Thursday, August 13, 2009

A Welcomed Break From Stress

Sometimes the sadness and muck of life can becoming overwhelming but I am so very thankful that God knows when we need a lift and He sends one our way. Not only does he send it but He sends it PERFECTLY! The lift He sent us this time was my very dear Mom. She drove to our home to stay with us for a few days and told me "Think of me as your live in Nanny while I'm here". How could I not LOVE that! Within hours of her arrival I found myself running errands without children. I love my kids but sometimes need a break. I ran those errands with a giant grin on my face and spring in my step. It was then that it hit me that I used to nearly always be this cheerful and seem to have lost a lot of it with the demands and stress of life (especially since the adoptions). It was so great to feel "myself" again for a while. Not only was she wonderful to me but she is SO FUN with her grandkids! She spoils and spoils them. It's out of control really, but I try to look the other way because... really, shouldn't grandparents be all about the out of control spoiling? I LOVE how much she enjoys them and they enjoy her. She just brought so much FUN to us all and we really needed it! The above photo is of the kids with their gift from Nana. The worlds longest gummy snake candy!





THEN, she told Jim and I to head out and enjoy a date night together. I was SO excited as we had not been out on a date in 7 months! We got to ride in our new car together for the first time and headed to San Francisco to Ghiradelli Square. We had a late night snack in a nice restaurant overlooking the ocean. Then we headed to the Ghiradelli shop and restaurant while we had a ridiculous amount of yummy chocolate and ice cream!

Afterwards we decided to take a stroll on the beach. It was very late on a Monday night and there was almost no one around. We had to cut through a little park to get to the beach. Once there we realized we were being followed by someone sipping out of a brown paper bag and acting shady. He kept watching us and slowly moving more and more towards us. I pointed out an area where we could somewhat see and hear other people hanging out so suggested that maybe it would be a good idea to move that way. Once closer we found it was a large group of people totally drunk and acting crazy. Okay, maybe not my best idea! Meanwhile the guy that was originally following us was moving in closer to us. So we decided to quickly cut back through the park. As we hurried along the trail we caught some movement ahead of us. It was a SKUNK hanging out on the trail. We laughed outloud when we realized that we were now having to make a decision between passing the skunk or going back to the drunks. Hmmmm.... Everyone has to make that decision on a date, right? Totally normal. So we picked the drunks and made our way past them without incident.


The following morning was my "date" time alone with my Mom. My Mom is one of my favorite people on this planet. She's just a BLAST to hang out with. We left early in the morning and rode the Bart (train) to Union Square in San Francisco. It was my Mom's first ride on a commuter train. I kept trying to mess with her and telling her to get on or off at the wrong places. She endured me with great humor. While everyone else sat quietly she and I talked and laughed totally having a BLAST!











Once in SF we found a yummy bakery where we had our breakfast together in this Galleria. The rest of the day was spent "shopping" at Saks 5th Ave, Tiffany's, Barney's, and more. It was so fun to see the many designer things. The clothes, shoes, jewelry... it was all more works of art then just merchandise. The price tags were the kinds that make your eyes bulge out of your head so that was fun to check out too. At Saks we spent time checking out designer shoes like Prada, Jimmy Choo, and Manolo Blahniks. I couldn't resist seeing what it would be like to walk around in a pair of Manolo's so put some on and OUCH. If I were to spend thousands of dollars on one pair of shoes I would expect to feel like I'm walking on clouds, not being tortured!
The next couple days continued on with my Mom jumping in and helping with the home and kids. When she wasn't doing that she was entertaining us. We were so sad to see her go but enjoyed so much what a gift she was to us while here.





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