Girlfriends Weekend

I just got back yesterday from the annual girlfriends weekend. For the last three years I have been taking 24 hours ( give or take a few) and leaving the kids with the loving husband and meeting two of my oldest and dearest friends for some kid and husband free fun. The past two years we met halfway in a little town in Minnesota but this year I traveled out to Rochester for our weekend. It was a total blast. There was the power shopping at the mall. It is a little hard to do that with young children or a board husband wondering why you need to go to five different stores to find one pair of shoes or a new outfit. Even lunch out at Panera was great, I got to order something I really wanted to try and actually eat all of it hot. Usually I get the food but by the time I get everyone else set up and started on their food mine has gone cold or someone has decided they like my stuff better so I end up having to share. I also got to have conversations that did not revolve round the word "poop" or hear the phrase "Mommy I burped" Later that evening after exhausting ourselves at many many stores, we changed in to dress-up clothes. Ok, so my idea of dressing most days is wearing clean jeans instead of sweats so actually wearing clothing meant for a formal occasion was fun. We went to this really great restaurant in Rochester called the Redwood Room. It is this little hole in the wall basement place in Downtown. It is very small and intimate and that night there was a musician playing folk music in the corner. Our waiter was really cute and knew his drinks and menu so we were able to have an awesome meal. I decided against getting a Martini and went for the Margarita since the waiter informed me they do not own a blender. For the record, I detest those icky frozen Margarita things they sell in the majority of eating establishments ( yes, I'm a snob) As for the meal, I went with an Italian dish that had cheese ravioli and I opted for a red sauce instead of the cream sauce it came with. Our table got bread with olive oil for dipping and Parmesan cheese to add to taste--yum yum. I got a salad with my meal an my friend Jackie ordered a salad that had heirloom tomatoes, cheese and a wonderful balsalmic viniger dressing. My salad had a wonderful Itiallian Vinigegret dressing and was oh so good. When the main course came out I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Hands down that was the best meal I have ever eaten. Of course no dinner would be complete without dessert so we split the chocolate cake drowing in chocolate syurup and vanilla ice cream. Since I had to leave the nest day and we were pretty wiped out we went our separate ways and decided to meet up the next morning at Jen's house where I was staying. It was nice to be able to have a bed all to myself and not worry about putting anyone to bed or having to get snacks. When I called home earleir that night the kids were so excited to tell me all about thier day. They had not had a lot of one on one Daddy time for the past few weeks as the loving husband has been out of town so my being gone was somewhat of a treat for them too. The next day Jen let me borrow her computer and her and Jackie helped me set my blog up and then it was off to Perkins for one last meal. For those of you who know us it should be no suprise that Perkins was involved. We used to go there back in High School and of course now when we get together for our weekends we have to go to Perkins at least once. I said my goodbuys and drove the three hours back to reality. When I left Saturday morning, I made sure that the dishes were clean in the dishwasher, the floor was swept, and the laundery was clean and all loads were finished. I got home and the house looked like world war three. Hubby left to go up to Brokings for a martial arts classs so I spent the next several hours getting things back to normal. I left him with a pound of hamburger in the fridge but of course he used that up and his comment to me about supper was "good luck with that" No, it wasn't mean spiritied or anything. I did what all good mothers do when it comes to crunch time food...pull out the Mac and Cheese. By the time hubby returned from class four hours later (Brookings is a hour drive from our home) the kids were fed, bathed and in bed--not asleep yet--the floor was swept, the dishwasher was unloaded and reloaded, and the dirty clothes were picked up and put in the hamper. All in all it was a very fun weekend.