48 Peaceful Non-Parent Hours

So Steven and I went to the Big Island this past weekend. It was glorious. Ya know why, we dropped the kids off at someone else’s house first. It was the first time they’d spent the night away from home. See being a parent is a 24/7 job or at least it is when they’re small. It never ever lets up. And I’ve been doing it consecutively for 1,546 straight days (not counting pregnancy, if you counted that, make it 1,812 days). Dude, I needed a vacation. And having 48 hours where I didn’t have to do anything parenting related was awesome (actually I called once, not really to check on the girls but I figure I ought to make sure the babysitters were ok still) (Oh and Steven missed the girls the second we were on the plane, I was like are you serious????).

Anyway we went to the Big Island (it’s called that since it’s name actually is Hawaii and if I said I went to Hawaii, you all might be like what?) and it really was quite nice. On Saturday morning we went to the Kona Temple. We hadn’t been there yet. It’s one of those teeny tiny temples (I think our chapel is bigger than it) and we were unaware you had to make a reservation. And unfortunately there was a large group from Kaneohe (another city on Oahu). I ended up getting squeezed into a session while Steven did some other stuff. It was really beautiful.

We also went to 3 local restaurants (and actually read the menus). It was super nice to pick restaurants because they looked good, rather on their child-friendliness factors. We just sat and talked and ate and then actually got desserts. The food was delicious. And everyone was super nice and had the Hawaiian chill factor on (Oahu can seem somewhat rushed sometimes, it is a tourist stop ya know).

Saturday afternoon we went to pick up our packets for the Hilo marathon. Let me explain something for the non-runners. In most races (even only 5k ones) they give you a time-chip (or shortened to chip) to clip to your shoe to tell you the exact time you ran it in. And when you have a race going on people have to help, with set up or at first aid stations or handing out water on the track. These volunteers, all of them, were there because they wanted to be, they were all super nice and friendly, but I don’t think some of them knew much about running. When I got my packet and looked inside of it, there was no chip and I assumed it must have been a mistake. I asked, “Don’t we get chips?” This sweet older woman’s sincere response with a smile was, “There’ll be refreshments at the end.” It took me a second to realize that she had no idea what I was talking about and Steven had to nudge me along and explain the run was so small they didn’t have chips (there was only 274 marathon runners total, compared to thousands for the others we’d ran).

Then Sunday morning, Steven and I ran the Hilo marathon! Yeah! The route was really amazingly stunning. There were all these waterfalls, and beautiful vegetation, and we got to see the sun come over the horizon and surfers on the beach. As far as scenery went, this marathon had it going on. However at around mile 10 it started raining and it did not stop raining until mile 22. I was completely and totally soaking wet by then. My feet were also soaking wet and I ended up with HUGE blisters. My goal time was 5hrs 30min. I made it in 5hrs 32min, I was like argh, so so close. I think I would have made it too if my feet weren’t so completely soaked. It was my fasted marathon yet though. Steven will tell you about his time and such.

And then afterwards we got back on a plane (BTW you totally enjoy the peaceful plane rides more when you realize how un-peaceful plane rides can be with children) and picked up the girls. Everyone survived the weekend. I kind of expected the sitters to be like AHHHH!!! Take them away please!!!! Turns out the girls were mostly good though, so it’s all good. Someday Steven and I’ll have to do this again.