Reflections on Traveling without Kids

Reentry after spending time away from the kids is difficult enough, but coming back to dreary, cold Michigan makes it even harder.

It's spring in Napa Valley!

Getting back to the routine was surprisingly easy.  No, easy is not the right word.  It’s kind of like jumping into freezing cold water and then swimming because if not, you will drown.  So it’s more like survival.

Before Napa Valley and Ojai Valley seem like far, distant memories, there were a few thoughts I needed to share before they fade away.

I NEED TO BE NICER TO MYSELF

See this salad? 

I had it Ca’ Momi at the Oxbow Public Market  It’s asparagus topped with frisee and a crumbled hardboiled egg dressed with the most delicious lemon vinaigrette I have ever tasted.  The woman who made this salad prepared it with so much love and attention to detail.  I am sure that she does this for every salad, but somehow this made me feel really special.

Right then and there, while I was marveling at how the sweet-tart lemon dressing perfectly complimented the asparagus and frisee, I realized that I am not nice enough to myself.  Sure, I go to yoga and treat myself to coffee, but it’s always mashed in between something like grading assignments or volunteering at the kids’ school.

 I am not even sure how to incorporate this kind of focused, non-hurried moment in my life at this time, but I am sure going to try because it felt amazing.

SPENDING TIME ALONE WITH MY HUSBAND

Oh, hey.  I remember you.

Between swim practice and Lego club and making lunches and filling water bottles and the Never. Ending. Bedtime. Routine, I sometimes forget that I used to have a great time with my husband.  Not that we don’t have a great time together now; it’s just not the same when we are squeezing in a date night at the end of a long week and trying to stay up until the babysitter has put the kids down to sleep.

I realize that even though we do a decent job scheduling a date night (even if it’s a half-assed one that includes running errands at Target), we definitely do not spend enough undivided time together. 

I am not saying that we need to leave our kids for a week and go clear across the country every time we want to spend time together.  However, I am saying that after spending time in a place like Napa, buying orange juice at Target should not be considered a date night.

 EAT MORE CROISSANTS

More specifically, Bouchon croissants.  Every morning at our stay at The Cottages of Napa (which I totally recommend because they were quaint and unique as a traditional B & B, but more private since we had our own kitchen/patio to eat), we had a basket of Bouchon baked goods delivered for breakfast. 

The croissants were lovely, buttery, flaky perfection.  Also, the blueberry muffin was so perfect, I don’t know how I am supposed to eat one that is not baked at Bouchon.

My wish is for Bouchon to deliver croissants to me in Michigan

DRINK MORE WINE

It’s one thing to pair up a cheap (yet satisfying) glass of wine with some Golden Grahams because you are tired and desperate after a long day, but it is entirely different to learn the history of the vineyard, learn about the wine making process, and savor a glass with a delectable bite of food that pairs perfectly with that glass of wine. 

Robert Mondavi

I love my kids.  I love them more than I thought I could love anything in the whole entire world.  But parenting is hard.  So very hard.  I sometimes feel guilty for wanting needing a break, and other times, I don’t even recognize that I need a break because I am too far deep in the parenting trenches to even know there is life happening elsewhere.

This trip really helped me remember how refreshed I feel after I enjoy moments that are separate from the kids. And more importantly, I realized that refilling my tank should not be associated with any kind of guilty feelings.

Have you taken a break away from being a parent?  Where did you go?  What did you do?  How did you feel?

Tales from the Mythical Land Called Southern California

Alternately titled: St. Regis Monarch Beach Hotel and Laguna Beach, you are so lovely and hence have ruined my life.

 

Well, I have uncovered myself from my post-trip laundry and was all ready to blog about my adventure but then I got swept up in preparing for birthday season (you could read about it here, here, and here, but simply put, from the months of March to May, we have a slew of birthdays thrown in with Easter). The kickoff to the season is at my house this Saturday, so I’ve been a bit busy.
 

 

Which is a far cry from my incredible time in California. (Especially the part when I went to Spa Gaucin to get a massage and afterwards, ate grapes and sipped wine in the cozy post-treatment room).

 

First of all, it was 70 degrees and sunny Every. Single. Day. And get this, people actually go OUTSIDE to walk and get exercise. They don’t pack up their kids to go walking for exercise . . . at the mall. And it should be noted that outside included a beautiful beach and bluff with lots of flowers. This definitely creates a different experience than walking past the store fronts of Forever 21 and Wetzel Pretzel.

