Anniversary Stay-cation

Oh to be in love. Just the idea of taking a stay-cation for our 4th anniversary was romantic before the actual event even took place!  We booked a hotel downtown Minneapolis, found sitters for our toddler and our dog and made a reservation at the Melting Pot.  What more could you ask for of an anniversary?  Upon arrival, everything we did seemed romantic to me: "Jesus, let's take a romantic walk through the skyways."  "Jesus, let's eat a romantic snack of croissants and cheese in our big bed."  All of my gestures got the same lovely reply from my husband: "Becky, it's not a romantic walk, it's just a walk to Target! If I go take a poop, will that be a romantic poop too?"  

Oh wait, now I'm exposing the real story!  Let me continue with the anti-climactic stay-cation for Becky and Jesus's 4th anniversary as a married couple.

Yes we made the above arrangements and everything fell into place for our little adventure.  We got to our hotel and enjoyed hanging out as the two of us without a child or a puppy.  We walked to Target and through the skyways but everything in the skyways was closed on a late Saturday afternoon. We searched and searched for a yummy snack as our dinner reservation wasn't 'til 8:30 and finally settled for the Starbucks in our hotel.  We bought some vanilla coke and a little plate of cheese, veggies, and summer sausage.  Little did we know that the summer sausage tainted the flavor of everything else on our plate!  We continued to relax and got to watch some un-interrupted TV about millionaires and the homes, watches and helicopters that they buy.  

Our parking lot view but there are still some skyscrapers.

Oh to have alone time!

comfy eh?

Finally it was time for our dinner reservation and I was very happy with my pink blush and makeup for the night.  I've been growing my pixie into a new style and even felt like I had a good hair day so here's a vanity shot but mostly to show off my Loreal color lift blush in rose gold for my makeup readers. 

We got to the Melting Pot and it was so exciting because we had never been there!  We ordered the four course meal of cheese fondue, a salad, our entrees and a chocolate fondue.  You get to dip bread, apples and veggies into a cheesy mixture and then cook your meats right at your table in the flavored oil of your choice.  Doesn't that sound and look amazing? 

Well...it wasn't.  The cheese wasn't even that good but maybe it's the flavors we picked.  The best thing I ate all night was my salad and it was just a wedge of lettuce topped with ranch, blue cheese and bacon.  Then for the meats.  Their suggested cooking times were not medium rare but raw.  As we let the meat cook longer, they just over cooked and became chewy.  The shrimp and Lobster turned our fine but seafood is always delicious when it's boiled!  Steak on the other hand is not delicious boiled and that's what you get at the melting pot.  Maybe we are food snobs because we would rather pay for a professional chef to cook our steak on the grill.  I was most excited for the chocolate fondue but by that point we had already left so much food we couldn't finish and I knew I would only fit in two bites of chocolate covered fruits and brownies before needing to fall over from being too full.  So instead we got a complimentary chocolate fondue for our next visit and I can't even promise there will be a next time.  I know people rave about the Melting Pot so don't knock it 'til you try it but for us, we tried it.

During dinner we checked in with our little boy only to find our baby sitter asking us how in the world to get him to sleep and to ask us what he keeps repeating.  He was repeating "I wanna go" because he wanted to go home.  Did I mention this is the first time we left him overnight and he's never slept somewhere else without us?  The next phone call, my little boy went from saying "momma momma" to all out bawling and my poor sitters couldn't make him stop.  Jesus wanted to go home and get him and just take him swimming with us at our hotel the next morning.  At this point, it was already after 10:30pm.  I was going to be the strong one this time.  We cannot go get him.  He has to learn to be away from us. We need time as a couple; it's good for our marriage.  But my husband always has a 6th sense for emotional things.  He doesn't make rash emotional decisions so if he wanted to go home and get Joaquin, when he's normally the tough one, I couldn't help but listen.  We told our sitter we were on the way and I left the restaurant feeling like a failure.  How could we have given in?  We need to be each others' priority even before our children and now are we choosing him before each other?  After our walk to the car and talking/crying to my husband, my feelings of failure fled.  Jesus and I are adults and we can do what we want and what we wanted was to calm our child and take him swimming so we did!  It was wonderful.  He gave us some of the biggest hugs when we walked in the door and he fell right asleep when we brought him back to the hotel.  He loved riding the elevator and getting ice from the ice machine.  The next morning we swam and finished our stay-cation in Minneapolis!

Our little one's arrival to the hotel

Peace

Splashing papa