Vacation 2008 - The Best Laid Plans... go to waste

You know the saying don't you... it is SOOO true of my life!!!
Yesterday Bryan and I left for a romantic evening alone while my parents wrangled the 3 monkeys for us!!

THE PLAN was to go check in and RELAX.

THE PLAN was to enjoy being alone without "MOMMY MOMMY" or "DADDY DADDY" or "CAN I" or "HE DID...".

THE PLAN was to get something to eat after checking in... then run to Target for face wash I forgot and get back to the hotel to RELAX.

THAT WAS THE PLAN!!!!

Here is what really happened.

We ate at Chili's wait no... we WAITED at our table at Chili's for 15 minutes before we told someone that our waiter hadn't even said ONE WORD TO US!! (CLUE to how the night would be going...)

We manged to get through the rest of dinner un-eventful. THEN we tried to find Target. Not so easy in the nations capital!!!! (I thought I'd be smart and ask the cute preggo mom putting her little boy in the car - Here's a thought - "When someone tells you directions... try to PAY ATTENTION and follow them!!!!" We found out later - She was right if we had REALLY Paid attention)
SO IMMEDIATELY after the direction being given to us - we both FORGOT if she said to go left or right at the first turn!! We went left..... (WRONG WAY!!!)
After driving past MORE than the 3 lights she said it should've been (if we'd gone the right way)... we asked a cop on the side of the road at a speed trap.... AGAIN - PAY ATTENTION to directions.... (Streets and Maps/ Google Earth only do so much when you have us working with them!!!)....

SO instead of Target we ended up at the mall.... but that's OK... we'll just SHOP without kids and still make it back to the hotel to rest a little before bed... RIGHT? Maybe with any NORMAL people!!! We had a good time shopping even though we didn't buy much... and then headed out to the van by 9:15pm... not bad (except we aren't at the hotel yet are we???)

One thing you should know about my husband is he is particular about many things... the biggest being food... he only likes certain things and then only certain brands....ONE of his biggest loves is DUNKIN DONUTS...(to me a donut is a donut - can you hear him shudder and sigh when I say that???) So we decided to look for a Dunkin Donut store in order to have "breakfast" since we PLANNED to sleep late!!! Now the problem is we DON'T know where our hotel is, where we are, or where a Dunkin Donut's is.... so we decide to drive around the closest shopping center's just "looking" for one!!! (They are hard to find by the way - although I saw three today without trying)
After driving around for 20minutes we decided to head back to the hotel... which was WHICH WAY????? After much "discussion in loud voices" it was decided I would drive and he would look at the almost-dead-laptop-with-Streets-and-Maps on it.

I was directed to drive through a side street to just go to a grocery store to pick some "breakfast" up. Down the 35mph street I went... in the dark, dangerous city driving only 30mph when all of sudden in may mirror I see pretty blue lights flashing!!!!! OH YEAH I GOT PULLED OVER!!!! As it turns out having the light above your licence plate out is a major offense!! The nice young lady officer let me off with a warning since I'm out of state. When she brought back my "warning" my husband then asked her if she knew where a DUNKIN DONUTS WAS!! OH YES... you heard right he asked a police officer where a donut shop was!!! She replied , "Yes, I do but they are closed now... are you just being funny?"
As we pulled away Bryan pointed out that if he had been driving we wouldn't have gone down that road... I said yes but we would still be lost too!!!

We did make it to the hotel by 10:45pm!! So much for relaxing but at least we could SLEEP LATE (1pm check out so no hurry to get up) We'll that was THE PLAN anyway!!!

7am we were awakened to (I'm not kidding) the FIRE ALARM!!!
This wasn't just your normal BEEP BEEP BEEP ....NO just for us it was a SIREN with SPEAKERS in your room and a LOUD voice saying "ATTENTION PLEASE - MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE!!" I thought my head was going to explode!!! After "checking it out we found out that it was a false alarm and went back to sleep for a little longer!!

After that sort of start I was afraid of how security at the airport would go for Bryan's flight... visions of strip searches and detaining floated through my head.!!
The rest of the trip was surprisingly uneventful.... Bryan made his flight and is now at his brother's house... I am still at my parents with the three boys!!!
This was our first "overnight" trip alone since before Wyatt was born... the last one ended with a phone call that Hayden was throwing up everywhere for our babysitter...

So now you know 1) Why we don't go anywhere alone
2) Why we don't really PLAN anything
3) Why it is IMPORTANT to pay attention to directions

If we had turned right- like the lady said- instead of left there was an entire shopping center on the other side of the highway.....
wonder if they had a DUNKIN DONUTS?