Heaven

We're back from Bermuda. It was an amazing trip - perfect weather, so relaxing, great food and lots of reading of trashy novels (and one great book - Breakfast with Buddha - HIGHLY recommend it if you haven't read it).

It is a trip that will go down as one of my all time favorites for many reasons. First - it was a surprise from my husband. He told me a few months ago that we were going away for my 40th. This set me thinking (something I should never do). I pictured a weekend camping trip somewhere up North, like New Hampshire. I thought camping, because it is something I don't really prefer to do, and my husband loves to do ... so what better opportunity than to "surprise" me with camping?!?! On the camping thing... he claims I pulled a total bait and switch on him - when we were dating I said I loved camping, and the moment we were married I said I would never sleep on the ground voluntarily again (I had also told him I liked mountain biking, which was a complete and total lie designed to entrap him in my clutches).

He didn't do much to allay my fears when I pressed him for details on where we were going.

"Are we camping?" I asked.

"Define camping," he said.

Sigh. "Are we sleeping on the ground?"

"Define ground," he said.


It went on and on like this until my imagination got the best of me and I had us dog sledding across the frozen tundra of the Arctic and sleeping under elk pelts.

So I was understandably ecstatic when I learned we were heading to someplace tropical. It was the perfect place for us ... a crazy little resort called "9Beaches". It is a pretty array of cloth sided cabanas which sit ON the water. Literally. There is a little plexiglass hole in the floor where we could watch the fish swim by. Rustic and comfy all at the same time. Perfect.

We went out to a nice dinner on my birthday, but otherwise travelled economically -- stuffing our suitcases with granola bars and beef jerky and other non-perishables to save money. We had our own little beach right off our cabana, with a scenic (and shady) cave and direct access to water that hovered around 85 degrees. Heaven.

And as I mentioned before, it was good to miss the kids. Not that I didn't think of them constantly, but it was amazing to reconnect with my husband, finish sentences, and walk hand in hand on the beach. Alone. Everywhere I went, there were reminders of the kids, which was bittersweet.


"Greta would LOVE that shipwrecked boat!" we exclaimed. It was over 100 years old, and reminded us of the boat in one of her favorite books: "Burt Dow, Deep Water Man".


"Finn would go crazy chasing after all these geckos and frogs," we said.

It was a mixed blessing to be just two adults on vacation. I am so used to being Greta and Finn's Mom... it was odd to be treated like we didn't even have kids. We saw many families there, and it made my heart ache a little.

I will pick them up at my Mom's tomorrow. We called them tonight when we got back, and Greta was chatting away about all the fun things they did. Finn kept repeating, over and over, "Momma? I missed you!". I feel like the luckiest person on the planet to have these two beautiful kids to come home to. I can't wait for the endless questions, the sticky hugs and the long summer days. Heaven.