A Series of Posts from a Special Long Weekend

The last several days have marked quite a milestone in the Reichmann Family: Mommy and Daddy's 10th wedding anniversary and their first trip away from the kids to return to the place they visited during their honeymoon. For the kids, it has meant the first time staying away from home with someone other than Mommy and Daddy! We are happy to report that, despite Mommy's hesitation to leave her babies, everyone did extraordinarily well and it was a positive experience for everyone involved. The posts that follow break down the week in review, from both perspectives.

Wednesday started off as "one of those days" when we went to playgroup at friend Tommy's house only to get a call shortly after we arrived, first from our alarm system company and then from Poppy Jack (who is second in line on our emergency number list for the alarm company after our numbers) that our alarm system was going off! So Mommy quickly packed up all three kids, got in the car and drove home to find two police cars (much to Alex's delight!) and Poppy Jack in the driveway. Luckily it was just a false alarm- on of our motion detectors seems to have been triggered by a bug or dust or something- and Alex and Ari got to meet the police men and see their police cars. One of the police men even quickly sounded his siren and flashed his lights as we left (further piquing our neighbors' interest in what was happening at the Reichmann house) as he drove away. So Alex and Ari thought it was just a blast.

Wednesday afternoon Miri and Opa came to "take away Mommy's baby" and bring Kira back to their house for the duration of their trip. While Mommy was very teary eyed (and even Daddy was a little sad!) Kira had big smiles and must have known she was in for a long weekend of pampering and spoiling by her Miri and Opa.

After Kira was safely on her way, Mommy took Alex and Ari to Nana and Poppy's house for dinner, some play time, baths and bed time. Ari went right to sleep in her "big girl bed" but Alex sang and talked for an hour before Daddy came to pick Mommy up to get back home to finish cleaning and packing. Mommy's heart was broken as she looked back at the house and Alex was peering out the bedroom window, clearly crying for Mommy and Daddy. But she knew he'd be fine and wouldn't even miss them the next day.

After staying up way too late packing and cleaning, Mommy and Daddy tried to get at least a few hours of sleep before it would be time to wake up at 3:45 a.m. to make the flight. At least we knew that we'd have several days to catch up on lost sleep once we got to Anguilla!