3.09.2010

Know-it-alls, jerk kids, & great wolves...O MY!!

So I'm sure you can't really gather from the subject line exactly what I'm talking about, so please let me explain.

You see, this past weekend was originally planned to be filled with a lot of crazy randomness (like trying out for Wheel of Fortune) BUT at last minute (Friday morning to be exact) we were called and given the opportunity to attend a marriage enrichment retreat. It was a shock to me since when we were given the opportunity to sign up for the "backup" list there were about 3 couples ahead of us. Many of the people that were going to be in definite attendance were all officers or high enlisted ranks. I assumed they were given the priority and pretty much wrote the retreat off as a loss. I would LOVE to go, but I didn't want to get my hopes up. You see, we attended one of these before and ABSOLUTELY LOVED it to pieces. It is basically a weekend at a nice hotel, all expenses paid, meals on the house, etc. etc., all you have to do is attend these workshops to help with communication, etc.

Anyways, to cut it short, we were called and told there was a spot opened. I was able to arrange care for puppy pup (which ended up causing me tears because I am apparently a big ninny when it comes to my only "child") and we were ready to rock and roll our weekend away at the Great Wolf Lodge.

Now, for those of you who are not from the DFW area, or still semi-new to it, as I am, the Great Wolf Lodge is a great place...if you have children. To be completely fair, they have pretty nice rooms, but other than that, NOT a place to have a marriage retreat. We later found out the Army was doing a family retreat in the same location, which made total sense to me. There is an indoor water park, storytime and a neat game that lets the kids run around the entire hotel pointing their wands at things and making them come to life. Sounds great if you are a parent right?? Well what if you were a parent and you were told about this amazing experience then told they would not be providing child care? That would be like telling your child you are going to put them in the car, drive them to chuck e. cheese and they would wait in the parking lot while you ran in to play. NO sense whatsoever.

But I digress, the facilitator was great. He forwarded on a lot of useful/helpful information. We took a break and let hubby get his cancer-stick fix with another couple. As we stood out there, the four of us talking, another couple from the retreat came out to join in conversation. It went randomly from tattoos to a "cool club downtown made out of ice." I began telling the girl I knew about the place we had went to that had the ice sculptures and it was too cold for my taste, but before I could complete my sentence, the know-it-all who had butted her way in the convo blurted "I KNOW, we lived here BEFORE our last station, I know all about that place." And I had to bite my tongue. Just exactly who asked you? And just why do you think that you needed to nose in our conversation that had nothing to do about you or where you have previously lived? The congregation quickly ended and hubby and I and the other couple we were friends with grabbed a drink at a non-iced bar while the know-it-all went out and partied all night, as evidenced from her haggard appearance at the seminar the next morning.

We were given SO much free time during the retreat we were able to utilize the indoor water park completely free. It was a pretty great experience I have to say. I did begin to realize at this point, what spoiled brats were in attendance at this lodge. I know the rooms are more pricey so the children there were from money (at least somewhat) and you could tell the ones that had little to no parent involvement in their life.

A certain situation occurred that still pisses me off. While we waited in line on the stairs leading up to one of the biggest slides, we noticed two groups of kids in front of us. A group of about 5 young girls (ranging from ages 7 to 9), all black except for one little white girl (who was apparently the runt of the group, being a pretty short stature compared to the other girls). The other "group" consisted of two little shit head boys. We noticed they were taunting the girls, talking to them in a Jamaican accent and talking to the little white girl about her taa-taa's. We all knew that we couldn't physically do anything to the boys (though I will tell you many scenarios played out in my head, flipping him over the railing, or better yet, hanging him by his trunks from the edge....) but we couldn't stand by while these little girls, who were minding their own business, were literally getting verbally abused. We made a few comments that scared the kid to shut up but noticed after the line split and they went in another the taunting began again. Luckily for the little girls another group of marines and spouses we knew went behind them and we passed the word along. By the end of it, I'm sure the little girls learned words they didn't know yet, but I still wish I would have waited at the bottom of the slide to follow those snot nose punks to their parents to let them know what they did. Chances are their parents are the same, kids learn a lot of things from their parents BUT at least I would have been able to kick a grow adults ass for the ignorance they have passed on.

Sheesh. What began as a relaxing weekend turned out to be an absolute nightmare!!