A Wonderful Weekend

I have needed a break for awhile now. Life and moving and new jobs and Norah have kept Jared and I so very busy these past few years. It has been a few years since we have taken any sort of vacation or time off together - just the 2 of us. Jared's wonderful parents and sister volunteered to take Norah for 3 days so we could do just that.

Through a series of events and hotel vouchers not being valid for this past weekend, we decided instead of leaving Red Deer for our weekend off, we would just stay home. A few days in my own home without the responsibility of being "Mom" sounded wonderful to me. And it was! I had a few stipulations though - I wasn't going to cook because I wasn't going to do dishes, the house was going to be clean before we started our vacation, and we were going to sleep in the guest bedroom and pretend we were in a hotel. (I even bought chocolates for our pillows)

We had a few minor setbacks before drop-off time. Norah decided to shove "Yo Gabba Gabba" and "Lost" into the dvd player at the same time which caused our fairly new dvd player to break - permanently. Jared and I would be watching shows on our computer during date weekend. And...Friday morning we noticed during Norah's diaper change that a bump we assumed was diaper rash was looking kinda bad. One rushed trip to the walk-in clinic confirmed she picked up a nasty infection that needed antibiotics. Bummer. This meant I got to tell Nana, "Sorry Norah has some gross infection, all you have to do is rub this cream on her 3 times a day and get her to swallow this vile medicine before every meal and bed - Thanks!" "Oh, and it may cause diarrhea...have fun!"

We managed (barely) to remain calm through all this, and although our vacation was a few hours behind schedule, it couldn't have been better! Here's what we did:

Friday afternoon:

-Lunch at the Mojave Grill. So many good choices on the menu it was hard to pick one!

-A walk through a local park on Sylvan Lake. I had never been there and the lake is so big it looked like the ocean and I felt like I was home. It was good.

-A trip to the store to buy the new season of The Office

-An hour at a cute little coffee shop enjoying treats and doing word puzzles (we are BIG nerds - just to inform those of you who don't know us very well)

-A quick trip through a local farmer's market where we gathered every last cent we had in our pockets to buy a huge hunk of fresh cheese!

-Shopping trip to Superstore to pick up new fall clothes. I know it is probably not cool to wear Superstore clothes, but seeing as I didn't go to high school in this country, I don't know that and I like so many of their things...and their super cheap prices! We bought 8-10 items for $100! We also picked up some more special cheeses for a light supper.

-Home again for an evening of The Office and a delicious "light" supper. When I eat cheese, it's never light.

Saturday:

-Sleep in. I don't think we got up until 9!

-Quick run to Costco to drop off pictures to develop

-Breakfast at Glen's (Yummy Tea!)

-Back to Costco to get our photos and a new shag rug for our living room. I have been wanting this carpet for a long time! I am still impressed that we fit it in our car.

-Home to unroll the carpet (minor cleaning did happen so that we had a clean floor on which to unveil our new purchase.)

-Walk to Starbucks and then to the new library to read magazine by the fireplace. (Have I mentioned the weather was gorgeous and very fall-like for most of our time off?!)

-Rest at home for a bit

-Dinner at a very delicious Indian Restaurant that was made all the more interesting by our waitress who sounded exactly like Snow White. She was probably 19 or 10 and called me "Hon" or "Beautiful" all evening. She also said "Okey Dokey" a lot!

-Movie time! We went to see "The Switch". It was predictable. It was cute. It required to emotions or brain cells to watch it. Kinda perfect!

Sunday:

-Breakfast at Phils (good coffee!)

-Garage Sailing. We found many treasures including new curtains for my front coat closet, a new lamp shade and pretend food for Norah's new-to-her playhouse in the basement!

-Home to can some pears (kinda work, but they weren't going to wait another day)

-To Nana's to pick up our darling daughter. It felt so, so good to miss her!

Here's some pictures: