Strong Bonds Marriage Retreat

The weekend of the 8th and 9th M and I spent the weekend in Orlando attending our first ever Strong Bonds retreat. I will say I was a little nervous with not knowing exactly what to expect, but I was looking forward to a weekend away with my husband. We really don't go out alone very often, so it was great to do this and get paid for it. :) I was really hoping to learn a few new tricks for our marriage and to be honest I don't feel like I really learned anything. The only useful thing I took away from the weekend was reminding myself to give M a timeout when he gets upset. Giving him time to cool down always makes the situation better. Other than that, everything else they talked about we already do in our relationship. Which was good affirmation that we are doing pretty darn good.

I was pretty disappointed in the main Chaplin. She mostly talked about how she didn't have any kids but that she had two dogs. I should have counted how many times she made that statement, that's how often she said it. Instead of her talking about her marriage and how her and her husband make things work for 30 years, she talked about her dogs A LOT. I was not impressed. I understand children add different problems and challenges to marriages, but I'm not sure how having two dogs, even if they are like your children add the same challenges.

Anyways. It still was a great weekend to get away. I took that Friday off work, which I'm really glad I did. We took Roxie down to M's Grandparents house (they were so kind to watch her), then dropped the kids off at preschool. I'm really glad we were able to drop them off together seeing as we wouldn't see them again until Sunday night. Then we ran a few errands and headed up to Orlando. We got there early, had lunch and checked in to our hotel. That evening the session was short, so we went to Bass Pro (looking for .22 ammo, that you cannot find anywhere) and out to dinner. Nothing too exciting.

Saturday the day was filled with the sessions and they carved out time for us to go on a date that night. We decided to head to Universal because we both wanted to go to the land of Harry Potter. M was able to get his tickets for free, so we just had to pay for mine. We ended up at Universal and found out that it was Islands of Adventure where Harry Potter land really was. Oh well. We rode all of the rides we wanted to. I really recommend the Despicable Me ride. It was hilarious!!!!!! That night we treated ourselves and went to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. It was REALLY good, and nice to have an adult dinner where you aren't watching the kids or reminding them to eat. We were just able to relax.

View from our table

We shared a yummy shake there and M was kind enough to let me take a pic :)

Sunday they offered a church service and commitment ceremony, but seeing as we've married each other twice, we decided to skip it and sleep in a little. We were done early that day so we decided to head to Islands of Adventure for the day. It was soooo much fun!!!! We both love riding on roller coasters! It was hardly busy at all, beautiful weather and we didn't have to wait longer than 20 mins for a ride. How awesome is that?

The entrance to Hogwarts :) insert giddy little girl :)

Hogsmeade



Hogwarts



So, all in all it was a great weekend away. I enjoyed spending some alone time with my husband, but I was kind of disappointed in the Strong Bonds retreat. Maybe it would have been different if the person in charge of our group was better, I'm not sure. But sadly I was not impressed. :(