Marriage Retreat



View from our balcony of
the snowy night

This past weekend we were blessed with the opportunity to attend a marriage retreat sponsored by my Collin's job.  Just so my single friends know, his company also offers retreats for single people too.  I honestly think more companies would benefit from offering retreats to their employees.  Work relationships and people's personal relationships are so important in life.  If you live to be old, your boss most likely will not be the one sitting by your death bed, it will hopefully be your family.

Our retreat was in beautiful Garmisch, Germany, in the midst of the German Alps.  Our hotel, most food, and childcare were all provided for.  It was such a blessing to be able to go this year.  We were also excited to finally stay at the Edelweiss Resort. Last time we went to Garmisch it was booked.  Edelweiss is very American-style (which after staying in many European hotels with Caden we really appreciate American-style).  There were also three restaurants in it and every room had a private balcony.  The location was beautiful and the hotel kid-friendly.

 

Reutte, Austria

On the retreat we took a personality test and learned ways to better communicate with one another.  Collin and I are stronger in opposite personality traits but overall are not extreme in any of them.  He is a DC and I am an IS.  I love personality tests and learning about differences between people based on their personality and mine.  Of course my minor is in Communications so anything to do with communication I really enjoy.

On our way to Garmisch we stopped in Reutte, Austria and walked around the cute little town.  I bought a photo snow globe made of plastic that I will put a picture in just for Caden.  He loves the glass snow globes but I'm not about to give him one of those!

  

Besides the retreat we enjoyed taking Caden to play in the snow, letting him ride down a slope in a sled, and taking him swimming in the hotel's swimming pool.  He even had his first experience in a hot tub.  It was outside and it was snowing so the hot tub was more warm than hot.  He really enjoyed it as did we.  Collin and I also did some shopping one afternoon and bought some more essential cold weather gear.  I finally got some ski/snow pants and better gloves for example.  We had thought about going skiing but the mountain with the easy trail down was not opened yet.  We looked at the closest mountain to us and you would have to ski the blue down and it looked a little steeper than we remembered.  Plus it has been a number of years since either of us skied so we decided not to ski this time.

The childcare was actually very good.  Caden doesn't do very well away from us.  However, they tended to his needs and took great care of him.  They even complimented us on Caden's language skills.  They asked Collin if we read to Caden a lot because of all the words he knows and how big of interest he has in books and letters. 

Saturday morning Collin took Caden to the childcare and sadly Caden threw up in the car on the way there.  It was a mess.  Collin ended up not making it to the last session because he was busy cleaning up vomit in the rain and snow.  We are starting to think Caden was probably upset because I was gone and that's why he threw up.  It has been really frustrating trying to figure this out.  He has been on reflux medicine for not even a week and has already thrown up 3 times.  Needless to say, I don't think the medicine is helping.

Other updates: We hopefully have a renter for our house!  Our previous tenants moved out unannounced which made it a little tighter on us financially this Christmas season.  On the positive, I have had several photo shoots these past few weeks and LOVE it!  Meeting new families and kids is awesome.  Helping create precious memories is even better.  We also have a few more Christmas parties to go to and then it will be Christmas.  I hope everyone is staying warm and safe.  Here are a few more pictures from our time in Garmisch.  

Collin and Cade walking in the snow

At the play ground at our hotel

Cade sledding down the hill

Cade about to go down the hill



Beautiful view of the Alps