Category: Getting Outside

We finally left town for a couple days this past weekend to celebrate Barry’s birthday – only a few weeks late this time, but we had important business to attend to on his actual birthday weekend! It couldn’t have come at a better time…us packing  our car and heading to our rented beach house. We got lost on the way there and Maggie begged us from the back seat to head back home so she could ‘go night-night in [her] own bed.’ 

Of course we didn’t turn around and as our cell phones announced their lack of service and our headlights hit the front steps of our house, we were already ready for some time to unwind. One of the very, very best traditions that Barry and I established early on in our relationship is replacing physical gifts with the gift of experience. Birthdays are often celebrated with a small gift and a weekend planned by the other person. Barry is a complete MASTER at this  – more than once he has ended up taking us to really fantastic places that I have no idea about until we actually arrive. On the other hand, I’ve taken us on some doozies…places I never wanted to know about and I’ll never tell anybody that I actually went there. 

So this past weekend when I woke up Saturday morning and realized that I’d actually done a good job in finding a great place for us, I had to do the Happy Dance to celebrate. In fact, I pretty much Happy Danced the whole entire weekend. The only bad part about the weekend was this: the dang weather was too beautiful. I kid you not. I had packed us for what I had thought to be typical Washington Coast weather and when the sun greeted us each morning, I cursed my wool sweaters and warm coats that I’d stuffed into our suitcase. I survived in my muumuu and flip flops, but daaaang, where were my shorts when I needed them. (Side note: I have zero pairs of shorts that fit me right now, so that complaint is not even legit.)

If I had to write myself a note about this all it’d go like this:

Dear Hannah,

Remember when you were driving home from Seabrook and you just kept looking at Barry trying to contain your smile because being away for 2 whole nights felt like a major getaway?

Remember how Maggie raced into the waves and rolled in the warm sand while collecting sticks for ‘Flag Camp?”

Remember how Sydney turboed on the beach until her little chubby legs couldn’t go anymore?

Remember how Barry forgot his running hat and Maggie yelled at him not to go running without it?

Remember how you discovered that yummy ice cream?

Remember that getting away fills your tank.

Love,  Hannah

So, really…Happy Birthday to Barry. May our tradition of getting away to celebrate birthdays be one that lives long in our family. I really love us and for once I feel pretty much like a smug person for picking a place we’ll probably go back to.