I imagined driving 15 hours to Steamboat Springs, Colorado to see one of my best friends. Or maybe back to our friend’s cabin. Or to Red Lodge. In the end, we stayed home, at the recommendation of my daughters. “If we can’t go somewhere where we get to see all the grandmas at one time then I want to just stay home and play. ” Margot decided for us.
I leave tomorrow for Write Doe Bay. I will be gone for six days, quite a bit longer than the few 24-hour periods I’ve spent apart from my children in the last six years. Like one of those end-of-garage-sale deals where hosts hand out paper bags that you get to stuff with treasures for a dollar, our week was affordable and full of goodness.
Our staycation was the ideal for two reasons: 1) I got a solid 11 days of playing with my kids, which infused my body with appreciation and love. 2) I got a solid 11 days of playing the the kids, which excited me for my first solo trip.
Day 1
Shopped for lumber to make a coffee table I designed and convinced my husband to make. Cleaned house. Read books. Rehung the swing to accommodate those growing limbs.
Day 2
At the creek. Saw the year’s first bees. Ruby found a stone that “feels like my cheek.” Margot found a stone with a fairy horse hoof print. Played pirates. For the first time in nearly two months, I can fully bend my knee! Ruby took a picture of it.
Day 3
Library. For the kids: Leprechauns (Mysterious Encounters), Pirate Diary: The Journal of Jake Carpenter, Princess Stories, Rapunzel, The Kissing Hand, Cut-Paper Play! and (my favorite) Sugarbush Spring. For the mama: Success with Organic Fruit, Backyard Fruits and Berries. Collected so many eggs. Broccoli cheese quiche.
Day 4
In the garden. Planted spinach and peas. Dug, tilled, prepared and imagined. Planted my first ever fruit trees: plum and peach. Girls collected 17 millipedes and 23 worms and fed them to the chickens.
Day 5
Lolo Hot Springs. Swam and swam and swam. Saw the season’s first buttercups. Picnicked and drove home in silence while their tired bodies slept. Evening hike with Alice.
Day 6
Ran for the first time in six weeks, despite my perpetually swollen ankle and rickety knee. It was hard and rewarding. I pushed Ruby; Margot biked next to me. I felt strong and able. And, my ankle swelling went down a bit. I pounded that fluid straight into the earth. Yep.
Day 7
Gymnastics day camp for the kids. I worked for six hours with great concentration and productivity. On my new website and in the studio with Amanda, baby Isla, Lexie and visiting chickens. New stuff coming to the shop this month.
Day 8
Made hula hoops. Learned of Margot’s expertise and watched Ruby’s pure joy in rolling that hoop down the hill and hauling it back up. And again. Beet carrot soup, my kids favorite and a sure sign of garden bounty on its way.
Day 9
Freshly squeezed grapefruit juice, every morning for weeks now. Bought daffodils. Hula hooping. Ran again, this time pushing Ruby with Margot running by my side. She announced she wanted to go for just a bit and then be pushed. She ended up running three miles. Tangerine sorbet. Watched Stuck in Love with my love and liked it.
Day 10
Andy made the table with his influence of painting the ends in the colors lumber yards paint them. I swept the driveway and shoveled the last of the snow around the yard to encourage MELTING. Hula hooping all day. Bookended by friends over for coffee, friends over for dinner. AM for the coffee, pile of vegetables over barley for the dinner.
Day 11
Andy and the kids decided to go skiing and I straddled my my options: wanting to fold up into that time with my family versus wanting to organize six days of clothes and my thoughts on writing. They left and I stayed home, unsure of my choice and feeling good about my choice. Went for a windy run. Hula hooping.
And now I’m off to stretch into something I’ve never done before at a place I’ve never been before with people I’ve never met before. Lots of new experiences this week. Bring it.
29 Comments
Wow, that’s quite the post, staycation!!! Good luck on your trip away! Now I want to make hula hoops with my kiddos over their spring break! And that table is awesome!!!
