A busy weekend...my birthday

As I have mentioned, I was very busy this past weekend. This is the first in a series of posts to share my wonderful, but busy weekend.

My birthday was last week and my husband surprised me by arranging a getaway weekend to Pittsburgh. He arranged for my parents to come and stay with the kids, he made reservations at a hotel and reservations for dinner and, he didn't say a word to me until I opened my birthday card and found a note inside.

A little backstory...

My husband and I met in New Jersey. He lived there, I was living there for a 6 month training assignment for work. I wasn't looking to meet anyone out there. My goal was to move west, closer to home, when I completed my training assignment and got to choose a more permanent position - the last thing I needed was a tie to New Jersey, some 10 hours+ away from home. Of course, when you aren't looking is typically when you meet someone. We met at a restaurant/bar the first weekend I lived in New Jersey. My roommate, also on a temporary assignment - only as a co-op, and I had met a girl at the gym and we met her and friends at this restaurant bar. Long story short, at the end of the evening, it was my roommate and myself sitting at a table with my husband and his friend (whom he hadn't seen in months). We agreed as a group to get together the next weekend and do something. Over the next month, we spent a lot of time hanging out - I saw them as two new friends. Then, one night, it turned into something more and we started to date. We still mostly hung out as a foursome, but occasionally, got together on our own.

As expected, after 5 months, I received my list of final location options. There was one that was a few hours away and there was one back in Pittsburgh, where I had done my first training assignment. I visited the one that was closest, but it just wasn't a fit for me. I decided on the Pittsburgh opportunity. My husband didn't think that he was up for a long-distance relationship, and broke up with me, saying that we could be friends. I was heart-broken. I thought we had a great relationship and didn't understand why he wouldn't even try to work it out, but it had only been about 5 months. When I moved, I called my other new friend first to catch up. This evidently struck a jealous chord and I soon received a call from my husband. He was rethinking this long-distance thing. We arranged a few visits (thank goodness that Pittsburgh and Philadelphia were hubs for US Air and we could get reasonable flights) and the rest is history. We eventually got engaged, he moved to Pittsburgh and we got married.

Which brings me back to my weekend...

When we arrived in town, we drove past our first house. It was strange to see it again. It looked like I remembered, only a little more overgrown. The Cleveland Pear tree that we had planted in the front yard was now taller than the house and the shrubs at the front of the house were a little ragged, but the house looked good and hadn't changed much since we lived there.

For dinner, my husband made reservations for us at the restaurant on Mt. Washington, overlooking Pittsburgh, where we had gotten engaged. We headed into town, all dressed up (I don't wear a dress out often). We parked at the bottom of the hill and rode the Fort Duquesne incline up to Mt. Washington. It was a nice treat to not only have a grown up dinner out, but also to have an opportunity to reminisce about the night that we got engaged.

After dinner, we stopped at the hotel to change (it was getting really cold) into jeans and then we went down to the South Side to meet up with some friends. We had a great time catching up with them - these were friends from my childhood - the first baby I ever babysat and her baby sister. I hadn't seen my one friend in probably 5 years and the other in one or two years.

We stayed out late, but not too late. It was good to know that I could sleep in the next morning. It had been a long time since I could just sleep as long as I wanted in the morning - I'm used to someone coming to my room at 6 or 6:30 to ask if it is morning yet.

After enjoying a complimentary, continental breakfast at the hotel, we drove home. We were hosting three concurrent home parties - Kraft Homestyle Comfort Food House Party, Hexbug Nano In Home Party, and a Healthy Home Party - that evening and still had a lot to do to get ready. (more to come on each of these home parties)

It was really refreshing to get away with just my husband, even if only for a night. I missed the kids, but having a little us time is important to a marriage. This works for me!

This post shared at Works for Me Wednesday.