It does not work out every Friday night, but when it does, Eric and I enjoy taking a salad, dessert, and games over to our friends’ house. They make homemade pizza and we enjoy dessert and coffee, and Eric or I (or both) usually take part in a rousing round of hide-and-seek or some other active game with their super adorable children (and I am not just saying that – they are crazy cute). Once the pizza and play portion of the evening is passed (i.e., the kids are in bed), the adults flop onto comfortable furniture and decompress. Sometimes the conversations start shallow, but it does not … [Read more...]

Several weeks ago in Sunday School, I made myself quite conspicuous by accidentally hurling my breakfast pastry onto the dirty floor. If you were in the room, you could not have missed it, especially since Eric and I were sitting in the front row. My brain quickly began thinking of appropriate reactions and the one it settled on was: laugh at yourself – which I did... and would do again! As I reached to retrieve my cheese danish, our Sunday School teacher declared it “clean” by way of the ten-second rule. There was no way outside of a $10,000 cash reward I was going to put any morsel of … [Read more...]

At the risk of sounding insanely cliché, I am going to suggest to all who see this today to... take a leap! This twenty-ninth day of February comes but once every four years, so why not use it as an excuse to take a step... jump... leap of faith?! Is there something you have ALWAYS wanted to try, but you keep putting it off for “someday”? Is there a fear that drives you batty and you want to conquer it, but doing so seems like a pipe dream? Have you had a dream for years of your life but never taken steps to make that dream come true? Could Today be the Day? The Day You Leap into … [Read more...]

As we near the end of our coaching sessions, we always ask our clients, “What are the three elements you found most helpful from this pre-engagement program?” Almost 100% of our couples have enthusiastically listed the PAIR Test (Psychological Audit of Interpersonal Relationships) as one of the most beneficial elements of the program. We work with couples via Skype and Google Hangouts and begin our eight-week pre-engagement coaching program by administering the PAIR Test and because the test illuminates so many topics, we dedicate the first two sessions to talking through the results with … [Read more...]

Recently, Eric and I had a deeply heartfelt conversation which had been weighing on my mind. It was one of those moments that stand still and it left me pondering my actions and beliefs up until this point in our marriage. Eric has a distinct personality. He knows what he likes and wants. He is not slow to make his desires known. He comes at life with a vengeance and does not fear what is around the next corner; and, if he did, we would probably never know it. Eric is a solid, self-sufficient, hardworking, strong man, but he is also human and he needs more from me than I have been … [Read more...]