Have you seen the hula hoops video at You are my Flower? http://vimeo.com/15414075
One of our favorites. Margot is so so big. Unreal. I started reading when she was a year old, when my youngest was the same age. Kindergarten must be a giant body/time warp.
Love this! Your fresh air life fills my city lungs.
Enjoy lady, create, and inspire. This is your path and your journey, step into the light, embrace it all.
um… i’m in love with the table.
your girls are great gifts, and the time apart for your orcas island adventure will be a much earned reward, nici. bon voyage!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Love seeing these glimpses of our town through your lens. Awesome. And your staycation looks so awesome to me. 🙂 I know how much goes into making 11 days happen, pushing work and other things around to be able to be home with the kids for that kind of chunk. Have fun at Doe Bay! Hope it fills your bucket! <3 Grace
Fun post! I hope to be in a place to do Doe Bay some year. About to give birth & change my career around, so not exactly. Looking forward to reading some of the inspiration y’all grow together.
perfect. have a wonderful time at doe bay. wish i could be there with you all.
by the way…love the new website design.
Great post. I’m nervous to leave my son and head to Doe Bay this week, too. I’m sure it will be good for all of us (my husband, kid, you, your family and all of the others…). Thanks for your writing the past 5-1/2 years, Nici. I’ve never missed a post and look forward meeting & learning from you this weekend.
Tammi I’m so excited to meet you as well! And, yes, this week will be so so good. xo
Tammi, I feel nervous, too! I’ve never been away from my (almost) two-year-old son for more than 24 hours, so this will definitely be an adventure!
Can’t wait to meet you, Nici!
Perfect. Just perfect. Wish I could meet you at Doe Bay, but hey, maybe Missoula? It’s not so far…. LOVE the table, but…what happened to that awesome rug? Cheers to new experiences. If your inspiration on this blog is any indication, you’ll be phenomenal.
Rug is in the girls room! It was getting trashed in our living room; not quite sturdy enough for our wild in-and-out bunch. 🙂 Yes to a meet-up! I’d love that.
The bit that sticks out the most:
Margot ran THREE miles?! Good work, Margot. That is awesome.
I love the life you have created, you keep inspiring me! Have fun at Doe bay. x
“If we can’t go somewhere where we get to see all the grandmas at one time then I want to just stay home and play. ”….brilliant decision Margot Bea!
This is my kind of Spring Break, full of creativeness, good reading, good eats and Hula Hoops!
I am excited for your new adventure, I know you will miss your family but the reunion will be pure bliss! Have fun Burb…I look forward to to ALL the details…travel safe my beauty!
Love you so….Mom
Love the new coffee table and seeing your work studio. Hard to believe your family used to live in that space LOL Can’t wait to hear about the retreat!
sounds like a fantastic week! and how do you make a hula hoop?!?!
I linked to it up there! Super easy and cheap and fun! 🙂
Oh awesome! Thanks! I must have missed the link, sorry! Xo
I love to read your blog, it’s a breath of fresh air. Love your simple, back to basics kind of lifestyle that is centered on family and togetherness. We are planning on moving to a new town soon, we are staying within our wider area but I think we are going to take a chance and move further out into the countryside. Still the suburbs but more farmland, more nature, closer to the water, less hustle and bustle. I think it will be good for all of us. Thank you for the inspiration! Enjoy your trip. How is the book coming on? I am looking forward to reading it!
Do your public schools have a 2 week spring break? Brilliant.
Oh, and fantastic table.
No but Margot was out at 11 on a Thursday and off Friday and then we had the whole next week and weekend! So it ended up 11 days. I loved all that time! 🙂
Your new website design is gorgeous, I love it! What a great spring break, I love the photo of the girls smiling big smiles & your new coffee table is so perfect. Love!
Hi, I love your blog. Please tell me what kind of wood you used for that awesome table. love it.
You’re “livin’ such a sweet life, oh what a neat life…” I always sing that song when I read your posts :). It’s true.
Have a blessed, fulfilling trip! You’re there by now. Squeeze Kelle for me, would ya?
OH, you guys live so well. Such an inspiration. 🙂