31st October to 5th November

Sandra dropped us at the airport at ridiculous AM and we flew to Texas on Halloween. I was sad to be missing the West Hollywood parade but we were due at Megan’s sisters house to help her fend off the trick or treaters! We were finally getting to meet Laura too, Megans Mum and the real owner of the apartment we spend so much time in in LA!

We were so excited to meet Laura and Morgan and her family, Jeff her husband and Keeley their daughter. We hired a car and rocked up on their doorstep with a few bottles of wine and smiles on our faces. It was like we had all known each other for ages as we sat down to dinner and drank wine and exchanged tales. Oh and of course dressed Keely up in a duck outfit for her first Halloween!

We had a great night and woke up excited the next day to go and collect Peggy! We arrived at the customs office at 11 expecting all kinds of drama and to our surprise we were done and out again at 11.20, minus ANY drama!

We went directly to the port to see if we could spring Peggy free the same day, again, still expecting a lot of drama,paperwork, backwards and forwarding and weren’t surprised when the port was locked down for lunch! We hung around until 1pm, we could see Peggy from where we were parked! Within 10 minutes Peggy was free and we took back the hire car! It had been such a breeze, a doddle! We didn’t know what to do other than celebrate! We picked up some shopping and of course some more wine and did exactly that!

We spent the next few days getting odd jobs done on Peggy. As you know she is never 100%! we enjoyed hanging out with Laura, Morgan and her great little family. On our last night with them we went out for BBQ Texan style. The BBQ is at a gas station and the queue was almost out of the door! You buy your meat by weight and can sit at one of the bench tables or take it away. We ate more meat and coleslaw than I think we have ever eaten and had to say our sad farewells once again!

We are so lucky to meet so many people we love to spend time with but it is so hard to leave them every time!

The next morning we woke up in a hotel car park and we were there for a special reason!

We had been approached by a lovely couple who run couples awareness seminars. They had contacted us and asked us if we would like to attend one of their 3 day courses. We thanked them kindly of course but explained that we were very confident in our relationship and didn’t think that we needed to take part in couples therapy.

Thankfully they responded and said they would still love to meet with us and maybe we could all learn from each other. They were excited to hear how we manage as a couple living so closely together and facing the stresses that we face on a daily basis.

We arranged to meet with them and they condensed their 3 day course especially for us and we had an intense day lined up ahead of us. We met Silvia and Alfred at 8am for breakfast and chatted like old friends over coffee and toast.

Come 9am we went to their room where they had a living area set up and where we would do the seminar.

We listened and talked until 6pm that night. It was an intense day and sometimes emotional but we learned so much!

Silvia and Alfred’s philosophy is (inspired by J.F. Kennedy) that ‘the best time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining’.
They are such a strong and amazing couple and they are inspiring in their commitment to improve their relationship every day.

They taught us how to take time in each day to tell each other what we are thankful for. They taught us to consider the words we use, any negative words should be replaced by positive words giving ourselves a daily positive outlook. They taught us a lot also about ourselves as people. Asking us to enter into our pasts and think about things you would never think of in a million years on your own and explaining how those things make us the people we are today.

They asked us alot about our relationship and how we deal with certain situations and I think as a ‘strange’ subject we were quite interesting for them too. We had a wonderful day and have taken so many things from that seminar that we use daily and other things that we will definitely revisit once we get back to the ‘real’ world!

We left feeling good about our relationship. Feeling stronger as a couple knowing that we had faced that seminar together and learned ways to improve our already great friendship and how we can remain as happy as we are together in our future.

Alfred and Silvia are a couple dedicated to “providing practical strategies for couples so that they can develop the skills to co-create fulfilling relationships.” Their vision is to “empower couples that live their relationships based on awareness, LOVE, and respect” and their intentions to help “couples maintain their LOVE for each other and to strengthen the JOY of being together”…and, they are good at it. We enjoyed our day with such an inspiring and ‘in love’ couple!

I had never in my life dreamed that I would be married by Martha Stewart OR have been for couples ‘therapy’ and survived to tell the tale!

Such incredible experiences in our lives right now! We are truly lucky people to be able to share them with each other!