A surprise trip!

While Callum was in the NICU Kevin and I constantly felt guilty for "ignoring" the girls. We promised ourselves when things settled down we would spoil the girls and do fun things with them. We hated feeling like we were giving Callum all of our attention, and while that wasn't the case, we felt a lot of the times like it was or we were constantly thinking about him. I especially hated not being able to spend the majority of my time with the girls and hated to have to choose between being with Callum and with the girls - I wanted to be with all four of them together. 

The girls in the jacuzzi tub in our room

So, when things settled down and we knew Callum was gaining weight and doing well, we thought it may be fun to surprise the girls with an overnight trip. Last summer we took the girls to North Conway for a few days and we had such a great time, so we looked at hotels and got a great deal at the same hotel we stayed at in August. While Storyland and Santa's Village wasn't open yet, we thought it would be fun to just get away and have fun together. We booked the hotel on Thursday, packed up after the girls went to sleep so when we woke up on Friday we would be ready to go.

When the girls awoke on Friday we told them we were taking them on a mystery ride. The girls were immediately ecstatic and couldn't stop talking about where we were going. They didn't know we would be spending the night (since we packed the car the night before) so their guesses were things like the beach, the park and other "simple" places like that. After we had breakfast and got dressed, we put everyone in the car and headed on our Mystery ride to North Conway. Multiple times throughout our drive, the girls would ask where we were going - we'd just laugh and say "you'll see!" - As we got closer and could see mountains, Mairead says "This reminds of me North Conway!" - what a smart girl, but she still didn't have a clue as to where we were going!

This is what Callum did on his first "vacation"

When we arrived to the hotel, Mairead got excited! She knew exactly where we were and when we told them we would be spending the night the look on Maireads face was priceless. Seriously, I wish I had a photograph. The smiles on the girls faces were ginormous and almost made me cry. They were SO happy. We got a room with a jacuzzi, so that was even more icing on the cake for them!

Mairead mastered the monkey bars!

We swam.......and swam........ate pizza. Shopped. Played on the playground. Went out to dinner. Went out to lunch. And swam some more. Shopped some more. Played some more. The big girls did amazing with swimming - they are fishes! Clara did awesome in the pool, too! She was jumping in and Kevin would dunk her under water and she loved it! Callum, of course, did amazing. He slept. Really, he's so good. He'd wake to nurse, and then go back to sleep. It was great because we were able to spend a lot of quality time with the girls.

I can't believe how "Big" Clara looks here!!! 

It was a much needed quick trip to spend with the girls. It was great to get away and just have fun. Even though we were gone for just one night, it was the perfect trip to decompress a bit. Watching the girls smile, laugh and just have fun was awesome.