You know how sometimes you get an idea and you know it’s going to blow up in your face, but there is a small chance it might actually work out splendidly and that small chance is enough to make you go for it? Also known as a ‘<enter activity here> they said, it’ll be fun they said’ moment. Well, we had us one of those on Tuesday; it went a little something like this:
“So where is the Hawke’s Bay game on Saturday?”
“Napier”
“Hmm, we could go… take all the kids, make a day of it!”
“We could…”
“We should…”
“We really should!”
“Let’s do it!”
*excited giggling ensues*
Us in October 2012, our first trip to Napier
On Wednesday ‘make a day of it‘ turned into ‘we could always stay the night‘.
This morning after a friends invitation to stay, ‘could stay the night‘ turned into ‘we will stay the night‘.
… and there is the potential for it to turn into two nights.
Yeap. We, of [supposedly] sound mind are taking our four lovely (read: crazy) children on a 3 hour roadtrip to watch some rugby and explore Napier. For a whole weekend. A whole week.end. Whooooooole weekend.
Napier is a very special place for Lauriel and I – it is the first place we went away to together on a roadtrip – and I love that we’re going to have a chance to share it with our children.
I remember as a kid it was always so exciting to know we were going away for a weekend, especially if it was somewhere we didn’t often go (for us that place was Christchurch, Dunedin or Queenstown)… and I want our kids to have that same excitement! Eloise is already extremely excited about going – and if you have a tween or teen, you’ll know what a joy it is to see them excited about something; especially something related to spending time with you! Gabrielle and Aidan are also excited… to the extent they have decided they’re going to get up at 5.30am so we can leave as soon as humanly possible. Emersyn is Emersyn. As long as we are there, as long as Eloise is there, she is happy.
At the game we went to on our Napier trip
The kids don’t know that we are now leaving tomorrow as our original plan was to leave on Saturday morning. Okay, this is going to result in tears from Gabrielle (how dare we make her miss a day of school?!) but I’m sure she will get over it by the time we are at McDonalds having breakfast *rolls eyes* (yeah, I stupidly promised McD’s as a treat for breakfast).
I’m not too sure what we’re going to do in Napier, but one thing is for sure, we’ll be checking out the Skeinz shop! I hear there is a magical bin there that I simply have to check out! Speaking of knitting, because Lauriel is doing the driving I will be able to do lots of knitting on the trip there and back! Might even be able to get my niece’s Unadorned knit over that time!
Okay. I said the kids are excited, but really… I am bloody excited. I cannot wait to get away with my beautiful family for a whole weekend… it’s been so long since Lauriel and I went away and even longer since we went away with the kiddos.
On a more serious note: this is going to be a big test for my anxiety. As I’ve posted before, one of my major anxiety issues is with being a passenger in a car driving long distances. I am feeling a lot more relaxed about it than I would have this time a year ago and am actually considering emailing my psychologist to let him know just how far out of my comfort zone I’m stepping. Sure, it might be a different story tomorrow morning, but all I know is I can do this and I will do this.
UPDATE: this is now a full weekend trip…. two nights away it is!
Emma Knits 