Spontaneous Vacation

We left bright and early Thursday morning for our quick trip to the Coast. If you consider 9 a.m. early – that’s almost midday for us. About half an hour into our 4 hour drive, Matthew pipes up:

“While we’re so close, maybe we should head to the States and hit the outlet stores for some shopping.”

Pardon me?

We’re not the most spontaneous of people…to say the least. I plan everything far in advance. For example, I’ve already started Christmas shopping. But I digress. We discussed it further, and thought that it was now or never. Well, at least until Baby D is a few years old.

Normally I would have planned out what we were doing, printed maps off the Internet, booked a hotel, etc. Not this time. We’d be flying by the seat of our pants. I’m an eternal optimist, so I knew it would be just fine. Besides, I thought I had over packed for both the boys and myself, but it looked as though I would be perfectly prepared. I now know why it’s a good thing to pack extra underwear.

We left the kids with Matthew’s sister and her 2 boys on Friday morning as we had planned. We went to our friend IKEA’s house. She was good to us, as she always is. The added bonus – we got down to the warehouse and found the shelving unit we wanted for the bathroom in the AS IS. Not only was the “scratch” miniscule (took us awhile to find it), it was $50 off. Sweet deal.

Friday afternoon we crossed the border. Hit the mall in Bellingham and spent the night there. In a hotel, not at the mall. Can someone please tell me why we don’t have a Target in Canada? We need one. Really. Got me two maternity shirts to wear through the next month. All I owned (shirt-wise) prior to this were tank tops, and it’s getting cooler. Not only are they cute tops, they were dirt cheap. Best kind of combo.

We headed to a place in Tulalip called “Seattle Premium Outlets” on Saturday. Oh. My. Word. If I weren’t preggers, I could have done some real damage. We got Matthew and the boys hooked up with a good array of fall and winter clothes. I got two nursing bras. Woohoo. Oh, and a new video camera. The Sony outlet store was a dream come true. The camera’s pretty, and also an amazing deal. I’ve been having fun playing with her.

We had planned on spending the afternoon at the Seattle Zoo. Unfortunately it was rainy. And cold. The first rainy day in a month or two, apparently. I’m glad we hadn’t told the kids about the Zoo, so they weren’t disappointed. We instead headed back to Bellingham and went swimming in the hotel pool. The kids were more than happy to jump into our arms about a billion times.

The kids were great. Graham is at the age where you can explain what’s going on, so he did fantastic. Nathan…he did as good as a two year old could. If you factor in the late nights and short naps, then it would only be fair to say that he did fantastic as well.

We drove home today. It was good to get away, but it’s always even better to come home. If you’re thinking that the past few days sound a bit much for someone who’s supposed to take it easy, I did a lot of sitting. Sitting in the car, sitting at Matthew’s sister’s house, sitting watching the kids while Matthew did some shopping, sitting in the hotel room. No added strain on the baby or I.

That was our spontaneous, albeit short, vacation. It’s also why I haven’t posted in a record number of days. I know you’ve all been impatiently checking to see where I’ve been. Kidding. Though my sister Mel called tonight wondering if I was OK because I hadn’t posted. Gotta love the Internet.

I’m more than OK – I had a great couple of days with the sweet boys in my life. I also got the shopping bug out of my system, and have more items to help me organize and deal with that nesting bug. I’m doing just dandy.