Valuing our time together - despite every plan I had to make it perfect

Hubs and I planned a pre-Valentine's day weekend away with my mom to take the baby.

I told him that I'd take the helm on planning this one - as he planned the last (haunted) one -- and I need to catch up on sleep with this trip.

Super secretly, I chose to head north (yes, in winter) for our weekend.

Four winds casino is about an hour from my mom's house. We'd be close to a few of our favorite haunts -- and the restaurant I fell in love with last year.  I even landed a deal of a whirlpool room at a nearby hotel! SA-WEET!

T-minus 3 days before departure, I get a call from the hotel that they, in fact, do not have any whirlpool rooms available (due to renovations) and that they'd give me a kitchenette room instead.  I was disappointed, but ok.

T-minus 2 days before departure, I realize that we are EXTREMELY tight on money because the taxes I submitted won't be processed until mid-Feb because of some stupidness that spanks me in the ass when I try to be on top of things (the previous statement is not intended to have a "fun" or "sexual" connotation, although I'm positive some will construe it that way).

Then Friday night - preparing for our Saturday morning departure...I get a call from Aunt Flo that she's going along with us on our mini-vacay. fantastic. She failed to mention that she was bringing along her evil twin sisters Aunt Migraine and Aunt Crampy. grr.

I'm trying hard not to feel like this is a failure of a trip. Hubs is just excited to be baby-free and to see what I have in store for him.

We arrive in town, and check into the hotel.  Our king size suite was HUGE with a separate bedroom and everything!  I heart Holiday Inn Express - and choose to stay there whenever possible - the one in New Buffalo, MI just reinforced that love.

I decided that we'd take the shuttle to the casino in case we both decide to drink while we are there.  Because of our severe brokeassedness, we dug through my car and pulled every last penny out of it.  The shuttle was 40 minutes late picking us up (being late is a HUGE pet peeve of mine - especially when I'm handed a schedule and told that these people are ALWAYS on time).  I let it roll.

We get there - the casino is lovely. A little smokey for my tastes, but lovely.  We figured out that we needed to cash in our coins for bills to be able to play.  $22.  That means $11 for each of us.  I was a little embarrassed at first, but decided that losing $22 that had been laying around in my car collecting lint, cheerio dust and melted chapstick (yes, ewww...) was probably costing me on gas mileage - so removing it is a win-win!

We got about 3 hours of gambling in with that much money!

We had a buffet dinner - which had come highly recommended.  Unfortunately, the timing of the shuttle set us back a bit. We arrived at the buffet right at dinner time (when the prices jack up). When the price of $58 came up for the two of us, I nearly shit a brick.

I ate two half-full plates of food.  Hubs at a little more.  Casino won on that round.

We had a blast - but we were out of money and wanted to head back to the hotel.  The shuttle was AN HOUR late picking us up!! GAH!!  It was very frustrating.

Upon return to our hotel, we drove into town in search of a liquor store as we stayed stone sober in the casino because of the prices.  On our way, we passed my favorite restaurant bearing the sign "Closed for the season."  Shoulders slump...again.  Seven up and mandarin Absolut made up for it.

Overall, we enjoyed ourselves. Yes, we had setbacks - Yes, I wish I could have done a few things differently.  We'll just have to come back with a little more planned out ahead.

It was just what we needed.

Oh, and my Aunts Flo, Migraine, and Crampy can go to hell.

:)