A quick but relaxing get away

So here it is Thursday night, oops! again, Friday morning!
??How does that happen??

First, you start the week by atending church, uuhh. . .make that attending church nursery, yeah that's it, with your family of 7, which involves 2 cars no matter what those car dealers say about 7 passenger! That is an urban legend to be sure when you are talking about 2 parents, 2 carseats (and appropriate gear), 2 jr. hi -ers, and one 6'1", 260 lb. college kid!
Anyway, 2 cars later, we had worshipped, (even managed to do that while visiting with other Mom's in nursery) , stopped at our favorite cajun/mexican restaurant for dinner, napped , and visited hubby's parents for our "every other week whether we have time or not" Sunday visit.

I know some day when we no longer have them, I will be glad we took the time to make this a regular part of the kids and our lives. Right now, it often feels overwhelming to lose a nap or keep a little one up so far past bedtime but we do enjoy the visits and know they look forward to them. My folks, on the other hand, never need an invite and stop at our place regularly, maybe to regularly? hehe. usually around dinner hour? hahaha. Just really very blessed to have both sets of our parents alive and in our lives really. And both living nearby as well. So nice not to have to plan yearly vacation time as a time to visit family but actually visit favorite places or go someplace new.

Ah, and off topic as usual!

Monday, hubby took day off work to spend time with visiting "college boy", aka, 18 yr old son, so off to the beach for the day for them and the 11 yr. old daughter and 3 year old son. Can't believe I opted out of that one since I'm the only one around here who even cares about what hue my skin is in summer! But maybe I mentioned before, "these two babies" as I often refer to them, have changed so many things for me. I'm sure some is age but some is just plain old tiredness! So baby girl and I stayed home to get ready for next 2 days, or so the theory went. Oh, 13 yr old son at home too but since I did not wake him, I never saw him before 1pm!

Monday: what actually happened at home, was this. I was so bummed about missing beach with a chair and a book, I played with the baby girl and fed her and as soon as she went down for morning nap, I hopped into my swimsuit, grabbed a cup of diet coke, ice and a book and hit my deck with a towel and a spray bottle of water! 1.5 hours later, I was nicely cooked, slightly burned but nothing serious with color I wanted to take away with me for the next two days! Oh, and then baby daughter was still asleep so I laid down for a nap!@! She actually woke a half hour into my nap, but by then the stay at home son was up and he watched her and gave her lunch for me so I got to sleep some more! Hubby called shortly thereafter and announced his ETA as shortly before 5pm with daughter who "needed to be back" in time for youth group!

Dinner for those left at home was sacrificed for my shower and a last minute fast food meal with a friend before we dropped said daughter at church and went baby gift shopping for a mutual friend! A date I'd been trying to fit in for several weeks! Back home by 10pm.

What a wasted and perfectly lovely day. But this is how it happens.

Haven't mentioned yet that I should have been doing laundry and packing for two? Well, hubby needed to be above NYC in a Connecticut office early am Wednesday so we decided to take the fourth to drive up and stay overnight so he could avoid rush hour on Wednesday am. Good decision! We were able to get up around 7am, get everything settled here and packed and ready to go by 9am! woo-hoo.

Breakfast at a world famous restaurant was so good and such a treat, I just love a good sausage buisquit from McD's! The drive was long and traffic on the fourth did get heavy going around the city but considering it is one of the largest cities in the world, not to bad. Arrived at hotel by 1pm, checked into a very lovely room (anyone love tripadvsor.com as much as I?)and then decided to go see what was in town.

Stamford, Connecticut is not a tourist meca to be sure but we eventually found the antique places we were looking for, all closed for the holiday, so a drive up the coast sounded like a good back up plan. Connecticut coastline is not what I was expecting at all! I'm so used to beach side houses and boardwalks and great restaurants but all along Interstate and even Route 1 all I saw was . . .industry? hhmm, time to ask for help. The guy in the service stop was very nice and tried to be very helpful but his answers were a bit vague. . .fireworks? uumm not really sure. boardwalks? mmm, parks close at dusk. . .restaurants? sure, if you can find one open on holiday (closed on a holiday is a strange concept to us, especially the fourth of July!, at home, everything would be booming until 1am at least!) and if you want seafood. . . oh well. We drove some more, got lost once or twice, saw some public sand, some Independance day signs for events that had taken place earlier in day, found one town we liked and it was mostly "open" (Milford). Unfortunately, aside from purchasing a few sale items in a fun but a bit out of my budget store, we did not eat here. We thought we would come upon more places like Milford. We did not. Both my hubby and I love architechture so we were able to comment about lots of that throughout our lengthy drive but a few more hours into this, we also noticed a severe lack of restaurants. And when we found one, it was closed up tight like most everything else around it? Yikes. Out of our element here. WE ENDED UP EATING AT FRIENDLY'S!! oh and a really horrrible one at that. Well, it was laugh or cry at this point so laugh we did, made it back to hotel in time for a swim anyway but I was just too tired! Hubby went and I enjoyed the wonderful pillowtop mattress and flipping channels. I rarely ever even watch tv so it was fun for me. What a day. Most of it in the car.

Wednesday found me in a mall with nice stores while hubby worked. He finished sooner than expected, and we went back to those antique places. Good decision. Talk about a shop until you drop day. And hubby was game through it all. Found a great cafe when our feet couldn't take another minute and had the best Turisumo (sp.?) Guess the shot of expresso in it gave us a second wind. We never headed out of town until 5 pm when everything appeared to be shutting down again. So Stamford is a great place for Antiques but a not so great place for much else from what we coud find in our brief stay.

Best part of travel? No traffic! Straight shot home in 3 hours flat which allowed us to stop for dinner on our own home turf before showing up back at home with all the goodies for the kids.

Lovely, Lovely to have almost two full days away with no diapers, no housework, no cooking, etc. And right smak in the middle of a week no less. Yup, this is how it happens.

And today was Thursday, back to reality. Invites must go out for reunion. Errands had to be run. Son had to be car pooled. Babies had to be changed and fed. Hubby had to work. House needs serious attention about now so I guess tomorrow will come all to soon. Oh and house company for afternoon tomorrow ups the anty even more.

Good thing those "almost two days" were relaxing.

That's my week. And that's how it happens.

Kim