Real Life: Mom and Dad's night away

Over the weekend, Brian and I went to a wedding in Baltimore and the girls spent the night with my parents. It was a black-tie wedding, with many good friends, and we'd been looking forward to it for a while. Many of our friends know, we don't have a babysitter, so date nights aren't a frequent word in our vocabulary. Much less, a night away. So, this is how I daydreamed about the night away leading up to it:

- easy car ride with our favorite music, a nice big coffee and chats with Bri
- check in and plenty of time to get ready without "Mommy, I need this? Please help me!" or tears....
- time for a pre-wedding cocktail at the bar and catching up with friends who had checked in earlier
- wedding fun
- sleeping in
- breakfast in bed as we stalled a little before hitting the road
- a welcome greeting with big smiles from the girls who missed us

We had a great time at the wedding - every detail was beautiful, and it was so wonderful to catch up with friends. We talked for hours, had lots of beverages, good food and great dancing. But looking back, I'm getting a kick out of my fairytale vision of the night away. This is how our 30 hours away from home went:

- I did have a great big coffee to enjoy on the car ride down, with good conversation with Brian and adult music. And then....
- Our 3.5hr drive took 5hrs
- There were some unpleasant words exchanged while we were trying to get our lost selves back on route
- We had a whopping total of 40 minutes to get ready for the wedding before the shuttle left the hotel
- I didn't have a chance to do my hair and there was certainly no time for a relaxing celebratory cocktail before the wedding
- (the wedding was a blast)
- After hours of fun and many of beverages, I basically fell asleep sitting up in bed after crushing Dominos pizza (they now make GF - yum!)
- I slept terribly because of the oncoming hangover (and the Dominos ;)
- Felt awful when I woke up, like AWWWWFUL - full body ache, I couldn't eat and barely talk... just.needed.sleep. It certainly was not pretty.
- our 3.5 hour car ride home was 5 hours - in the pouring rain
- we got home to girls that were napping, and while there were smiles initially - they quickly turned to tears and crying out "we want Mimi"
- Ahhh, welcome home!

So that was our fun night away. Things often don't go as you plan, but you have to roll with the punches and make the best of it!

Happy Monday! XO