Weekend Post Partum

Well we're back from our weekend away. Back to changing diapers. (Why do they always poop in pairs?) Back to Silly Songs. Back to cer-er-al for breakfast. Back to ordinary life.

But I have the memory of our weekend tucked into my back pocket to be taken out as needed. This weekend was so fabulous that we've decided to try to do this on a regular basis. It really was blissful. Maybe not personal-massuese-in-Paris blissful but blissful nonetheless.

After saying good-bye to the kids I had a few teary moments but they were gone by the time we turned the corner out of our neighbourhood. I can honestly say that I hardly thought of them. I'm pretty sure that doesn't make me a bad mom but I'll probably have to go through a few days of Mother Guilt just to be sure.

The drive was wonderul. I remember when a friend of mine had kids and I didn't. She and her husband were in a car for 4 hours and they talked non-stop. At that time road trips for Hugh and I consisted of me reading or sleeping and him listening to music at the top of his lungs. I actually thought there was something wrong with our marriage because we had nothing to talk about. Not so this time around. It was so great to get to talk about things other than logistics. UNINTERRUPTED. Well uninterrupted excpet for the time that I had to pee really, really bad. You know the Prairies might have "big sky" and an unmarred horizon but it's really inconvenient to pee in the bush when there are no bushes. Let's just say I'm really glad Hugh's jacket size is large.

During the drive I realized I forgot some basic necessities. Underwear actually. Note to self: not having much to pack does not equal having nothing to pack. We made a quick stop at the mall and left 4 hours later. One thing you can do without kids is actually get undressed to try on clothes. Oh the bliss.

After our "brief" stop at the mall we headed to our real destination. Bragg Creek, AB. It's about 30 minutes out of Calgary and has a population of 900. The entire town is contained within a radius the size of a Safeway parking lot. I'm not even exaggerating. Wondering why we chose Bragg Creek?

Some family friends of ours own a cafe there and Jane has been going out every weekend during the summer to work for them and we wanted to check it out. The Boardwalk Cafe is seriously the cutest cafe and the food is unbelieveable. The Quark cheescake is beyond words - it's an experience.

We met Jane to go out for dinner and went to a place called The Powder Horn. Our picture of Bragg Creek was that it was sort of a wealthy yuppie town. Jane said those people were at the other restaurants. This place was home to the locals. We walked in to a room blue with smoke, with wooden planks on the floor and at least one cowboy hat at every table. Oh yeah, it was also Karaoke night. Not quite the intimate setting we imagined for dinner but still no kids so whatever.

We looked at the menu and Hugh noticed calamari. "I don't know about ordering calamari at a place like this," I warned. Hugh and I ordered burgers and I vaguely heard Jane order the calamari. Hey Karaoke lady, just because you're loud doesn't mean you're good. A short while later, a waitress brought a plate of onion rings over to the table wondering if they belonged to our table. We all said no. The entire exchange was communicated with gestures because it was SO loud in there. A few minutes later the basket was brought back by another waitress who shouted that this was the calamari Jane ordered. "This is calamari. This is how it comes," she shouted.

Really? Where does Calamari come like that?

Anyway, our B&B was really cute. The breakfast was amazing, we had a great day on Sunday, and on returning home Sunday night we discovered that our kids really could survive without us. Who knew? On this grey rainy day I'm dreaming of next time.

Maybe it'll be Paris...