Conference Call

We had our first conference call last night to discuss some business. Back at the Discernment in March we discerned some positions and wanted to make sure everyone is on the same page. The Venturas are the finance & prayer couple. Perezes are the Database couple, Berrioses are the Social Media couple and Pendletons are the follow up couple. The call began with each couple telling us a High and a Low in their lives right now. We did an Opening Prayer, then discussed the 40th Anniversary- instead of the family challenge, we decided to still celebrate the 40th Anniversary with a party after mass at the Marywood outdoor chapel October 31 at 11am. A blurb will be in the bulletins inviting everyone. So much love it's scary!The October 16th Enrichment is cancelled. The Nov 6th Enrichment is still on. For finances- Mike created a reimbursement form to use here. This is also on the Job Responsibilities page. Ron & Patty have plans to meet with the marriage prep guru at each church in the diocese. They are going to send out an email to give a heads up first. They will start with thanking those who send lots of couples on weekends. The goal is to tap in to the large parishes who send few couples on weekends. We need a media committee to edit advertising literature and work on advertising pieces. We also need a supply committee to keep an inventory of materials and purchase needed supplies. Bravos will send out a group email for these needs and invite others to join in future calls. Steve closed with a prayer. The call lasted about an hour and a half.

Happy 40th Anniversary Catholic Engaged Encounter!

The Venturas represented us the last weekend in August for the Unit meeting in Tallahassee. The most exciting thing to come from that weekend is our preparation for next month- the 40th Anniversary for CEE! At our September enrichment this past Friday we discussed our plan. We'll post the daily prayers that we passed out at the meeting on the blog and Facebook. Instead of the enrichment scheduled, we're going to have a 40th Anniversary party on October 31st (Halloween). Fr. Tim Lozier will preside a mass at 11am at the outdoor altar at Marywood. Then we'll have a party afterwards (details to come). We also talked about taking it up a notch to celebrate 40 years by giving back. We're going to choose a family to help. Maybe it's yard work and doing a "honey do" list for an older couple or bringing gifts and a Christmas dinner to a family with children. As a ministry, we will get together and give back to a family in need. Then, we are going to challenge other ministries in our diocese to do the same. Our goal is 40 ministries and 40 families! Game on!

Summer Fun

The summer is busy for us in CEE! It's always a great time to enrich your marriage, right? We had 3 families from our group fly out to San Angelo, TX for the District III Convention. They had a wonderful time connecting with each other, getting tips and coming back all fired up!



Great representation from our group!

We presented on the June weekend with the Pendletons and Fr. Bernie (and his hilarious jokes!) and 11 couples. The Berrioses rocked behind the scenes. They do such an awesome job creating a fun and romantic tone!

The June dream team, love in the air and what happens when you leave your phone laying around

To keep cool in the summer heat we threw a pool party at the Hampton Park clubhouse and pool. The rain didn't bother us, just gave us an excuse to go eat some pulled pork & fixins! We loved catching up with everyone

We presented the August weekend with the Gibsons and tech-savvy Fr. Tim. The Venturas kept us in line behind the scenes. We had another great weekend with 16 couples finishing.

The August dream team, Phil's favorite game on the weekend and beautiful Marywood scenery

For the August enrichment we had fried chicken! We played a fun kissing game. Wives had one minute to kiss their husbands. Here are the 2 winners:


Andrew and the Birthday boy, Dave!

Thank you to everyone helping us make this such a fantastic ministry- for the couples completing a weekend as well as all of us behind the scenes!