It always seems like the retreat goes too quickly... BUT what a great time...

Sydney and I had a great weekend... definately had a super time making some memories. As we walked back into my folks' house to pick up Jake, Micker Mackers and Bug Bug... My dad asked, "So, are you good for another 100,000 miles?" Which is a great analogy. We are tuned up and ready to go... athough, we are tired after the weekend... you think it is going to be restfull, but it never seems like you are rested. It was fun though. We had a Jacuzzi bathtub in our bedroom that fit probably 3 or 4 people... Sydney and I "sprawled out" our naked bodies in that thing a few times... (definately wouldn't mind having one of those at home.) Anyway, as I mentioned last week, Sydney and I needed a talent for the talent show... Well, Sydney and I were on our 2 & 1/2 hour trek from my folks' place to the resort trying to come up with something that we could do for a talent... Suddenly, Sydney came up with a truly brilliant idea... since we were going to a couples' retreat... what if... we did... COUPLES' FEAR FACTOR? Suddenly an evil grin spread acrossed my face... Fantastic. Idea. It was a hit. We actually stopped by a dollar store and picked up a bunch of cheap supplies such as bowls, containers, towels, gummy worms... plastic bugs.... and metal handcuffs (which we may use for other things at a later time...lol ) So when it was our turn to display our talent, we first got some volunteers... we said that we needed 3 couples to help us with our talent... and sure enough... these poor unsuspecting couples volunteered. We then explained to the audience that Sydney and I combined our talents of watching TV (me) and thinking up "devious" things (Sydney) to come up with... "COUPLES' FEAR FACTOR!" You should have seen our contestants eyes get really big... it was great. Our contestants consisted of:

Christine (Chris) and Jeremy (Jer)
age: early 20's

Robin and Jimmy
age: early 30's; and

Kevin and Karla
age: Early to Mid 40's.

But just so they knew that we weren't setting them up to look like fools... (which in reality we were... but to keep them from being mad at us...) the couple who won would receive a 2 disc romantic CD set along with a $20 gift card to Applebee's so they could enjoy a romantic evening together. Once they heard this... the competition was on. The first stunt consisted of one of the two dunking their head into a bowl of water and sucking up gummi worms with their mouths and then running over to the blender to spit them in... then they had to suck up milk chocolate whoppers (malted milk balls) into their mouths and then spit them into the blender... finally, they had to run back to the table take big swigs of Sprite into their mouths and spit that into the blender and keep doing this until they had emptied the glass... they then had to blend up the contents and their spouse had to guzzle it down. The first couple to attempt this stunt was Chris and Jer and wouldn't you know it... Jer started gagging and spitting the drink back into his cup... It was so funny... Sydney felt bad... my response was: "That is flippin hilarious... who gags on gummi worms, whoppers and sprite? ... Besides that, how can you have 'Fear Factor' without some one gaging and spewing all over the place?!?" Tell me readers, am I not right? :) Anyway the other two couples made it through without a hitch. (Although, we did have a hard time not laughing as Jer ended up over the toilet in the bathroom with dry heaves...) LOL . Too Funny. We didn't stop the show for him though because, after all, this was a cut-throat competition... a romantic dinner was on the line... ;) (For all you sympathetic readers out there... Jer was quite the competitor and came out after a few minutes with a big smile on his face... He could see the humor in it as well.) Anyway, the first round was a non-elimination round. If they completed it successfully, they got to keep their Fear Factor shirts we gave them (Yellow T-shirts that we stenciled "Fear Factor" on them in permanent ink.) However, the combination of times both on the first and second event were used to determine who would make it into the final stunt. But before we get to that... the second stunt consisted of our "contestants" searching through a container of chocolate pudding and "bugs" with their mouths to find a set of keys that would unlock three pairs of hand cuffs... meanwhile, their spouse was handcuffed to a chair across the room. Once they found the keys, they had to run over and un-cuff their spouse from the chair and then they both had to search the rooms to find two fear factor flags and then run and attach them to the front door. After completing the first two rounds, Kevin and Karla had to take "the walk of shame." So that left Chris and Jer and Robin and Jimmy. The final "stunt" consisted of the couples being duct taped back to back in a couple of kitchen chairs along with their wrists and legs being duck taped... while being pelted with nerf balls that were shot from nerf sling shots by their opponents... after getting out of the duct tape, they had to run across to a pile of balloons and pop the balloons together with their teeth until they found the flag with "Fear Factor" written on in and then run over and hand it to Sydney... Chris and Jer went first and finished with a time of 24 seconds... (We know... pretty quick for getting out of duct tape... never buy duct tape from a dollar store... pretty weak.) Robin and Jimmy went last and finished with a time of.......
27 seconds.
Chris and Jer: "Apparently Fear is not a Factor, for you!"
To top the whole event off... Sydney and I won a prize for the most creative talent... which is pretty cool. Ultimately, it was a big hit for a couples' marriage retreat. And Sydney, You are the best when it comes to ideas... ;)

In short, fun was had by all this weekend... we learned alot from our speakers... we were challenged in areas of our marriage and family life... we ate alot of food... had some fun times individually as couples... ordered in Famous Dave's Barbeque for one of our meals... ultimately, we just enjoyed the weekend.

It always seems like the retreat goes too quickly... but what a great time...