Lake

Beanie's school was closed for Fall Break on Columbus Day and the next day. I had asked my sis if we could go to her lake house but she had some work commitments. She later texted me to say she could move her meetings and asked if we would still like to go. We jumped at the opportunity. Its been a long time since we were there last and Beanie has been asking about all summer.

I was hoping my parents could come too, but my Dad was not feeling up to it. As a result it was just my sis, Beanie and myself.

The house is beautiful with a fantastic, panoramic view of the lake. The moment I entered I felt so calm...its amazing how therapeutic water can be. After we toured the house and checked out all the bedrooms, Beanie decided she wanted to sleep in my niece's room - by herself.

LOL!

The kid has never slept alone a day in her life!

At first I tried to convince her otherwise, but very quickly I realized I should just let it be and agree with her. Maybe even encourage it (more on it later).

Since my sis does not live at the lake house full time, we need to carry perishable food. We picked up pizza and sandwiches on the drive in and after we had lunch we, we walked to the beach!

Its a patch of sandy beach about 5 min from my sister's house. Beanie was thrilled to finally play in sand with her beach toys. We were unable to go to the ocean this year because of my Dad's diagnosis, so I was happy she got to experience the sand/water.

We hung out on the beach for a while. It was very relaxing to sit there and watch the boats and hear the waves.
After we were done, we went home and Beanie showered. We then drove to the park. It is in the clubhouse, about 5-7 min drive away. Beanie played and played while my sis and I chatted. In between watching Beanie and talking with me, my sis worked on her phone (she is self-employed).

Around 4 pm we headed back to the house and relaxed for abut an hour.

Later my sis drove us to a quaint town about 25 min away for dinner and to take Beanie to a fun ice cream/candy store.  It was pouring rain on our way there, but soon cleared up which allowed us to walk around the square and check out some shops. We ate dinner at an Irish pub. Unfortunately, the food was terrible.  It was my pick since I thought it would have food that Beanie would eat. She ordered Mac n Cheese and took one look at it at (looked pretty weird) and refused to eat it. Poor thing ended up eating some of my dinner and some chips from my sister's fish and chips which had an odd southern-style breading.  We wont be eating there again!

After dinner, we went for ice cream. Both my sis and I are lactose intolerant, so it was just Beanie. She got her ice cream cone and sat outside with us, slurping away at her cone, watching the world go by.

Once home, we sat in the living room and played Chutes and Ladders with my sis.

By then it was about 9pm.

Beanie had already changed into her PJs and as we were playing she tells me "mama, you may feel nervous being downstairs on your own, so if you like you can sleep with me".

LOL -- I loved how she phrased it!  She is one smart cookie.

I graciously accepted her invitation and thanked her for thinking about me being alone downstairs while they were in the upper level of the house :-) And so we slept together (as usual).

The next day (Tue) I was expecting to leave after breakfast, but seeing how much fun Beanie was having, my sis told her we could stay until the afternoon. I had taken some bacon, croissants, OJ, fruit, etc for breakfast. After we ate, we hung around the house since it was raining. When it finally stopped, I took Beanie back to the beach for about 45 min, before it began to rain again.  We had a quick snack and went to the park. I took a towel to dry the slide/swing. Beanie played there for a  bit. We went to the clubhouse to use the restroom and decided to have a snack/drink. After that we went back and played for about 15 minutes, before heading back home to pack up and leave.

It was a really nice getaway. Very relaxing and very bonding. I got to completely focus Beanie with no side distractions of cleaning, paying bills, cooking etc. My sis told my Mom that she too had a really nice time :-)

All in all it was a really fun two days.