A while back my husband and I attended a marriage conference called “A Weekend to Remember.” They are huge conferences (maybe like 500 people at the one we attended) and they are held all over the country . It was highly suggested by my church elder to attend one out of town so that you can focus on the conference, and plus, it’s good to get out of town every once in a while. I looked at where all the conferences were being held, and I thought Portland, Maine would be cool since we’ve never been (well I was actually there when I was 8 but I really can’t remember much besides how delicious and cheap the lobster was), and it’s only 1.5 hour drive from our house.

The conference blew me away and our speakers were incredibly engaging and funny. A lot of what they covered was really simple stuff, but yet in marriage, you get so tied up with the day-to-day stuff that you forget how much you need to work on your marriage and to not forget about doing the small simple stuff because it builds up over time. I think conferences like these are especially good for newlyweds because it forces you to analyze your marriage and put together goals on how to improve your marriage. It also helps to identify problems early on before bad habits get too ingrained. We had some really good and deep conversations while dissecting our first year of marriage.

The conference lasts the whole day and part of the next day, so they encouraged to schedule a date night. We really wanted a “night to remember”, so we picked a fancy restaurant called Five Fifty-Five (because the address is 555 Congress St.). When I saw that they had a 4 course tasting menu with lobster truffle mac and cheese, I didn’t bother looking at the rest of the menu because I knew that’s what I wanted. It looks really small but it was very rich and very filling. We also had a sweetbreads (in the middle), which were not sweet and was not bread. I googled on my phone at the restaurant that we were eating thymus and pancreas! It was still good though. For dessert, we had a deconstructed s’more! This restaurant was incredibly yummy! It was definitely one of the best meals I’ve ever had.

The next day we ventured to a small bistro called Duckfat. Yes, that’s what it’s called! They actually fry their french fries in duck fat! They taste phenomenal and they have six different dipping sauces available. We got the truffle ketchup and garlic aioli and they were soooo good! Wow, I am so jealous of people who live in Portland because the food that we had on our trip was amazing.

I had to digest after all the binge eating, so we drove a few and stopped by the marina. Sadly, it was really cold and rainy that weekend, so we didn’t get to explore as much as Portland as I wanted. We just ate a lot instead haha!

This picture was taken using self timer, and I placed the camera on the roof of the car because I didn’t bring a tripod. Sadly this is one of the only pictures we took together all year!

If you made it this far thanks for reading!!