Much Needed Getaway

{Backtracking: August 30, 2010}

I married into a family of 5 boys, no girls. I love my in-laws, and I know they love me. But sometimes, when it comes time to plan fun activities, it can feel a bit like a boys club. They have all these outdoor activities that they love to do that are not so conducive to bringing along the wife and kids. This doesn’t happen all of the time, but when it does, I can get a bit frustrated.

When they already had a deep sea fishing trip planned for their dad’s birthday, and Grant started planning an overnight canoe trip (no kids invited) with his brother, I was feeling a little frustrated. It doesn’t help much at all that I hate to be without my hubby. With all the time he spends in school and work, once he gets free time, I get really greedy. Plus, I hate to spend the night alone; it’s so hard to sleep without him.

I try to be supportive. I don’t tell Grant not to go. I want him to enjoy himself. But even when I have told him he should plan on doing something, I have to wrestle with my own frustrations and selfishness before I can completely be at peace with the whole thing. I know it’s immature. While I was struggling over his canoe trip, we had a discussion about how I was feeling. I felt like it was unfair because mothers can’t do the same thing. I can’t just grab a group of women and disappear for a day or two. Grant’s response to that was “Why not?” He told me he would be happy to watch the girls for a while if I wanted to do something with friends.

In the past, I didn’t have the desire to do anything with friends. I didn’t have a group of friends; I only had one or two. Plus, my kids were at such a stage that I didn’t want to leave them. But now I’m at a different point in my life. And once I really stopped to think about it, I realized I do know enough ladies that would make a fun group. And my kids are at the perfect stage. No one is nursing right now, and Phaedra has allowed Grant to put her to bed many times before (as long as I’m gone). I actually could break away from them for a while if I wanted to do it. But what would I do?

Anything I could imagine to do with a bunch of women would cost money we don’t have. Women like shopping and pedicures (I’ve never had one). I didn’t think I could recruit many girlfriends to go camping with me, and I wasn’t too confident about hosting a campout. I could manage putting up the tent and starting the fire, but I’ve never had to deal with a camp stove before. I guess I’ve been too pampered. Then there are the safety issues. Would our group be safe in the woods? What if some predator (human or otherwise) noticed that we didn’t have a strong man looking out for us? I was stumped. I couldn’t imagine anything that would work with women. I couldn’t even do a “girls’ night” at my house because I really don’t trust my kids to stay in bed while we’re talking and laughing late into the night. I wouldn’t want to be constantly putting them back to bed.

Then it dawned on me to use the family beach house. I bounced the idea off Grant, and then I quickly started talking myself out of it. “Nah, I’d end up with so much clean up to do by myself. I don’t even know if people would want to drive all that way . . .”

Meanwhile, Grant was saying, “Do it! Do it!”

Grant convinced me, and I planned the trip. His canoe trip was much easier for me to stomach knowing my turn was coming.

My friends Laurie and Amy and I drove out on a Friday morning. We walked around on the beach, went out to lunch, played cards (I taught them one of my favorite games: peanuts), and made a quick trip to the outlets. The walk on the beach was so nice without kids! I love taking my kids on the beach, but I also love being able to set my own pace on a walk without having to try to coax anyone to keep up.

Kari and Alicia showed up that evening and we ate dinner and stayed up late talking. I made my favorite chicken tortilla soup for dinner and chocolate cheesecake for dessert. The conversation was great. I love the stories that come out during a girls’ night (and I probably tell a few too many myself). Laurie had to go home that night, but everyone else stayed overnight. The next day, we ate breakfast and then went to the outlets for a bit. I found our entire wardrobe for family pictures this week! We came back and had lunch just before everyone packed up to go home.

The plan was for Grant to bring the girls out as soon as my friends were gone so we could have one night as a family at the coast. Eleanor and Phaedra did well with their daddy. Eleanor had been trying to arrange a sleepover at her grandma’s for a long time, so she had a sleepover while I was gone. Grant only had to deal with Phaedra for most of the time, and he said she did really well. I called Grant to let him know everyone had left. Phaedra was napping, and then he had to go pick up Eleanor. He told me to just relax a while before they got there.

I sat in the quiet and read my book for a while. Sometimes solitude can be so refreshing! Then, I took a little nap. After a while, I heard knocking at the door. It was so fun to see those two little bobbing heads out the window and let in my little girls. We had a wonderful time as a family and played on the beach several times. Cleaning the beach house wasn’t much worse than our usual family trips since all my friends had changed their own sheets.

As we were heading back home, I thought with a little bit of dread about the mess my house was when I left. I had wanted to leave Grant with a clean house, but by the time all the cooking and packing was finished, it was pretty late and Grant just wanted me to spend time with him. I knew Grant probably wouldn’t have had time to clean. Part of me hoped he had made a dent in the 5-6 loads of clean laundry that needed put away, but I wouldn’t be disappointed if he hadn’t. I had been plenty spoiled already.

We got home, and Grant went to check the mail. I walked in the house to see that he had not only put away ALL of the laundry, he had cleaned the whole house. He pointed out that it wasn’t the entire house because he hadn’t gotten to the bedrooms and bathrooms. But the kitchen, family room, dining room, and living room were sparkling clean, and I told him that when I come home to a house that clean, I’m not going to nit-pick about what didn’t get done! My husband never ceases to impress me.

That was one of the best weekends I’ve had in a long time. I just might have to do it again next year!

Here are a few pictures of the ladies and me:

Kari, Laurie, Alicia, Amy, me.

And yes, we got a little silly . . .