Weekend Away

We went away this weekend for my husband's birthday. It was a fun time. We left early Saturday afternoon and the car trip was about 2 hours. I felt pretty prepared. We had the Ipad, some books, toys and snacks but the kids were still annoying. "MOM, We've been in the car all day." I was like, "Actually, we have been in the car for 40 minutes." FML. At one point they just started beating each other. It was pretty horrible. They are too damn old to be acting like that. I threatened to drop them off on the side of the road and then they started acting better.

I was so happy when we pulled into the hotel parking lot. Myrtle Beach was pretty much deserted and it felt like we had the whole place all to ourselves. When we got to the hotel room the kids were so excited. We were on the water at the top of the hotel and we stepped on the balcony and saw people riding horses on the beach. The kids were jumping up and down, "Look mom, fresh towels." "They gave us hangers for our clothes." "Look what's in here -the Holy Bible." It was a pretty standard hotel room, it made me a little sad that the kids were excited about fresh towels and hangers. I obviously don't take the kids to enough fun places.

We got ready and headed out to Medieval Times. We were waiting outside on the drawbridge and a trumpet sounded and the royal procession walked by. I thought the kids were going to poop their pants they were so excited. We purchased our tickets and got our picture with the princess. The "king" came up to the girls and thanked them for coming to his castle. All the staff were calling them princess and my husband and I "Lord and Lady". We all got a big kick out of it.

After you buy your ticket they send you to the reception area of the castle to wait to be seated and "enjoy the atmosphere" but really it's like going through a gauntlet of advertisement and merchandise. They were selling princess tiaras, stuffed animals, shirts, swords, goblets, flags, glow sticks, drinks. All overpriced, of course. I was thinking that the kids were going to be bratty and ask for a bunch of stuff but they did not ask us for one thing. They browsed but were so good. I was so proud of them. I know it took a lot of self restraint. 

We finally were seated and the wench got our drinks and started serving food. There were no utensils and you have to eat with your hands- the girls thought that was the coolest thing. We were seated in the red and yellow knight section. At the start of the show the individual knights preformed different activities and if they did well they received flowers to distribute to the ladies in their section. Our knight passed out flowers but kept passing us by. Every time he came with flowers my 8 year old got so excited and waved her hands but still he passed. By the third time, it was not looking promising. He was close to us and I was looking at the knight like, "Look at my girl - she would love a flower." He made eye contact with me and gave me a little nod but still passed us over.

Then it was time for the competition. Before the competition the king tied sashes around the lances of the knights and declared that they had to pick a special lady to fight for. Our knight rode over and parked his horse directly in front of us. He pointed to my 8 year old and waved her down. She turned to me and said, "Does he mean ME?" "Yes - go!" She was so excited, she jumped out of her seat and ran over and pulled the sash off of his lance. It read, "Queen of the Tournament". My 6 year old was so happy for her too (thank God she wasn't jealous).  It was awesome - made her night. It was short lived because our knight was killed in a sword fight by the red knight 20 minutes later. Bastard.

When we got back to the hotel the kids thanked us a thousand times. "Thanks so much for bringing us here! You are the best mom and dad EVER. I love our family." They were so genuinely appreciative. It really warmed my heart.

The next day we went to the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum which was a total tourist trip. It would have been okay if it was 1/2 the price but we were kind of disappointed. We ended our trip with lunch at Planet Hollywood. The kids thought it was so cool to walk into the big earth and we walked around looking at all of the movie memorabilia. I was reminded of movies I love, like Mrs. Doubtfire. While we were eating they played trailers for upcoming movies and music videos. We watched a music video made by One Direction. My husband was watching it very intensely. He turned to me and in a very serious tone said, "You know, if there was ever a zombie Apocalypse I don't think any of them would survive." I nearly choked on my sandwich. He is so funny.

When we got home we relaxed. I lit a fire and drank hot chocolate and then we watched Mrs. Doubtfire. It was such a relaxing, fun weekend. We needed it!