A night away

Yesterday, the girls were 3 years, 10 months and 7 days old. As of yesterday morning, Rich and I had never spent the night away from them. Together. Ever. Since their birth, Rich has attended two bachelor parties and two weddings. Away. By himself. I had never been away from all three overnight. Ever. Period.

As a special treat, Grammy has taken the girls, one by one, down to her house for a special weekend trip. This leaves me and Rich with two children and does help out. Plus, it gives the girls one on one time with Grammy and Papa. Rich's sisters and other family members also watch the girls occasionally so that Rich and I can go out to eat, usually lunch on a weekend.

I am so grateful that we have family who can help us out. Because Anna needs to be cathed, we can never be gone for more than two and a half hours unless Grammy is babysitting. And because Grammy watches the girls during the week, I don't like to ask her to watch them on the weekends as well. She needs a break too. I always feel rushed when others are watching the girls. And that is my own fault. No one rushes me. It's just that I know how difficult it can be to care for them.

So this weekend was Grammy's gift to us. One of Rich's sisters came over Saturday morning and watched the girls for a few hours before Grammy and Papa arrived. This morning, another sister came over and watched the girls for two hours so that Grammy and Papa could leave. I've been told that the girls were well behaved and all three slept in their beds all night. Hmmmm, interesting.

If you live in New England and you want a night away, where do you go? Rich and I had already been to Kennebunkport and, while nice, I didn't really feel like going back. With the start of school vacation week, a lot of people were heading north. I thought about Newport and then the Cape. I'm not all that familiar with Newport and didn't want to spend hours upon hours researching the perfect place to stay.

Rich and I stayed at a B&B once and it wasn't the greatest experience. We decided that we really aren't B&B type people.

The Cape. Where to stay? Where to stay? I wanted to stay at the nicest place down there. Chatham Bars Inn. That was an easy decision.

The weekend was a bit of a surreal experience. I missed the girls but I enjoyed my time alone. What was nice about being away for the night was not feeling like I had to rush back home. Before we really hit the road, we stopped to buy the girls' birthday presents because that was probably going to be the only time we could do so. That required two stops. And then we made another stop because I needed to purchase sleep bribery gifts.

Before we reached Chatham, we drove around some areas of the Cape that we are familiar with. I took some photos. I will be displaying my "Winter on the Cape" photo series at some point. It was fun to play with my Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens. What was not fun was the 30 degree weather and the horrific winds that blew in Friday night and stayed.

We arrived at Chatham Bars Inn a bit after 2:30 and although check-in time wasn't supposed to be until 4:00, our room was ready. We had 5:30 dinner reservations at The Tavern, which is one of inn's restaurants. Do you know how weird it is to say, "What should we do?" We watched Black Swan. That was, um, an interesting movie.

I know this is annoying but I'm going to mini-review. I feel the need. Chatham Bars Inn has a main inn and cottages. The cottages are really just houses that hold probably 6-8 rooms. We ended up going this weekend because it was the first weekend with rooms available. Our room was in the main inn, which actually worked out for the best as the restaurants are located there. We simply had to walk downstairs to eat. It is too cold out.

Here was our room.

And the view from our deck. Should have booked an ocean view.

The view from the front porch of the inn.

Everyone that works there is incredibly nice. Our dinner was amazing. I had the lobster roll and it was the best lobster roll I've ever had. Rich gave his scallops two thumbs up. Dessert was absolutely delicious. I think we've watched five movies in the past four years so this ended up being a movie weekend. Unfortunately, pay-per-view didn't have any of the movies that we really want to see. We settled with Morning Glory, which was cute, for our evening feature. After Black Swan, we needed something on the light side.

Lights went off at 9:30 and at 10:00, I jumped up out of bed. The thudding of a closing door had awakened me and in my mind, I thought it was one of the girls falling out of bed. The inn and other guests were very quiet, except for some clicking noises with the heat. Rich and I woke up a lot though. I think that it was just the typical not sleeping in your own bed thing.

Our package included room and breakfast. If you have that option, take it. And if you do have breakfast in the Main Dining Room, just get the breakfast buffet. It is basically everything that is on the menu so you can sample at all.

We arrived home to hugs and kisses. And then there was fighting and screaming and whining. Em was a grump and a half. I think this was partly due to her being overtired. The girls have been getting up before 7:00 for over a week now and they really need that day or two of sleeping in. She's in bed with Allie right now (that's a different post for a different day) and I know what's going to happen. I'm going to be awakened in the middle of the night by some shenanigans.

I do have to mention how funny the girls were when we were getting ready to leave. At first, they thought that people were just coming over to visit. And then I started packing a bag. I told them that Mommy and Daddy were going to go for a drive to the Cape. They wanted to know why we needed the bag. I told them that we would be staying there for a bit.

Allie asked, "Will you come back in the morning time?" See, the girls only know "morning time" and "night time." "Morning time" means that it is light out. "Night time" is when it is dark out. I told her that we would be back in the morning. I just didn't tell her which morning. I have been told that there was no crying for us so I don't feel too bad.

Rich and I are hoping for a repeat trip next year. {Sigh.}