Oh The Places We've Been...

It seems like we've been doing a lot of things lately in between these writings! I am very happy to say though that we are home here in Illinois for a full week now. With no where to go or meetings (other than work and studies) to keep. That's a nice feeling. The traveling and all we've done are wonderful too!! We very much look forward to the times when our schedules let us go visit family and do special trips together. Last weekend opened up for us to spend Friday through Monday with our family in Indiana. We haven't been to either of our parents since the Christmas holidays. And we were due for a good dose of family time. Thank you very much Mom and Dad Smith and company for a very fun time eating, catching up, and just being all together!

The past three days we have been attending a marriage conference hosted by Family Life, called "Weekend To Remember." Through a wonderful gift from Stephen's school we were able to attend under a scholarship. The conference was held at a resort about 10 miles from our house which allowed us to stay here at the apartment. Stephen was fully looking forward to the event, where as I was thinking it would just be nicer to stay home. I am very glad that we didn't do that! I highly recommend you visiting www.familylife.com to find a conference nearest to you. The environment was very non-threatening and addressed all spectrums of marriages, bringing biblical truth to the purpose and direction of marriage. This week we will celebrate our 8 month anniversary and are thankful to have had this opportunity to begin actively choosing God's priorities for our marriage. I'll switch over the keyboard to the guy who attended with me now...

Hello. As Jessica has explained, we've been privileged to spend this weekend focusing on our marriage and on God's purposes and plans for us. It's been a wonderful weekend, and we can definitely recommend this event to our friends and family. Pastors and their wives are allowed to go for free. Along with approximately 600 other attendees, we studied such topics as threats to oneness in marriage, how to have good communication, and how to leave a godly legacy. Just for fun, we're including two photos below: one that pictures us before this marriage retreat, and one after (NOTE: this picture is done 'tongue-in-cheek' for fun! Jessica and I have had a good first eight months together. Still, we found several very helpful pointers this weekend for how to make our already good marriage even better!)



Before the Conference:



















Afterwards:










This shot is where we would tell each other: "You are NOT my enemy!"