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.

open mic night part two

christian and caleb participated in open mic night. they did a song by relient k and it rocked. it was great except when the announcer introduced them as caleb and christina because she couldn't read the sign up sheet. really funny stuff.

open mic night

spring hill hosted an open mic night for students to come and display their many talents. this is morgan rockin out a tune by switchfoot. she did a great job, and i was so proud of her.

this is rachel p. on the climbing wall, she climbed three different sides of it. it was pretty cool to watch.

icicles on our faces

this is tom and i after high speed tubing (don't worry i just watched) tom had icicles in his beard and mustache, and i had icicles on my eyelashes, with frozen mascara all over my face. it was great!

high speed tubing

during our time high speed tubing there was a blizzard so everyone was frozen, but had a great time. In this picture we have maddie, and noelle in the front, and behind them you can see two of our fabulous adult leaders, tom and kylie in their matching fluorescent orange ski masks, they looked great, stayed warm and were very easy to spot despite the blizzard conditions.

leaders moment

this was during our one game of broomball. they took all of the adult leaders onto the ice(pregnant ladies excluded) and marched them around making them do silly stuff follow the leader style in front of the students. it was pretty funny.

Very brrrrrrrr

This weekend went great! Despite the fact that it was a blizzard for much of it and it was the coldest weekend in years, we all had a really good time. We bundled up and headed outdoors for tons of fun. Even tom and i had a great time and we hate winter, well maybe after this weekend i will have to revise that to only a general dislike of winter at least for me. red umbrella, the band that led worship was fabulous, they did a really good job of getting the students involved with the sessions. The speaker was really good too, he talked about the many addictions we all have that keep us from spending time with God and hearing His voice. He illustrated the point very well for them, by showing them how easy it is to drown out the voice of God with all of the useless, time wasting things we all get consumed with on a daily basis. it turned out to be a really great time for every one, and i think that most came home with a better understanding of what it means to follow Christ and hear the voice of God.

Winter Retreat

Ok everyone, tomorrow is the big day. We are leaving for our winter retreat. I am really excited about spending time with our students, and leaders this weekend. i can't wait to see what God does in the hearts of all of us while we are there. It is going to be a great time, even though it is going to be the coldest weekend of the winter. The only thing that i am not looking forward to is leaving Isaac. Yes, you read that right, i am leaving Isaac at home for the first time. This will be the longest amount of time that he and i have ever been away from each other. To be honest im pretty sure the three year old is going to handle it better than i am. I am a nervous wreck about it cause this is Isaac we are talking about, you just never know what is going to happen, and i do not relish the idea of not being here if there is an emergency. His grand parents have been kind enough to arrange their schedule so that they can come to our house to stay with him. we are so very grateful for that. we know that he will be well taken care of and he will have a great time, but it is still hard. pray that everything goes smoothly for Isaac and that he will have a great uncomplicated weekend, and that his mama won't cry too much.