We celebrated Casey's birthday a few weeks ago by doing an overnight at a local resort. For some reason, Casey likes to get away for his b-day. I think it has to do with how he is when he is home: he just can't sit still and relax. He's always working (of course, this is a good thing, too. How I love that a lazy man he is not!) and doing projects, etc. I'm guessing all these little things around the house and yard that need to be done (in his eyes) make it not so relaxing to stay home.
At dance class one week, a couple of the moms told me about the resort trying to drum up business by having almost all of their rooms at a discount until October. I called Casey that afternoon and told him about it. He didn't sound too positive, so I thought nothing would come of it. Imagine my surprise when he called on his way home to say that he'd booked a room for us! He was trying to surprise me, that's why he had sounded so not impressed. I was more than surprised.
So we took off one Thursday and got to the resort, got settled, went for dinner and then a swim. The girls and I headed to bed while Casey checked out some amenities in the resort. In the morning, we let the girls swim again, then went to breakfast and came home.
We really loved it. A great place for children--especially the pool. It was beach-like, and indoor/outdoor with a waterfallish thing that separated the indoors from the outdoors. And the water was warm enough that even I enjoyed our evening-in-September swim! There were hardly any people, especially at the pool. I'd like to repeat the event, only sans children, but alas, the prices went up considerably, so that may be the one and only visit we have there.
Don't you love how shallow it is?
Re: the above picture: no, Claire is not drowning as we pose for our pic. She loves to do this. Does it every time she takes a bath. She's just a gung-ho water lover.
What a far cry from last year's birthday getaway to Durango. Of course, it was a bit of a drive (5-6 hours), which the girls did fairly well (they've never really been terrible travelers). But we stayed at this old motel (crazy enough, we spent quite a bit more per night for that motel than we did for the room at the resort). I swear it had bed bugs and the carpet was filthy (you notice these things when your children spend most of their time rolling around on the floor). When it came to night life, the girls needed to go to bed, and I was (newly prego) tired as well. Casey would have liked to do something, but it didn't seem fun to go out by himself, so we just watched TV in the room, the volume barely audible, the girls' bed piled high with pillows so the blue light wouldn't keep them awake. Not exactly the most fun getaway. Ironically, Casey would have had more freedom if we had stayed home. At least he could have gone to a different part of the house!
We came away determined not to do that again. Perhaps a suite with two rooms, but just one? Forget about it.
This year worked out well, though. Even with another child (and an infant at that), it was far more relaxing and wonderful (though I didn't sleep most of the night, but that's not what stands out to me about the stay). Our whole family had a great time. I'm not really sure what it was. Maybe it being really close and a resort, not just a stand-alone motel helped. And the room was big and clean.
It's usually so hard to both get away and relax with children this age. We almost always come home more exhausted than when we left. And we don't even try to do much. Just going through the rigamarol of all it takes to get through a day while away takes it out of us. It's just the way this season of life is. At any rate, it was good to find this time that we aren't totally banned from getting away while we have tiny ones. We'll just have to tweak the plan and be a little more creative.
