MARRIAGE CAMP

Life continues to hurtle us forward at breakneck speed (my new favorite phrase), and yet I'm still compelled to chronicle every single detail of our engaged life together. Hence today's post: our Pre Cana weekend, aka Marriage Camp.

It was a 2-day course on moving from an "I" to a "We." We spent the weekend with 39 other Catholic engaged couples. Neither Patrick nor I truly knew what to expect and despite a minor instance - or several - when we were forced to engage in friendly banter with a certain individual we'll call "Cal," it turned out to be pretty painless. More on Cal later.

The Pre Cana campus is in the center of South Dallas at the Catholic Reformation Center. As we pulled in I noticed a Chihuahua patrolling the middle of the street as if he were a Great Dane. Ironic, really. We soon parked and found our way to the dining hall mistakenly looking for registration when we found a priest who pointed us in the right direction: "head that way." After we got our weekend packets and nametags, we were back to the dining hall for a bite of breakfast.

As we sat at our breakfast table completing our first "exercise," we noticed every lovey-dovey couple in the place. Now don't get me wrong, Patrick and I are "lovey-dovey" as in, I love him and he loves me. We're good Catholics and believe that all lovey-doveyness - including hand-holding while eating - should be reserved for you and your lovey-dovey only. So I politely tried to ignore the obviously very in love couple at our table as Patrick wolfed down his cinnamon roll.

When we finally made it into our iceberg of a classroom, we chose a table for 2 on the side. Perfect. All seemed to be going well until the last couple showed up 30 minutes after class had started and was forced to sit at the only table left: front and center. It may not have been quite as bad had they not have sported Miller Lite coozies on their water bottles, but I digress. Soon enough, we were on with business.

We took a personality quiz and it confirmed what we knew all along: I'm an extrovert. Shocking, really. Patrick is a "take-charge leader." Lead away, Honey. We then moved on to the art of communicating, finances, leisure time and finally...lunch. Although lunch seemed to come with a rude surprise: the coke machine only accepted DOLLARS. No coins, please. REALLY? Between Patrick, me and the car, we could only come up with $.80 to offer someone in exchange for a dollar. Sadly, I realized that our fellow classmates were not as generous as I would have hoped. So we ventured off campus looking for Diet Coke.


Back on campus. Life chugged along just fine that afternoon and we enjoyed the afternoon but were tres excited when we were let out an hour early that night. Yea us. Unfortunately that was short lived when I realized we had to be up again before the sun was actually up. It's occurring to me now that on Friday I will have had 12 days straight of waking up before the sun. OMG.

Onward to Sunday.

We were back and ready for a full day of life lessons...with a twist. We were now being asked to interact with our classmates in BREAK OUT GROUPS. Luckily for us, Cal was in our group. Armed with our topic: Extended Family, and each other, we started our discussion. Patrick and I got the ball rolling and we were off. We had pretty much covered everything when Cal chimed in. I'm not sure exactly how aware he was that a) he needed to actively listen or b) our group was actually dis-cuss-ing, but I'm thinking not so much because when he decided to participate he was not at all dialed in. My jaw may have hit the table on more than one occasion bc EVERY NEW POINT HE BROUGHT UP was exactly what we had been talking about for 30 minutes. Fortunately though our break out session was over and it was on to lunch. Halleluiah. Lunch, by the way, could not have come any sooner since amazingly I felt like I had run to Canada and back when in actuality I had done nothing more than SIT for the better part of 2 days. Truly amazing.

Overall, the weekend was a good experience and we learned some key things. I like to say we perfected perfection, but that's just my take. No adventure is complete though without a bit of comedy and fortunately that's where Cal came into play. A speical thank you to him. And for you at home, here's a little excerpt from our weekend at Marriage Camp:

Small Talk with Cal about class during lunch.

Us: Is your fiance joining you for lunch? (WHERE THE HECK IS SHE BC THIS CONVERSATION IS KILLING US?)

Cal: Oh, she lives in Columbia.

Us: Really. How did you meet?

Cal: In a chat room. (I'M NOT KIDDING.)

Us: Well that's interesting. How long have you been dating?

Cal: We've actually seen each other 3 times. Twice she has come here and once I visited her apartment in Columbia. She is a lawyer with a child and doesn't have a dryer.

Us: ....

Cal: We actually got married during her last visit but for it to "count," her priest has asked that I do Pre Cana before he marries us in Columbia. Then, she'll move home with me.

Us: ....

Cal: Can you believe she doesn't have a dryer? Did I mention she's a lawyer?

Patrick: Honey, let me take your plate. (AS HE GETS UP AND LEAVES ME. ALONE. WITH CAL.)

Me: It was nice to meet you but we're off to find Diet Coke now. Bye.