This summer has been FULL of busy days, fun late nights, and a lot of working. I'm lucky that I get to play for work, but that still doesn't erase the fact that I was tired. Very tired. I needed a break. I had initially taken off 5 days to fit in the minis before school doctor's appointments, swimming lessons, and to take a vacation to St. Louis, MO to see family and friends. Due to my tiredness (which I refuse to believe is because I'm getting older) we decided on a four day staycation.
I can easily say this was the best decision I've made recently, even though I'm still disappointed in missing out on the 10 story slide at the City Museum. That can wait for another weekend getaway. Instead we got to visit some of our favorite shops, go out to celebrate all of our life changes, act like I was 21 again, take the kids on a Tour of Wading Pools around Des Moines, sleep 10 1/2 hours in one night(!!), have a veg out day, catch up on laundry, and just enjoy our time with nothing pre-scheduled. It was pretty amazing.
The boys finished up their swimming lessons this week. I am beyond proud of their accomplishments and the great strides they made in their swimming abilities. It's actually enjoyable to go to the pool now and not have to worry about them drowning. Elizabeth finished her lessons last week and is showing her newfound water safety skills by telling her brother's when their doing something dangerous....both in and out of the water!
After swimming lessons on Thursday, the kids and I went to Scratch Cupcakery for a dozen of our favorite cupcakes. Then we hit up The Learning Post. After our shopping, we had lunch at the minis favorite pizza buffet and took naps. I thoroughly enjoyed nap times while I was off!
I had a coffee date with my little loves at our favorite Carribou.
Elizabeth took this picture of my eye. We had a good hour long conversation about eye color. Elizabeth has blue eyes; very blue eyes. However, she's convinced she has brown eyes because she think brown eyes are prettier. Our discussion included lines such as "all colors of eyes are beautiful, not just brown." Am I really dealing with this with my just turned three year old??!!?
Thursday night Matt and I had a night out! We had a lot of celebrating to do with a new job for Matt, public events lined up and confirmed, and a very successful writing day for me. I've been dying to check out Jasper Winery's summer concert series, so we started there. It was a fun evening at the winery and definitely a family friendly event that we'll go to again.
We moved from the winery to a bar with a band and the best crab rangoons I've ever tasted.
All signs of a good night.
The couch was the best place to spend Friday morning (after I took the boys to swimming lessons that is with Netflix on and a Coke in my hand. Ten years ago I would have bounced back easily from a night like that. At 31, I remember that I shouldn't party like I'm 21. Absolutely no regrets, so I can't really say lesson learned....
Friday afternoon we started our Tour of Wading Pools! We had a blast and got in 8 swimming spots, some new, some not.
Saturday was our veg at home day. The kids played, ran around, I made them clean their rooms, I got ALL of the laundry done, bedding cleaned, all daycare beds thoroughly cleaned, blog and play emails sent, online shopping, and a couple of movies watched. The only thing I didn't get to that day was washing the curtains. This was our much needed day that included a bit of relaxation and a bit of work. I refer to days like this as my "catch up on life days." I'm able to enjoy our play days so much more when I know I've accomplished so much beforehand.
We ended our staycation with another day of Tour of Wading Pools. The minis got their long awaited ride on the Heritage Carousel in Union Park (I still can't believe we hadn't rode it yet!) and spent a few hours playing at Raccoon River Beach. Those few hours at the beach were some of my favorite hours this summer.
I'm putting 'staycation' on our list of must do's more often!