 

Also, there were healthy food options everywhere I looked. For breakfast, I had a Mediterranean omelet with roasted tomatoes, artichokes, feta cheese, and chicken sausage. Another day, I had an egg white burrito with chicken chorizo. (Which totally balanced out the pound of prosciutto and fresh buffalo mozzarella cheese I had on my “ham and cheese” sandwich). (I did say healthy “options,” but seriously, I could not pass up that prosciutto).

 

It just makes me realize how hard I work to have an active lifestyle in Michigan . . . especially with all the ice we got today. At the end of March. Mother Nature has no mercy for us, none! (And not even in the summer because in July, we’ll have 90 degree heat with 100 percent humidity). People just seem to have a much easier time being healthy. Maybe that’s why the overall vibe was laid back and casual, as in, “Hey, I am going for a seven mile hike today up the coast and bluff. But afterwards I might want to eat at a really cool restaurant so I am going to wear my ‘good’ workout clothes that actually look like an outfit, not some baggy, faded maternity rags.”

 

I realize that where we were staying was probably not representative of the major cross section of Southern California’s socioeconomic status. I mean, I am sure not everyone lives in houses like this (although MTV would like to have us think so):

Houses right by our hotel. 
Check out those windows!

 

Houses right on Laguna Beach.
What's it like when the ocean is
your backyard?

  

At least my family who lives in Bakersfield in Northern California doesn’t have a house like that.

 

But it seriously was beautiful and I don’t even know what the word is, maybe unique?

 

I’m thinking that maybe the cool artists’ colony in Laguna helped with that vibe. We went on a tour and our guide was amazing. We got to see how etching was done and watch an artist paint in her gallery. Everything just seemed so relaxed and natural and effortless. It really got me thinking . . .

 

I know part of traveling is appreciating home (which I am coming to), but there was a huge part of me that was kind of depressed that living in the suburbs of southeastern Michigan isn’t as beautiful and artistically inspiring as Laguna. Part of me left thinking that maybe I was accidently born in the wrong state. (And maybe traveling without a diaper bag and a 30 plus pound weight on my left hip made things seem really relaxed and effortless. Just a thought as I am writing this out).

 

And seriously, I would love to live there except for the following reasons:

•  I know for a fact that I could not afford to live at the St. Regis for more than a half a day.
•  I have an overwhelming fear of earthquakes that could break California right off into the ocean.
•  I could run into Vicki or even worse, Alexis, from The Real Housewives of Orange County (Tamara, I would be OK with seeing you since you dropped that dead weight names Simon).
•  I would miss my friends and family.
•  Finding a new pediatrician seems like an awful lot of work.

So I’ll leave you with the pictures of The Mythical Land of California (minus the spa pictures (obviously) and my adventures in eating sushi because I had to concentrate all my efforts on not focusing on the squishiness of raw fish in my mouth. And taking of picture AND doing that was much too much).

 

On the way to the pool.

The actual hotel.
Or my pretend home, as
I like to think of it.

The hotel from a distance.
Too many rooms to clean,
if I actually lived there, right?

Lemmon trees right on the property!
Seriously?!

 

 

The beginning of the 7 mile
hike up the beach and bluff.

 

 

About 5 miles into our walk. 
See what I mean about the scenery
being more inspiring than the mall?

Harrington and I on Laguna Beach.

Laguna Beach.
*sigh*

 

 

Feel Good Friday – California Dreaming

Check out The Girl Next Door Grows Up!

As you know, I have been in a funk. I talk about it here and here. And to add to all of that, I Marie was well enough to leave the house, which sounded like a good idea. Except that it was 14 degrees outside and Thomas thinks coats are a form of torture. He expressed himself to everyone in Macy’s and the parking lot his strong dislike of coats. *shudder*

But this is no time to dwell on this because it’s FEEL GOOD FRIDAY! Yea!

Guess what? In March, I get to go here. That’s right the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort in Dana, California! How exciting!! How is this happening, you ask? For the same reason I got to go to Vancouver in the fall: riding Harrington’s coat tails.


*Here's where I would post some pictures, but Blogger and The Babes are not allowing that right now.*
As you know, I had issues with feeling guilty for enjoying the benefits of his work. I didn’t actually *earn* it since it was his gig. But after this week of hardly leaving the house, I’m feeling like I deserve a few days in a spa with an ocean side view. It’s totally worth the awkward feeling I have when conversing with strangers that I have little in common with.

And if the St. Regis sounds familiar, you would be right. It has been the site of several of Real Housewives of Orange County episodes, like this one with Tamara and Gretchen.  How cool is that?!

So that is my happy thought on Friday: another spa-venture in sunny and warm California.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!