Weekend at Edelweiss...

Hello everyone, this is Jessica. Here again to add another post. This time I wanted to share our eventful weekend (last weekend). Have you ever heard of a Marriage Retreat? I am not sure about in the States, but overseas and within this BN and through the Chaplain Services we have them here. There have been Single, Marriage (family), Couple, and Single Parent retreats through out these couple of years we have been stationed here. We had the privilege of going this last weekend to a Marriage Retreat.

So, sometimes I feel annoyed when some say that the Army doesn't take care of it's people. I feel in the latter years (decade) that the Army has and is improving on the subject of Family.

Information is being put out by the communities better through websites and different social outlets such as Facebook and Twitter--two of which I use most.
My community homepage is stacked with information...please visit at IMCOM-Europe USAG Schweinfurt. You can look on-line for just about anything that pertains to your community---you just have to search a little.

Anyway, back to the marriage retreat. We spent two overnights and 3 days at Garmisch at the Edelweiss Lodge and Resort. Such a beautiful place in Germany! Visit their website and see!!

For the highlight of the trip, we had childcare available during the sessions (for our seminar) and free meals to boot!! You cannot beat the price of that! Especially if you are eating AT the hotel. Although, we did not have much time for outside excursions, we did have time to spend QUALITY time with our family. And that is the main focus of the retreat--to focus on your family.

The seminar was presented by our BN's Chaplain, CH (CPT) W. Harrison. He is such a great guy and he presents the information to where everyone can understand and make it relate to everyday living. I enjoyed the topic and the materials.

The seminar was based on the book, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families." by Stephen R. Covey. Each family received the book and a participants guidebook too! I really enjoyed the time and learned alot from both the speaker (Chaplain) and from the materials.

I mean really....does your family have a FAMILY MISSION STATEMENT? We didn't. Question: What do you want your family to stand for? The 7 Habits can be located here for viewing...

If nothing else, we enjoyed a weekend of family togetherness and we brought home our family's FIRST 'Family Mission Statement' and by involving our children into the mission statement and getting feedback from them...we are an Army of One and NOW a Family of One. Mind you, harmony doesn't happen overnight...it happens when you have open lines between your family; e.g. spouse and chidren.

If you have the opportunity to go to one of these retreats, please do so they are worth it and more. Have a wonderful week and make the most of it with Thanksgiving...

Be glad you have a family, be glad you have a husband or wife that protects you and country. And be proud to be apart of this wonderful organization...it is not always an utopia, but it is what we have.