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Showing posts with label weekend. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weekend. Show all posts

Monday, July 18, 2011

What a Wonderful Weekend

What was so wonderful?

The hotel


The restaurant


The words


The food


The cocktails
 

The view


The wildlife



Family Time

When our 6 year old boy said the black stuff around my eyes made me look scary and ugly.

When we walked into the restaurant and Miss 3 said, "It's Masterchef!"

Alone Time

It was so quiet...for so long

An overnight stay in a nice hotel and dining in restaurants was something we did often (and by often I mean more than once) before we were a family and when we were just a couple.

My husband and I haven't had a night alone since before our eldest child was born, and he's almost 7!

So I reckon we deserved this getaway.

And we'll be doing it again!


PS We stayed at the Crowne Plaza Pelican Waters and I highly recommend it. The service was great, the food was fabulous and it's quiet and out of the way. And I haven't even been paid or given anything to say so.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

The Great Escape

It's another long weekend in the Sunshine State and my mother-in-law called a few nights ago to offer to mind the kids Saturday night so my husband and I could go out for dinner or to the movies.

A date! Woohooo!!! We never have dates anymore.

So Friday night I went to bed dreading the packing the next day (1 night x 4 people = 2 much).
Turned out I should have been dreading the bleeding nose my 2 year old woke up with...twice!
That almost blew the date for me.  She's had this happen a few times and usually it takes a few days to go away.  Of course then I was worried about her bleeding all over my mother-in-law's crisp white bedsheets and us being out when it happened again.

But my husband suggested we have a day time date instead.  Yay! Brilliant!!  It was all systems go again...yep, I had to get packing.

We actually visit my in-laws, who live 100km away, every weekend because
a) we like to escape this town
b) they live on the Sunshine Coast, and
c) we actually like them!




So we arrived Saturday morning and my mother-in-law wanted to check out an 'open house' four doors down from them.  So we went for a sticky, too.




There's nothing like going for a little stroll through a $1.63 million home.

Oh yeah, it was nice!







Anyhoo, back to reality...

At 12.30 we escaped!
Skipped out hand in hand like two giddy teenagers.
Well, not really.
But it felt that good!
We went to a fancy restaurant.
Well, not really.
We went to the local tavern but this is where we sat...

I had a nice glass of white wine.
Well, not really.
It was cheap house wine but who cares!
And the yummiest chicken tenderlions on pumpkin risotto.
It was so good. And the fact that we don't eat out very often any more made it taste a million times better.
I was as happy as Miss Piggy in a pink bubble bath!
I was sitting there thinking, "I'm not even thinking about the kids."
Well, not really. Of course my next thought after that one was, "I hope she doesn't have a nose bleed when she's napping."

Then we went child free shopping which is nearly as good as...it gets!
We bought all sorts of lovely trinkets for ourselves.
Well, not really.
I bought new clothes, shoes, a DVD and X-Box 360 game for the kids and nothing for me.
Well, not really.
My husband did buy a bottle of expensive champagne for us to share with his mum that evening.
Well, not really.
It was the latest in bubbly-turned-alco-pop (but it was good!)

And we had to go to Man Heaven, aka Bunnings!

Three hours after escaping we returned home bearing gifts and everyone was happy.  Our 2 year old was napping (finally, it took a bit getting her down...as usual) sans nose bleed!  And our 5 year old retold the fun they had in catching butterflies, and had evidence to prove it.

As soon as the napping beauty awoke we were off to the beach.  It had been a hot day, but wouldn't you know it, as soon as we get in the car a shower appears!  So the beach was a bit cold, dark & windy but that's not enough to stop a five year old boy getting in, is it?


Sunday morning we went for a walk/bike ride/play in the sand along the water front.
 

And then we went to the markets, as you do.

Then Sunday afternoon we were back home with a lovely weekend and a date tucked under our belts.
And, there's still one day left of this long weekend.
Hmmmm, what to do tomorrow??

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Beautiful Brisbane

Well I stopped playing minds games with myself and went to dinner with the girls I used to teach with and hadn't seen for seven years! And everyone who said, "Just go, you'll have a wonderful time," was right!! All those things that I was telling myself weren't great....ended up being GREAT!

It's in the city, more than an hour and half from where I live...Not great :(
(We turned it into a mini family holiday & also got to visit my niece for her 7th birthday...GREAT!)

I don't like sleeping over at other people's places...Not great :(
(I didn't need to sleep at someone else's place because we booked a nice hotel at Southbank...GREAT!)

This means I have to book somewhere and pack...Not great :(
(My husband booked and I did hate packing, as usual, but I survived...GREAT!)

I get so nervous turning up anywhere (like the restaurant) alone...Not great :(
(I didn't need to turn up alone, one of my friends picked me up from our hotel...GREAT!)

I have nothing to wear...Not great :(
(I found something that wasn't great, but I didn't really care in the end...GREAT!)

I don't know if it's worth the worry and the bother...Not great :(
(It absolutely was worth the worry and the bother...GREAT!!!)


So I looked old and fat and frumpy...
...but it didn't matter because it felt so good to be sitting at a table with seven wonderful, warm and witty women.

And we only had one night in the city, but it was gorgeous.  Lovely hotel...beautiful views...

I miss Brisbane!  I didn't grow up there, I moved there when I was 18 to go to college for three years, moved away to teach for four years, moved back to Brisbane for eight years then had to leave it again.  But it still feels like home.


We went on the new 'Wheel of Brisbane'

Visited the museum
Strolled through Southbank parklands

Walked into the city mall and played in the Botanic Gardens
Walked along Riverside

Passed the River Queens

And caught a river ferry back to Southbank.

Then we packed up and drove to the Gold Coast for a special little girl's birthday.
The cousins had a great time playing together, we had birthday cake, and we drove two and a half hours back home.

It was wonderful, all of it.

Love ya Brisbane!

(Who's old enough and local enough to remember that slogan?)