of hours Sunday night, stopped to spend the night along the way, and then drove on back to Virginia on Monday morning.

It was truly a Weekend to Remember!

Week of Vacation

It's been a week of "vacation" for us, though maybe not all of it as relaxing as other parts.

A week ago (Friday), Jesse picked up Jer for a week of vacation time. Friday evening, Jesse and Jer trimmed our hedges--which were VERY much in need of trimming. I'd borrowed the bush trimmer from our neighbor Miss K and we needed to get it back to her before we left town.

Saturday was the first clogging competition for the Orange County Cloggers to host and the first ever for BRTC to participate. We did quite well, especially if you ignore the fact that we were the only team in our age division. The team's age division is determined by averaging the ages of all the dancers in the routine. Most of the teams there were solidly teenaged and younger with maybe a couple 20-somethings dancing as leaders in the group. On Thursday at the rodeo, there had been talk of Jesse participating in a round of Cowboy Poker on Saturday at the rodeo. But by the time we headed home from the competition, it was too late for that and I was ready to head straight home and finish packing.

Sunday morning, we headed to church with the car packed for our trip to PA. After church, we grabbed lunch, made a couple of other quick stops, picked up a dog and headed north. Our first stop north of Pittsburgh was to say "hi" to Jesse's sister Margaret at work. We met the entire family--Linda, Ray, Margaret, Katie, Ryan, Christy (minus Dave--We missed you!)--at a mexican restaurant. Margaret was able to get off work a few minutes early so we wouldn't have to wait so late for supper. It was SO good to catch up with everyone!

It was the first time I had been up to Jesse's home since we got married. He'd made two previous trips, but I hadn't been able to join him for either of those.

Sunday evening, we all stayed at the house, so we got to visit more that evening and the next morning. Katie, Ryan, and Christy had to head back home on Monday afternoon. Ryan had injured his ankle some time back and had been unable to work. Just a couple days before, his doctor had released him for "light duty," but his employer didn't have any work for him that qualified as light duty. They were still figuring out their options following that news. They had also recently signed a contract with an agency to represent Christy for possible ad work. We'll see where that goes. Maybe someday, I'll be an aunt to someone famous. :-)

Monday through Thursday involved a lot of sleeping in, relaxing, helping with the family business, visiting, and having fun with Jer.

Jer and I spent one afternoon learning how to play Uno. He had found a game of Attack Uno in the game closet and wanted to play. So we played several games. The first round we didn't use the attack machine and we mostly just concentrated on matching colors or numbers and saying "Uno" when he got down to one card (he won!). With each successive round (and using the attack machine), we talked about some of the different special cards. Of course, his favorite part was hitting the attack button and having the cards spray out at him. Then he had to spread the cards out all over the floor to be able to see them, since he had so many. For the last round, he was starting to complain about never winning. So, we talked about the goal of the game being to get rid of all the cards and I insisted he only push the attack button when he was required to. That round he only had one card left when I finally went out. He would still need some tolerate co-players to play much, but he is definitely understanding most of the concepts!

I was especially pleased that Margaret was able to take off a couple days and spend time with us while we were there! I'm still far from fluent in my signing, but I'm picking up more of conversations and can even contribute a bit of my own. While Margaret has always been Jer's favorite aunt, I think this was one of the first visit's that he really had to try to understand that Margaret is deaf. Previously, there relationship was largely physical teasing and rough housing type activities. This time, Jer was trying to carry on more conversations with Margaret--ask her to play games with him, etc. We kept having to remind him that she was deaf and that she wouldn't hear or understand his requests unless she was looking at him. It was very cute when he wanted her to go outside with him to listen to the evening noises. When we reminded him that she was deaf, he mimed his request to her--please, go-outside, listen?

Other highlights of the week:
Monday was our 7-month anniversary. Ok, we didn't do anything really out of the ordinary, but I always enjoy having a reason to remind him that I'm glad I married him! :)

Wednesday, Jesse had a chance to meet with his sensei and another karate student to have a workout, even though there was none scheduled for the week. After the workout, we made a stop by Grove City College where he attended college. We got to walk around the campus and see in a few of the buildings. The library was closed (shorter summer hours) by the time we visited campus.

Thursday, we headed back to Virginia. We stopped at clogging on our way home. We got to hear a bit more about the results of the clogging competition. Jesse also heard a rumor that he'd been assigned some new responsibilities at work while he was gone. He made sure to head to work on Friday morning to find out more about that!

In his heading to work before I did Friday morning, I forgot to pick up my keys from his car, so I was left stranded at home for the day. I've been relaxing, working on unpacking, checking work e-mail, and reading a couple books--one fun and one for work.

We've got another weekend ahead of us! Life is grand!