I had never been to the Lake of the Ozarks. It was beautiful. More beautiful was scoring a room that normally goes at $227/night for $75. Great facilities and views with a unique layout.

I enjoyed seeing things become more Southern as I made my way east and south. I did get unsweetened tea when I ordered “iced tea”, but it had a spoon in it without asking. Alas, no Chik-Fil-A, but good food was not the reason for this getaway.

Just to get it out of the way ahead of time, there were things I did not like:

• Check-In was at 3pm and the conference began at 1pm.
• A very juvenille attitude towards sex.
• The lesson for couples married up to six years was read straight from this book.

I would have listed the sermon, but I only heard the last few minutes. It was so bad, my wife got up and left. She gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, and I do mean everyone. This is the same woman that talked me through the lesson about “having your weekly discipling time with your wife”. In her take on the sermon, she talked about using a bad hermenutic for 2 Corinthians 5 and prooftexting to force an agenda. Had I not known better, I would have thought that I am having a bad influence on her. Since I actually know better, I remember that she knew how to use the words ‘hermenutic’ and ‘exegesis’ properly in a sentence when I met her.

Anyway, the good things are many (sans bullet points and in no particular order). We went away together for the first time since my son was born. We used to do some things in the brief few months before he was born that we stopped doing. We spent more time together *not* talking about issues, but we talked for hours and hours. We saw friends from Kansas City and made a couple of new friends that also disagree with the present administration on domestic policy. We delighted in how we are different. We renewed our committment to have no area ‘out-of-bounds’ for discussion. We spoke to each other in poetry. We walked. We ate in too many resturants. We took a road trip, a bona fide road trip. We discovered areas of our marriage that need more attention like discussing the messages we are sending each other with our non-verbal communication. We laughed a lot. She and I had a discussion on Dira in addition to God, the Bible, the Holy Spirit, and a bunch of other things.

Had a great time. Really. Time, greatness: these two words work perfectly together to describe the weekend. The qualities of the past 48 hours were better than good. We’re talking Tony the Tiger, here. Making a comparison of this past Saturday and Sunday to others demonstrates a marked enjoyment of the latest Saturday-Sunday combination.

Dude, it was great.