Couples Retreat

Ray signed us up for a couples retreat this last weekend with his work.  It was held out at the Wyndham Bay Point Resort on Panama City Beach.  We checked in at 4 p.m. on Friday and got about an hour to get settled in our room.  Since we had a larger family they put us in the one bedroom Golf Villas.  We had a living room with a small kitchenette.  The sofa made into the bedroom.  The bedroom had two double beds.  The kids favorite part was the balcony that connected the living room and the bedroom. It looked out on the golf course.

At 5 p.m. we checked the kids into the child care.  They were served dinner there.  We had dinner at 6 and then our first session went from 7-9.  They used the "Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage" videos by Mark Gungor.  The first night we just started with the "Tale of Two Brains."  It discussed the difference between how men and women think.  He is a funny presenter and we were all laughing.

It took us forever to get the kids down because they were so worked up.  I was up to 11 with Joshua and then took me awhile longer to go to sleep because my brain was still connecting the wires.  But now I know why Ray can go to sleep so easily since he just goes to his nothing box.

We had breakfast at 7:30 the next morning in the hotel's restaurant.  The hotel does not offer a complimentary breakfast but ours was included in the retreat.  Their breakfast buffet is $10 for an adult.  I would never pay that much for the selection they had.  It was a little more than what most hotels offer for free.

Our sessions started at 8:45.  The kids were in childcare until 5 p.m.  They were served lunch.  We finished the "Tale of Two Brains."  Then had a break with a snack.  Then we did our flag pages.  We had already done them before we came and printed them out so we just went over how to understand them and use them in learning how to communicate better with our spouses.  It was really interesting.  Ray and I had a lot of common ground.  I would go into more detail but unless you have done the program you might not know what I am talking about.  It did help me understand why I felt so betrayed by Ray the one time we had an occurrence in his family and why it took me so long to get over it. (Which I am over it and it never really was a major concern about the health of our marriage.  It just took me awhile to figure out how I could let it go.)

They just had sandwiches, salads, and chips for lunch but by the time I finished my lunch I was very full.  We then had sessions on intimacy and how to stay married.  I thought all the sessions were excellent.  We received 4 books on marriage.  Two by Mark Gungor. After all the sessions we had a family dinner and they handed out our completion certificates.  We put the kids back in the childcare for about an hour after dinner to run out and get some donuts for the next morning for breakfast.  The childcare people were excellent and told us our children were well behaved.  They got to go home almost 2 hours early since we were the last ones to pick up our kids.

We went back to the room and I got Joshua down then we just let the kids watch some cartoons before the rest of us went to bed.  We had planned on going to church right from the hotel but Joshua and Kimberly coughed all night and then when we woke up we could tell Kimberly wasn't feeling good and had a fever so we just went home after having breakfast.

We learned that they also try to have a yearly family retreat during the summer so if they do and we are around at that time we will try to sign up for that as well.