Weekend away

Ryan and I returned today from a wonderful weekend away in the mountains to celebrate our 10 year anniversary (which was in December.) Stalwart followers of the blog will recognize that this was not our original plan. We had planned on NYC, had considered Hawaii and had dreamed of Greece or Italy. But as our 10 year came and passed our thoughts changed. My kids--the girls in particular--can be REALLY difficult. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that if I actually left them with my mom for a full week, she probably wouldn't ever want to see any of us again. I considered waiting until they were in full-day school, so they would be gone most of the time we were, but then I just got sick of waiting. This was also combined with the fact that the only time I have ever left my kids with anyone other than Ryan was when I was in the hospital either having another baby or having another health crisis. It kind of freaked me out to fly across the country or ocean and leave them for an extended period of time.

Long explanation over...my two wonderful friends offered to take the kids so Ryan and I could leave for the weekend!! Admittedly, still a little nerve-wracking. Would they still be my friends once the weekend was over?? Would my kids annoy them/trash their house/teach their kids devious behaviors?

I found an incredible Bed and Breakfast up in the mountains and booked the room before I could change my mind. I'm so glad I did! We will certainly be making this a yearly tradition. We stayed at the Arrowhead Manor. It was soooooo nice! We were pampered and taken care of like you couldn't believe. We got there on Friday night and were shown to our beautiful room. It was late but they had a huge selection of DVDs for us to choose from and nice hot popcorn so we snuggled into our enormous bed (really, it seemed WAY bigger than our king) and enjoyed a movie.

Ryan in front of the Arrowhead Manor. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED by us to all you locals!!

Our bed--the room was quite small, but very luxurious.
The view from our balcony.
On Saturday morning we attempted to sleep in, but we both woke up to our internal alarm clocks at about 5:30. We attended breakfast in the great room which had floor to ceiling windows looking out over the mountains and the pine trees--it was gorgeous! The food was divine! Then we set out to start our day. We realized upon leaving the hotel that Ryan had neglected to pack himself a sweatshirt or jacket, so we had to get him one in case the weather didn't cooperate. I don't know where people who live in the mountains shop for clothes...we finally found a tiny thrift shop with the worst customer service EVER and bought Ryan a somewhat decent looking sweatshirt.

We hiked some beautiful trails just outside of Evergreen for about 2 hours, then drove into Evergreen and had lunch at a fancy restaurant overlooking Evergreen Lake. The weather was warm and perfect, but VERY windy. In the middle of our outdoor lunch a huge gust of wind came up. Luckily we all grabbed our glasses and napkins in the nick of time, but it blew over a huge umbrella behind me which HIT the woman sitting right behind it. She was okay, but a few minutes later her friend stepped on some broken glass that had fallen as well. I wonder if they got their meal for free...

Me at the lakeside restaurant with a tiki torch coming out of my head.
During lunch I got a dreaded phone call. It was my friend Amy, who had taken the boys, and the first words out of her mouth were, "I don't want to alarm you but..." Yeah, I was alarmed. It turned out that Isaac had passed out. It wouldn't be overly worrisome except that he also passed out for no apparent reason a few weeks ago at school. I have to admit that it put a damper on the rest of the day. I couldn't stop worrying that something is seriously wrong with him. I guess they were visiting the fire station when it happened. He was sitting there and suddenly just kind of collapsed onto his friend. It's a good place to have a medical emergency--he was surrounded by firefighters and EMTs almost instantly. They checked him out and said that his blood pressure was extremely low and his blood sugar was really high. They wanted to take him by ambulance to the hospital, but Amy thought if he needed to go there, she would take him (Thanks, Amy--ambulance co-pays are pricey!) He took it easy and was fine the rest of the time, but I still worried and wondered if we had done the right thing by staying. I did tell Ryan if he faints again, we are heading home immediately. I will be calling the doctor first thing tomorrow morning to get him in there and figure out what is going on.

After lunch we walked around the lake, then drove up to look at some of the ENORMOUS mansions. WOW. We hiked another few trails before heading back to the hotel to freshen up for dinner. I had paid extra at the BNB to get a fancy four course dinner for two. We sat next to the cozy fireplace overlooking the mountains and the sunset and ate crusty bread, crabcakes, Caesar salad, filet mignon, veggies and yummy desserts. Just the two of us. I probably gained 20 pounds. We rolled up to our room and collapsed from overindulgence into bed for some more movies.

What the?? We saw this next to the lake and were a little perplexed.
At the top of one of the many mountains we climbed this weekend.

This morning we were able to sleep in--7:30, baby! We had breakfast, checked out and did one more beautiful hike near our hotel before heading back down the mountain to reality. We had so much fun and the kids did too! It was a great weekend and we plan and doing it again every year!