Our Night Off

One of the nicest things about having parents in town is when they offer to watch your kids.  To have them not only offer to watch them, but to send you to their reserved condo for the night, yeah, that's love.

So as I gleefully, but lovingly kissed all my kids goodbye, we headed out to an action flick and dinner.  We ate at a local favorite called Zippy's.  Not so high on my list of places to eat, but it did make a great mushroom burger.  Anyway so we go to our movie and enjoy not having to rush back.  We drove over to the "condo" and find it's like a hotel room built on the side of a local's home.  She rents it out regularly to help pay the bills.  I thought it a very inventive way to take care of yourself.  It was lovely, actually.  Big, comfy bed, cable, a kitchen and a nice bath with linens.  I would pay to stay there any time.

We fell asleep quickly and then slept in the next morning.  Such a luxury for parents with five children under 8.  Eventually we decided to get up and go to breakfast.  We found a great little restaurant.  I mean it was really tiny.  We were all scrunched in there, but the food was so worth it.  

Then we hit the beach, just the two of us.  It was wonderful and so relaxing.  People assume that we're at the beach all the time because we live on island, but honestly the beach is quite a trip with all our kids, their stuff, and all the safety/behavior issues that are possibly around the corner.  The chance to go to the beach like other adults do was so nice.  I got to read a book (I know!) and lay in the sun (again, I know!).  Then we took a swim just in time for me to discover that I just can't stand on anything that's not an obvious rock or sand.  Chris on the other hand doesn't seem to care and thinks my squeals of ickiness are hilarious.  I'm sure everyone watching thought we were being so cute and romantic, but I was actually in Chris' arms because he kept threatening to put me down on something I knew was not sand!  I haven't seen him laugh so hard in a long time.  

It was great and a little hard to go home.  The reception our kids gave us when we got home was worth the effort it was to say goodbye to our time off.  Love my kids so much!

Thanks mom and dad for a great night off.  Anytime you want to do it again, we are ready!