Our Finnegan Family: Weekend Marriage Retreat

In January, Cody and I were supposed to go on a marriage retreat with other couples from our church. Unfortunately, it was cancelled so we decided to take a little marriage retreat of our own. We've never left Eli overnight anywhere since he was born, so this was very different for us. We met Mom and Dad Finnegan in Wapak for lunch on a Friday. They took Eli home with them and Cody and I went on to Cincinnati. It was so nice because I planned the hotel and Cody planned the activities. Our first stop was Jungle Jims. We had heard of this huge grocery store and even saw it on the travel channel, but had never been there. It was enormous, and a little overwhelming at first, but then we started seeing some food from Japan and England that brought back so many great memories!

After Jungle Jims, we went to a couple malls to look around. It was fun to walk hand in hand and not run after a very active toddler. I had forgotten what it was like to have an undistracted conversation with Cody! While we were at the mall, we realized we had forgotten to bring our devotional book that we were going to work on that weekend, so we stopped by a Christian bookstore. Since Valentine's Day was quickly approaching they had all kinds of great books. The one that caught our eye was the Love Dare from the movie Fire Proof. We started it that weekend, and it's been pretty good. I'll be honest, I wasn't a fan of all the dares, but most of them have been great!

By this time, we had worked up a pretty good appetite, and Cody had scoped out some pretty good BBQ places. We arrived at Walt's BBQ and enjoyed playing Trival Pursuit while enjoying some pretty good food! Again, it was so nice to be able to eat our meals without having to worry about what Eli might be throwing on the floor, or simply keeping up with that little man's appetite! Finally we headed to our hotel for the evening and enjoyed watching a movie and reading the Love Dare.

We both anticipated a SUPER night's sleep without Eli, however the hotel bed was very hard and we were both up by 6:30am! We enjoyed a relaxing morning, and then headed for a quick stop at Panera before continuing on to the Creation Museum.

When we arrived at the museum we were surprised to find an old camp friend, Mark McDaniel, there. He is an alumni relations director for Cedarville University. (Cody's Alma Mater) We chatted with him for a bit and then headed into the museum. My favorite part was our first stop- the planetarium. What a great perspective on how GREAT our God is! Then we toured the rest of the museum. It was really neat. We both agree that we wish we could spend a couple of days there instead of one because there is so much to see!

On the way home we hit some outlet malls, and we purchased Cody some much needed tennis shoes. We were back at Mom and Dad Finnegan's for supper and it was great to see Eli again. We spent the night at Mom and Dad's and then went to church with them on Sunday. Such a great way to wrap up a great weekend!