Family Reunited

Dan and I had a wonderful weekend in Sugarcreek, Ohio. We attended a marriage retreat through our church and stayed at a wonderful place called the Carlisle Inn. The accommodations were amazing and we especially loved the king size bed. Sara stayed with my Mom and Mya stayed with my Dad and Kim. Mya did great at my Dad's house, but Sara had a tough time being away from us. My mom called us late Saturday afternoon to let us know that Sara was miserable and had a terrible cold. So she was so gracious and drove Sara to Sugarcreek so we could stay at the retreat. Sara stayed the night with us and did great. All the married couples at the retreat LOVED having Sara around. She got passed around all night. She slept through the night and took a nap during the church service in the morning. When we arrived at my Dad's house to pick up Mya we were greeted by Mya and Kim at the front door. Mya was so excited and yelled "Mommy, mommy, mommy!" and ran into my arms. Then she saw Dan get out of the car and yelled "Dan, Dan, Dan!" and ran into his arms. That was the funniest thing ever. Occasionally she will call him Dan because she hears Hannah call him that but she doesn't do that very often. For some reason she felt like she needed to call him Dan instead of Daddy today. Once we picked up Mya we went to the grocery store and headed home to unpack everything. Back to reality! The girls were pretty needy and wanted to be held all the time. Sara even fell asleep in her highchair during dinner. She didn't sleep much when she was with my mom so she was very tired today. She took lots of naps!



The marriage retreat was centered around the movie Fireproof. If you haven't seen the movie yet, please make sure that you do. It is excellent. Dan and I saw it in the theatre, but it was great to see if again to be reminded of how important it is to take care of our marriage. We find it difficult sometimes to focus on our marriage because the kids take up so much of our time. At the retreat we had some great conversations with couples. One couple had a great testimony about how they did not have to go through the 'empty nest' experience when their kids left home. They talked about how they put their marriage first while their kids were growing up so when their kids left home they were excited to have a quiet house and be together. That makes so much sense! Dan and I try to date each other, but we know how easy it is to put that on the back burner.

God is our first love, then we love each other, and then we love our kids. This is such an important concept to keep in mind. The speaker that we had on Saturday talked about how we need work hard at saying five things to our spouse when we have conflict (except I can only remember four things right now). We need to say, "I'm sorry.....I was wrong.....forgive me.......I love you." We talked about how important it is to have your heart be involved with these words rather then just saying them so the conflict can be over. I am so guilty of saying "I'm sorry" so we can be done with the debate rather then saying it because I really mean it. Barriers in your marriage get broken down when these phrases are said from the heart. And we know that when barriers get built up over time it is hard to break them down. This happens in all relationships when we don't want to let go of things. God and only God can be the one to give you a spirit of forgiveness when you don't want to forgive. So if you have God in your heart then He can make your marriage great!