Mark's Dad and Step-Mom graciously offered (okay, begged, really haha) to watch our boys for an entire weekend before her upcoming procedure that will leave her out of commission for a bit.
It has been 2 1/2 years since Mark and I have spent more than one night alone together, so a whole weekend seemed almost crazy. It's not that we don't normally get the chance to sleep uninterrupted (our kids are crazy awesome sleepers...once we get them to bed), but rather that we always have to be on a early bedtime schedule ourselves, since no matter the bedtime, our wake up time is 6am (6:30 if we're lucky) no matter the day of the week. We don't get to eat when we're hungry, but rather when they're hungry, and we're constantly on their schedule (naps, bedtime, eating, snacking, playing...you get the picture.)
So the fun part of this whole weekend away was to be completely void of a schedule. And boy did we ever enjoy that part!
We had been talking about and researching what we should do with our weekend without our kiddos for weeks, and here were the requirements we came up with:
- We didn't want to have any sort of schedule, really. Or task list.
- We didn't want to spend significant time traveling.
- We didn't want to have to pack a lot of junk.
- We wanted to r-e-l-a-x.
- We didn't want to just sit at home and be bums, since we'd just miss our kids.
- We wanted to stay busy so we didn't worry about our kids.
With all that in mind, some early ideas we threw out in our little brainstorming session were:
- Hop a flight to Vegas.
- Drive to Colorado...
- ...Or Minneapolis...
- ...Or Sioux Falls...
- ...Or Dubuque.
- Stay home and catch up on organizing and house work.
- Have a big movie marathon and stay in our pjs the entire weekend.
Some of these ideas appealed to the traveler in me...you know...traveling without kids? Doesn't that sound FUN!??! But to be honest, in the end, I felt exhausted by the idea of having to book flights or find hotels or, really, to even just travel further than the 30 miles to take the kids to Grandma and Grandpa's house.
So we settled for a compromise: A little out-of-town mixed with some sleeping in (in our OWN beds), shopping, eating out, movies, organizing, catching up on a couple projects, and just generally resting. We initially wanted to go golfing too, but that didn't pan out, as it was just so hot and humid.
I actually had the whole day off on Friday, since we had Kendrick's 1 year pictures that morning. (As an aside, HOW is that even possible?) So after we finished those, Kendrick and I picked up Cashel. I enjoyed having some extra time with my little boys before being apart from them the whole weekend.
Mark and I got the boys' things packed for their weekend away and all loaded up while they napped, and when they woke up, we got our last big time snuggles in before we drove them down to Worthington and dropped them off at Grandpa and Grandma's house. And then?
We legitimately did whatever we wanted to do. I had been wanting to see "If I Stay" (which was SO GOOD!), so we had Pizza Ranch for supper and then went to a movie. And it's not that we don't get to do this regularly, because we can usually do dinner and a movie most weekends when we bring the boys down to Worthington, but we usually have to go to a matinee, and we're usually always thinking about the time. We didn't get home until about 10pm that night, and then...we
stayed up. We hung out, talked, relaxed, watched a little Cedar Cove (a new series we've been getting into), and I gave myself a manicure...and pedicure. We stayed up until midnight, which is just unheard of if we want to stay sane regularly. It.was.awesome.
Saturday was incredible, you guys! Well, aside from the part where I randomly woke up at 3:30am and then was up for the day by 7am: What can I say? I'm used to being up early anymore, and it's hard to really sleep in.
But in the 2 hours that I was up before Mark, it was this little piece of heaven that I think was probably exactly what I loved best about life before kids: baking banana bread, listening to Christmas music on Pandora and sipping on my coffee. Of course, I also did a little cleaning and organizing while the bread was baking (i.e. cleaning my spice cabinet, making a list for Mankato later that afternoon, a couple loads of laundry, cleaning off kitchen cabinets and counters and doing some dishes, and cleaning the toy room, living room and spare bedroom...getting together a few returns...) I felt so productive and just really blissful :) When the bread was out of the oven and cooled a bit, I took some down to Mark and we enjoyed breakfast in bed and just visiting.
We initially had talked about getting a tee time and going golfing, but to be honest, we felt pretty lazy and like staying in our pajamas, so we just bummed around, watched a couple episodes of Cedar Cove, and then got ready to go to Mankato.
We made a beeline to Buffalo Wild Wings when we got to Mankato around 1pm and enjoyed a leisurely lunch there, watching the Twins game and just talking like normal adults do (instead of chasing around impatient toddlers haha)
After lunch, we shopped the afternoon away (although we didn't buy much). We started with the home improvement stores, picking up some spindles for our upper deck, as a couple had broken, and a few odds and ends for projects that we always forget to finish. And I was just feeling blissful with newly-painted nails, flip flops, a cute summer dress and being able to shop carefree for fun things like new soaps and candles at Bath and Body Works with a yummy Sparkling Green Tea Lemonade from Caribou. It just all felt so freeing and relaxing, and it was really great to just be able to relax with Mark.
After all our shopping, we decided to grab a pizza at Papa John's and find somewhere scenic to enjoy it together. And seriously, you guys, I'm actually a little disappointed in Mark, because he has been holding out on me all this time! He took me to Sibley Park, and it is SO INCREDIBLE! And he has known about it for all these years and never once took me! It was GORGEOUS, and we're already talking about taking the boys and going back this next weekend.
We sat and enjoyed our pizza together while just taking in the incredible view, then walked around and even went to see the animals. This place is seriously magical - I envision us going back here a lot, and I may very well even venture here with the boys by myself in the fall when Mark is in the field, because, you know, I'm just that breed of crazy :)
We drove home into the sunset on the way home, then enjoyed a relaxing evening together. Mark enjoyed watching the end of the race, and I enjoyed a nice bubble bath while smelling my incredible new Bergamot Woods candle from B&BW.
Sunday was a pretty lazy day for us. We very very seldom miss church, but we were anxious to get to Worthington to pick up our kiddos, and we had a lot we wanted to get done at home before they got there...like finishing staining our deck, staining and replacing those new spindles, tackling a MUCH-delayed painting project in the downstairs bathroom (5 years in the making), emptying the kiddie pool so we could clean it and get it ready for Kendrick's party this coming Saturday, and a small organization project in the garage. The time really crept up on us, and before we knew it, it was 2pm and we were ready to go pick up the boys. It felt SO GREAT to finally get some of those projects finished, and it was also SO GREAT to get some sweet snuggles with out little guys :) We had missed them immensely! We were a little bummed that a cranky Cashel fell asleep on the way home, as we would have liked to snuggle him when we got home, but it was probably for the best: He slept TWELVE straight hours last night haha :) Kendrick was a little more snuggly and playful, and we enjoyed a few hours with him before he went down to bed.
We really had a great weekend together, and I'm glad we were able to have some time to be a little spontaneous...and lazy...and productive...and just relaxed. That being said, I'm also incredibly glad the boys are home again, because while it might be nice to have a clean, organized house for a couple days, I'd much rather have it filled with these crazy little boys and messy :)
