Lovefest 2009 (as it was dubbed by my sister) began on Friday night with the kick-off of the marriage conference at our church that ran through the day on Saturday. Probably doesn't sound like the most exciting way to celebrate, but we kind of felt like the best way to honor the commitment we made to each other five years ago would be to learn how to make the next five, ten, twenty, fifty years together even better. Actually that was one of the key points too - that successful marriages are all about managing the decisions made early on. It's so easy to let circumstances and feelings dictate how we live, but love is not a feeling, it's a choice - one that you have to make over and over again throughout your marriage. Oh man, now I got myself started...let me get my notes. Feel free to skip to the pictures since that's why you came, but if you're married (or would like to be someday), please consider this list of Six Essentials of a Healthy Marriage:
- Trust God. Make Him the center of your home.
- Hurry home. Make your time together a priority.
- Intentionally cultivate communication. go deeper than "how was your day?", really make an effort to hear each other ...that's what I took away, I didn't write notes on this one
- Nourish romance. ...or this one...guess we've got those two figured out - ha!
- Celebrate differences. Work together to meet in the middle
- Finish together. Mean what you said in your vows, "til death parts us". There is peace in knowing that whatever disagreement, conflict, pain you are in...nobody's going anywhere.
I guess the bottom line of what I walked away with is don't wait until something's broken in your marriage to try to fix it - do "preventative maintainence" now! And in between all the serious stuff, we laughed at illustrations we could relate to, ate a lot of good food, drank a ton of coffee, chatted with our friends and really had lots of fun!
After the conference, we checked into the Ross Bridge resort for a mini-anniversary trip (look at us working on number 4 already - quite the overachievers).
Dinner at Bonefish grill was amazing, and we thought we'd really lucked out by getting seated right away. Until we looked at the clock when we left, realizing it was only 7:10 and the Saturday dinner rush had only just begun! (Can take the parents away from their baby, but can't the baby's schedule away from his parents!)
me and my hottie honey at dinner...daaang
We decided to forgoe dessert at the restaurant and instead picked it up on the way home. Words just can't describe the glee I felt lounging around with a glass of wine, watching a movie and eating chocolate cake out of the box with spoons. Heaven!
The next morning, I got a text that said "the snow at Ross Bridge must be beautiful!" Huh? Of course, snow had been predicted but that's just not something we take very seriously here in Birmingham. However, we scrambled to open the curtains to find a winter wonderland outside our patio!
I know how it looks, but I promise I didn't photoshop myself into this picture! I was there, standing in the snow with no coat on - trust me, I remember.
to another. :)
As for Ben, he had an awesome time with G&G - pretty sure they enjoyed themselves* too. See some of their antics here. Thanks for coming Mom and Dad; our weekend wouldn't have been possible without your help!*I've been assured that Tooltime with Grandpa and Ben was closely surpervised.
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