eighteen years

Anne and I will have our eighteenth wedding anniversary later this month. During the first ten years of our marriage, we attended marriage retreats each year. At some point life became too busy (too expensive?) for our ritual getaways; they fell by the wayside. This past weekend we joined many other couples from our church for a weekend away. We began by making the trek to Whistler, Canada. We were greeted with a very stern, Scottish gentleman at the Canadian border crossing. He barked questions at us with his brogue in full force, "Have y' got any guns in the carrrr?" Much of the road from Vancouver to Whistler is being enlarged to accommodate the projected traffic to the 2010 Olympic Games to be held in Whistler. The $600 million renovation delayed our arrival and made driving more adventuresome. There were several hours of lecture each of the days we were at the retreat, but they did not dominate our time. We spent time relaxing and performing "retail therapy" each day. The weather cooperated nicely with daytime highs in the 80’s and cooler evenings. We found a couple of haunts that we enjoyed – a bar named, "Monks", and (of course) Starbucks. Definitely a good weekend…