What I Learned From My Trip to Visit Ashley

1. A good book is always better than another Redbook magazine with all the same tired articles. Thanks to my blogging friend Jill's virtual bookshelf--I found this book, which I absolutely loved. I laughed so hard at times that the people on the plane around me kept staring.

2. Any meal without children is an absolute delight. There was so much good food, I can't possibly talk about all of it. For more in depth reporting on what we ate, see Ashley's blog. The only problem is that when I'm pregnant I'm always ravenous. But as soon as I start eating, I get full quickly. An hour later, I'm ravenous again. Small frequent meals are the answer but that doesn't gel with the way I roll on vacation. Ashley and I believe in huge binge fest meals (with bread baskets or chips and salsa!) between shopping and being pampered. This did not do good things for my stomach.




3. The Mostess knows food. I met the Mostess through blogging and she is a riot. I thoroughly enjoyed our meal together at Tamarine--a tasty upscale Vietnamese place. I felt a tiny bit of guilt that as I was enjoying the delicious shrimp puffs on Sam's birthday, he was at home on with the kids eating McDonald's. The guilt passed though.




4. I can no longer trust Pottery Barn Kids for name ideas. At first, I was thrilled to see this name on the wall since it is one we are considering for our new baby:


All three of my kids' names are in the current catalog so I assumed that PBK and I were on the same page when it came to taste in names. Then I stumbled onto this name (what the?) and I realized one of us is horribly out of touch. Please tell me it's them:


5. I love artsy movies. Ashley and I both really enjoyed An Education. We saw it at an old theatre by Stanford, where you have to valet park to see a movie. Crazy. Don't you think the main character, David, looks exactly like Sam?


6. I appreciate fine malls and outdoor shopping areas more than musuems or sightseeing. Just a sad fact about me folks. I ain't proud of it.


7. The TJ Maxx and More in the Bay Area has way more selection and better stuff than ours. I ended up having to borrow a suitcase from Ashley just to get all my wares home. Aren't those cake plates cute? And I love my new pillows!




8. The only time I missed my kids was when I went into a really cool Lego store that Luke would love. The minute we left, I was glad I didn't have my kids again.


9. The first rule for massage therapists should be to shut your yapper. Mine talked the ENTIRE hour. It was the worst. And I had to beg her to push harder. I like massages to almost hurt so I know they are doing something.


10. Pedicures are God's gift to women. I could get one every day. The bad news is I came home with an ingrown toenail as a result of the lady cutting my toenail too short.


11. Turns out I am too good for Chili's. Our food was cold, bland and disgusting. It was our only bad meal of the trip. There's a reason I hadn't been there in four years. For good chain food, I'm sticking to Chevy's and CPK.

That's it. I've already decided to come down next summer as well. It was just too fun, too relaxing and too hard to come back to real life. Thanks to the husbands for making it all possible!