In winter of 2019, I had hit a point where I felt like I didn’t have any deep friendships. Sure, I have friends from before I was a parent- we keep in contact and even get together occasionally. And I feel like I have a lot of friends who are Moms, but the difficulty of getting together and doing life together comes up quite often in our busy schedules. Around that time, there was a small group of ladies that I was getting together with about once a month. I would just have them over to my house after I had put the kids to bed and Theo was still at work, and we would sit and chat. One day I finally got the idea that we should go on a little weekend away together. It took a bit of planning and schedule meshing, but we finally booked a place for the first weekend in March. Of 2020.
We laugh when we look back on our first trip together. We had reservations. We had spreadsheets. We had bags packed with things to do. We had backup plans to our plans. We brought food to eat, food to snack on, food to share. We packed our bags and headed to Cincinnati and we had a blast.
This year we decided to make the trip an annual experience, but this year was MUCH different. We did not have a spreadsheet. We did not have ANY plans. We did not bring hardly any food. We did not coordinate. We certainly didn’t make any reservations. And I hardly took any pictures! We were just plain old TIRED and wanted a weekend away to do nothing, to be nobody, and to have some good and encouraging conversations together.
I recap this here on my blog not to brag about the exclusive time we have together, but to put it together in a form of scrapbook. Getting close to these friends has taken time, and it took some effort at the beginning. We didn’t come together because we are all so similar- in fact- it’s the opposite- we are all very different. We came together because we made an effort to come together. So if you feel like you would like to do a similar weekend away, just text your friends! Pick a date that works and pray that you have someone as organized as Christine to make a spreadsheet. 😉
We arrived at the Airbnb late Friday afternoon. We wanted an Airbnb that would allow each of us to have our own beds and our own rooms, since one of our main goals for the weekend was to rest. We got settled and picked our rooms and then sat in the living room talking for awhile. We realized that we didn’t to pick what to eat for dinner and started talking about that. About one hour later we picked where we were going and left the house for some dinner tacos.
After tacos, we needed some rolled ice cream, so we drove to that spot and got our ice cream to go!
I’m telling ya…I took almost no pictures, and most of our weekend consisted of sitting around talking or just sitting in our bedrooms being alone. HA!
Saturday morning we woke with almost no plans, but I had a hankering to walk around The Loft bookstore. We made our way to the German Village, found parking, and then got in line at the bookstore. They were limiting customers in the store, so there was a line outside, but it went fairly quickly.
Of course, I could have spent all day in the bookstore, but we managed to browse around for an hour.
Spending time in a bookstore always makes me lose track of time, so once we had emerged, we realized it was past time for lunch! We walked around following google maps to find a restaurant, only to realize that the one we picked was a “ghost kitchen” in a bar. We have nothing against eating in a bar, but it was so dark and so loud and we were going more for a warm, conversational vibe. So we walked around some more until we found a place that worked for us. It was a late lunch, but it was delicious!
The afternoon was spend at the Airbnb reading, taking a nap, and enjoying being alone.
Unfortunately, our Airbnb was a bit of a disappointment. It was a great size and the location was perfect. But the Airbnb itself was not well maintained and was so dirty! The bathrooms and sheets were clean, and the floors/carpets also seemed to be cleaned, but there were cobwebs everywhere and it was obvious no deep cleaning had been done in months. The listing photos were completely different from the reality. Paint colors were different, furniture was arranged differently, there were no toiletries available, etc. We speculated a lot on the reasoning (covid, perhaps the ownership had changed, perhaps the owners were going through a personal crisis, etc), but in the end we were glad we got to spend time together, just wish it had been a little bit cleaner! Or maybe a lot a bit cleaner…
The listing photo on the right, vs the reality on the left. All of the stuff available was opened and half used…. I’m not a germaphobe but THAT does not seem like a good idea in the times of Covid…
We debated going out for Saturday night dinner, or even ordering in, but none of us were particularly hungry after our late large lunch. So we just grabbed all the snacky food that we had brought and watched a movie together. We stayed up chatting, but were in bed by midnight!
Sunday morning was slow as we packed up and left the Airbnb. We wanted a good brunch spot, but the first place we went had over an hour wait. It was a beautiful day, but still a bit chilly to wait outside for an hour. So we tried a second place and I’m so glad we did because it was SO GOOD.
After brunch, we were checked out of our Airbnb, but not quite ready to head home, so we decided to walk around a little park and headed to the riverwalk where we rented scooters to ride up and down. It was just the bit of laughter and fun we needed to end our trip and head back to our families!
And that’s a wrap! Much needed rest, conversation and time spent with some pretty great people.