Fernandez Family of Five: Chick-fil-A Seminar 2012...

During the week of February 12 - 15 we enjoyed another great Chick-fil-A Seminar in Orlando, Florida (without kids)! Chick-fil-A Seminar is always a highlight for Tony and I each year because it is a time for us to get away together, to grow, to develop, to plan, to be refreshed and to be pampered. Chick-fil-A pays for everything and always treats us like royalty. This year they went above and beyond to make it a special week. We enjoyed great performers such as Martina McBride (a surprise concert we did not know about), Two Cellos (check them out on YouTube), Committed (an amazing acapello group that won on the show, "Sing Off"), and several other artists that were really good. We listened to great speakers such as Marcus Buckingham and Dr. Charles Carter and of course from Truett Cathy (founder of CFA), Dan Cathy (COO of CFA), Tim Tassopoulos (VP), and CFA marketing team all on the theme, "Building High Performance Leadership Teams." We also enjoyed a free afternoon at "Universal Studios" riding thrilling roller coasters. I learned that I can't handle roller coasters as easy as I used to, it was much more scary this time. It was a good time though and because I was brave enough to ride the rides, Tony agreed to dance with me at the Chick-fil-A Valentine's Dance. On Valentine's Night Chick-fil-A planned a very romantic dinner under the stars and then had dancing. There were 3 different dinner themes (Island Cuisine, Italian, and Surf n' Turf) and we just worked our way around to all of them, you could say we had a progressive dinner. We had all kinds of yummy foods like Shrimp, Lobster, Calzones, Steak, Jerk Chicken, Pork, Pasta and even tried some foods we had never had before such as Sushi. Then, we finished our meal off with a lot of yummy desserts. We were stuffed and then we headed to the dance floor. We watched people make fools of themselves most of the night and had a lot of great laughs. I was able to get Tony to dance a few dances with me and it was very romantic to slow dance under the stars and lights. It was a great Valentine's Date and we did not even have to pay for it. :) Another highlight of Seminar was Tony and I got to be on stage with the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. We did not have to play an instrument, thank goodness. :) It was part of the final session of seminar and we were learning about leading your business from different perspectives. For example, the operator should not always lead from the front counter or kitchen but they should also sit in the dining room and observe/lead their employees from a customers perspective. So, the Orchestra Conductor led us in an hour long talk about leading from different seats and building a high performance leadership team. So, Tony and I were part of the 100 Chick-fil-A people that were chosen to sit amongst the Orchestra players and we were to evaluate different aspects of them working together, what we observed from our specific seats, determining who was leading in each instrument section, how they responded when their head leader (the conductor) was not present, etc. It was a really cool experience and we sat in the very front row, right under the conductor. I will never look at an Orchestra the same way again. During the week we also enjoyed running together, reading by the pool, being with friends and family (Joe and Abby), and eating great food. It was an amazing week and we are very thankful to my parents for keeping the kids so I could go with Tony. Next year seminar is a 5 day Cruise to the Bahamas!!!! This will be the first ever Chick-fil-A Seminar on a cruise ship and we are so excited!!!

Our plane was pretty small, thank goodness for a short flight.

Our beautiful hotel room...

One of the views from our room...

Here is the other view from our hotel window. This is also where the Valentine Dinner/Dance was held.

Our gorgeous hotel, the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort.

The front drive of the hotel.

The back entrance to the hotel.

This was a weird decoration made out of balloons.

Another weird balloon decoration that someone was in and moved around. Several of these hit the dance floor on Valentine's night.

This was a very special moment at seminar where all of Truett and Janette's kids got up on stage and surprised their parents with the news that Chick-fil-A Inc. is no longer in debt. As of Friday, Feb. 10th, Chick-fil-A is DEBT FREE!!! Not many large corporations can say that!!! The news received a loud, standing ovation. We are very honored to be part of this wonderful, Christian company!