I had to get away.

Now, I'm not talking about getting away by myself. Yes, I enjoy having a couple of hours to myself every once in awhile, but I wanted to be able to enjoy time with my family... away from the house. Life had become very burdensome lately and it was showing in our relationships with each other. I think we all needed a break.

Now, to my husband, a day of relaxation means staying home and doing nothing. But, to me, staying home did NOT mean doing nothing. I explained to him that as long as I am in our house, I still need to cook, clean up messes, wash dishes, settle squabbles over the Legos, etc. For me to really have fun with my family and renew our relationships, we had to get away from the house.

The day after Thanksgiving seemed like a perfect time! Being on a very tight budget meant not going too far away, so we chose a trip to Des Moines. Also, our activities had to be cheap, so decided to do what our boys like doing best... walking through the Skywalk system downtown. I was afraid that with it being "Black Friday", the Skywalk would be packed with shoppers, but it ended up that most of the shops downtown were closed that day. I guess everyone must have been out at the malls. We met a few people walking, but we pretty much had the Skywalk all to ourselves.

We had a great time! We let the boys chose which routes to follow. Of course, we had to go up and down every escalator that we came to. More than once. When we got to the Marriott, we rode the elevator up as high as we could go to look out over the city. It was fun to see the tiny people walking down below. We even spotted our blue van, since we had parked at the top of one of the parking ramps. To add to the fun of the day, we decided to run down the 30+ flight of stairs instead of taking the elevator. Once we got to the bottom, however, I think we went through the wrong door. We found ourselves in a maze of corridors that led past the kitchen, employee's dining room, offices, storage closets, etc. Finally, we managed to get back to the lobby of the hotel.

Back on the Skywalk, we came across a small shop that was open and that served smoothies. I think the worker was glad to have someone stop in and gave us a discount. It was nice to stop and relax... and the smoothies were delicious!

By this time, the sun was starting to go down and we still had to run out to my dad's farm to pick up some more things of my mom's, so we called it a day and headed back down the Interstate. It had been a good day. I had actually been able to play with my family without the nagging feeling that I needed to be putting a load of clothes in the washer or working on some other project from my never-ending To-Do List.

~Connie~