Grown-up Week (almost) Away

Ok, I realize by blogging habits leave much to be desired lately. I never even finished the Hawaii posts I had planned in my head. I blame this all on my new photography endeavors. I've had a lot of interest, which I'm SO grateful for. But all that time spent editing the pictures (which is by far the most labor-intensive part of the process), takes up a huge chunk of my time. I know it'll get easier once I have more practice and know what looks good on which pictures and how to quickly move through large batches. Until then, I'm going at somewhat of a snail's pace, or to borrow one of Scott's crazy phrases "slower than molasses on a Tuesday morning in January." Which I guess moves even slower on Tuesdays and when it's cold? Who knows where he comes up with these sayings. :) So anyway..... between all the editing and my mommy duties, church duties, workout time, etc, blogging has just been left by the wayside.

So now onto my reason for this post. Scott and I got to go away for a long weekend/short week together, just the two of us at the beginning of the month. Other than a night or two here or there for an anniversary or something, we'd never been away from our kids for that long since we went to Mexico when Mister was 2. We'd never left Pumpkin for that long, or Baby Bear ever. Scott is a State Farm agent and they had a big conference in Las Vegas from October 2-5th. It just so happened that our church's twice-yearly General Conference (you can learn more about our church here) was being held that Sat/Sun in Salt Lake City. So we were able to leave on Friday morning, go to Salt Lake to see Conference (where we got to attend 2 of the 4 general sessions!), then jetted on down to Las Vegas from Sunday to Wednesday.

I must say, this was a much needed break. I'd been feeling very run-down and needed more time off from motherhood than just one date night out. I needed to sleep in, take naps and hang out with my husband just as Marissa, without having to do double-duty as "mom" too. I was giddy with excitement when we left. It was such a stark contrast from getting through security at the airport with just the two of us (as opposed to 3 kids, diaper bags, entertainment bags (for the boys), a stroller and an infant carrier like we had when we went to Hawaii. Walking around the airport and not having to keep track of kids who want to run all over the place was a treat in and of itself. :) We had a wonderful time going to the Salt Lake temple, walking around Temple Square, recharging our spiritual batteries and re-connecting with some of my childhood friends who now live in the area. It was amazing.

BUT.

I missed my boys. I missed them so much it hurt. I must've called them 5 times that first day, just to make sure everything was ok (we left Pumpkin home with a double ear infection and my parents had to take him to the doctor). I felt terrible about it. Fortunately he is really good about taking medicine so the extra task wasn't a painful one for my parents or my mother-in-law to keep up on. Not like they had to pin him down or anything, unlike a certain 6 year old I had to do that on a couple of times. :)

Vegas was cool, but I don't think we did it the right way. We don't drink and we don't gamble, so those are two major Vegas draws that are out the window. We also don't have much money (State Farm reimbursed us for the tix and paid for the hotel - nice!), so we couldn't afford to go to any of the many wonderful, awesome shows we would've loved to see. And with that lack of funds, we also couldn't afford to do much shopping. Um, does the Strip really need 3 Gucci AND Louis Vuitton (each!) within a couple miles of each other? Soooooo, while it was cool to walk around and see the different hotels and window shop a bit, there weren't a whole lot of other options for us during this trip. I think I'd like to wait until we can afford to see some shows before I go back. The best part of Vegas was the fountain show at the Bellagio hotel. We stayed at Caesar's Palace (whose check-in lobby could've easily fit 7 or 8 of our houses inside of it) and had a direct view of the Bellagio fountains from our room. We stopped in front and watched it many times and we didn't see the same one once. They choreograph them to music. We never heard the same song or saw the same show. I can't imagine how many versions they must have!

I couldn't WAIT to get home to our boys. It was so hard to be gone from them for so long, even while I was enjoying my adults-only time. I think Baby Bear was mad at me when I got home. When we came home, I hugged Pumpkin and Scott took Baby Bear. When I tried to take him from Scott he started crying and squirmed to go back to Scott. It broke my heart. I'm usually the favorite with him. He's the only child this has happened with (where I'm the favorite - the others were total Daddy's boys) and he didn't want anything to do with me! I tried again a little while later and he did the same thing again. It took about 30 minutes for him to warm back up to me and would let me hold him. I've decided that the best way to vacation from now on will be to take a nanny with us. :) That way we can see them every day but still go out on dates without them at night.

And last but not least, I can't thank my parents and my mother-in-law enough for taking over for us so Scott and I could go away together. I know it must've been daunting to take care of 3 boys all day every day, especially such a young one like Baby Bear. We are so blessed to have family close-by who is willing to help out so we could enjoy some time together.

Sorry for the novel, it's just been such a long time, I felt like I had a lot to update.