Another Weekend Retreat

Quote of the Week: I am still determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our joy or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances. – Martha Washington

This weekend was a relaxing whirlwind – if that makes any sense. I started my Thursday/Friday off coming down with yet ANOTHER cold. I was looking forward to a nice, slow, relaxing weekend home with the hubs (home being the KEY word). Well, I received a phone call from David at 4:30 Friday afternoon saying that we had been selected to go on a weekend army retreat (bodies were needed in seats and our bodies were apparently the only ones available). While generally, under any other circumstance, I would have thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity, I felt less than thrilled on this particular occasion…

About 5 minutes later, I received an email from the brigade with all the information about the retreat. It appeared to be more of a spouse retreat, as opposed to a soldier-spouse retreat. I called and confirmed that it was A-OK for David to actually go (I mean, he WAS the one they told to go!) Long story short, the answer was YES, he could go and it was for spouses and soldiers. Great. The retreat began at 5:00PM, was an hour away, my husband was still at work, packing still had to be done, and it was 4:45PM.

So we went.

The retreat was actually pretty good. It had a lot of material we had already seen, but it was very nice to have a refresher course. It was especially nice to meet other ladies that had spouses in David’s brigade/battalion. And if you’re wondering – there were NO other soldiers there (other than the chaplains conducting the retreat) because they were all at pre-deployment training. The only thing that is MORE awkward than being a new military spouse, albeit an officer’s spouse, is bringing your husband to a Deployment Readiness Retreat (for spouses) when they actually should have never been there to begin with.  Ugh is all I had to say. Luckily, the ladies were kind and understanding (after a bit of light hearted explaining on my part).

Anyways, the retreat was held at the Pinehurst Resort and Spa … a nice southern fancy place. It was very pretty and a place we probably would have never decided to go if we were not in the Army.

I was a little disappointed that we did not get a king bed in our room (as shallow as it sounds, it played a BIG factor in me even deciding to go in the first place…we have a queen bed and it is definitely nice to stretch out on a king if given the chance!) It’s ok though…David squished the two full size beds together, so we had a double full size…or something like that!

It kinda freaked me out a little when we found some random man’s shoe under one of the beds David moved…

You know you are at a fancy 4 star hotel when you have $14 M&Ms in your room. And no, I did not open them…

But, the most amazing part of my WHOLE weekend was meeting my dream horse. On the way home Sunday afternoon, I wanted to swing by a horse farm to take a look around. Well, there happened to be a horse show that was going on that day. As we were walking by, I saw the most beautiful Friesian horse. So I was obviously compelled to walk up to the owners and dote on him…and they surprisingly were thrilled we walked over J Score! So, here’s a pic of me and the beautiful man!

I am not a person that fills my head with “One Days” and “I Wish’s”…but seriously, ONE DAY, Lord willing, I will have a Friesian!

This was THE perfect ending to a not so perfect weekend.