Dude: blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda

And there you have it, what Ella learned while I was away at Bay Harbor for a weekend with Polly celebrating her fortieth birthday. I'm still laughing. But I am getting ahead of myself. Rewind to Thursday...


I felt really weird about leaving for some reason. I had been looking forward to this spa weekend since Polly suggested it. A long weekend at a spa resort, who wouldn't LOVE that! But as the time came closer, I felt badly about leaving Wes and Ella behind. Wes does this every year (substitute golf for spa) so I took that in stride and asked for a martini on the plane, settled for something over ice, and was feeling really good by the time we landed in Michigan. I'm sure everyone who saw us thought Polly and I hadn't seen each other for years the way we screamed with excitement when we met up at the airport.


We arrived at the Cueny's and Dave had dinner cooking and Judy and Mark were playing with Isabella and Grace. Ahhhhhhhh, Dave's famous Chicken with Alfredo Noodles. Pure delight. Aundrea joined us for dinner and a fashion show, and four bottles of wine later, we all went to bed. Pictures from the night:

Isabella showing the latest eye wear

Grace showing her catwalk style

Dave, my fellow blogger (see "Life from Michigan" on the right), and our chef for the night. Thank you Dave!

So our plan was to drive up north to Bay Harbor slowly, very slowly. We got the kids off to school and then had a nice breakfast out. We hit the road and stopped at the outlets. That took longer than we thought and we found ourselves surprisingly faced with no time before our 7pm massages. Yikes! We made it in time but had to postpone dinner. This is the view from our room:

Amazing. I wasn't expecting this from Michigan but I was pleasantly surprised. After our first night, it was raining and cold but it really didn't phase us at all. The views were still beautiful, and who cares really when you are at a spa.

We ventured out Saturday night for dinner at Chandler's. I'll spare everyone the details of our dinner but it was just perfect. I can't remember the last time Polly and I had dinner together and laughed so hard. I was in tears I laughed so hard at one point. Perhaps the four martinis and a bottle of wine had something to do with it but just spending time with Polly to celebrate her birthday made me so happy. Here we are at dinner:

We finally left late on Sunday and woke up Monday to start the week all over again. Girls to school, us to breakfast, and on to my flight home. Here is Isabella and Grace having pancakes before school.