Marriage Conference

This weekend Tom and i were privileged enough to attend "Weekend to Remember" marriage conference, which is put on on by Family Life. Family Life offers all full time pastors and their wives free admission to the weekend long conference. this worked out wonderfully for us. since they bless Pastors in this way, we were able to splurge and stay at the fabulous Amway Grand Plaza Hotel. This was a wonderful get-a-way for tom and i. The conference was really good, alot of it was stuff that we already knew but it is good to be reminded of. Some of the sessions were really thought provoking and the get you talking about things you may never have thought to discuss before. we got to learn about each other, and about ourselves. it was a truly amazing weekend for us. we got to be alone together and focus on our marriage, which even in a marriage as wonderful as we consider ours to be there are always areas that can be improved. i would suggest that anyone who is married, about to be married or has been married for forty or fifty years should attend this conference. We stayed in a beautiful room, that had a lovely marble bathroom, a king size size bed with the most comfy pillows ever! this is something we plan to try to do every year, maybe not the conference, but definitely a few days away. probably a less expensive hotel but we will take the time to go away from everyday life and focus on each other and our marriage relationship. something we have never done before.
We have not been able to go away alone together for four years. We have always had a tough time leaving Isaac, being a special needs child has always made it very difficult for us to go away. Until this month we have never actually done so, but we decided that it was time for us to take the plunge and trust others with his care. we did so a few weeks ago for our winter retreat with our students and everything went great, toms parents came to watch him and he did wonderfully. we missed him way more than he missed us. this weekend my mom and aunt Camelia came out to stay and care for him so that tom and i could attend the conference. i don't think he missed us at all, in fact im not sure he even noticed we were gone he had such a good time.
there was a glitch in the program though, it was saturday night when tom and i were just starting our date night. we had just hung up the phone from telling isaac goodnight. we were sitting down to eat our wonderful room service spread complete with table, centerpiece and all, when the phone rang and it was my mom, isaac was having a seizure. we knew that it could happen, had prayed that it would not happen, but left very detailed instructions for what to do if it did happen, and unfortunately it did. they handled everything great though. it was very short, maybe only a minute, and then he came out of it on his own with out needing to take the major medication, or go to the hospital. it was really hard for us to not be there with him, its never happened without us around. we all survived it though. mom and aunt camelia didn't panic, they just did what needed to be done and called us right away. tom and i did pretty good too. we resisted the urge to get in the car and drive home, and after about a half hour of crying i got over it and we were able to get back to our date and have a great night. in the end it was a wonderful weekend, and not only did we get to learn about our marriage, but we learned that if something does happen with isaac, we are not the only people who can handle it.