What happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas if you're lucky.

E & I got to take a little getaway for the first time since becoming parents. My mom stayed with the kids while we flew on down to Vegas for a weekend of total indulgence: sleep, food, cocktails, a little entertainment, and finally on the flight home, some depth to our conversations. It's funny, I forgot how to have a decent talk with him as we've been date-free for about 6 months. We'd had a pretty steady sitter weekly for date night, but that often turned into study night as E was still working on his Masters. So it took us three days of being solo to remember how to be inspired by one another and dig beneath the surface. There was also plenty of opportunity for a much needed time to be alone with ourselves. Funny to go to Vegas, The Venetian no less, to sleep and have a little alone time, but in the parenting vortex, normalcy is left at the door. One afternoon, after a massage & poolside lunch together (I know, can you believe it?), he went to do a little $5-tabling and I went up to our room to scrapbook while watching a mushy movie on pay-per-view. This was so therapeutic, I hardly wanted to get ready for Tao (fancy-pants dinner reservations) and Blue Man. Ofcourse those experiences were phenominal too, but I just have to say we are somewhat renewed as parents, as a married couple, and as individuals because of these few days.

I am so grateful, because while it is darn hard to be a mama (and I'll resist the urge to qualify that comment because c'mon ya'll, it is hard work), I can see love showing up for me in these ways:

• I am in such a loving marriage.
• My babies are healthy, happy, and full of imagination.
• My beautiful, sexy, hard working man loves me in just the way God intended for me to be loved.
• We live a good life, basic needs above & beyond cared for.
• My girlfriends are placed in their spaces along my path in a way that makes me floored by how blessed I am.
• My newly-awakened awareness of God's love for me: I'm learning for the first time in my life that He loves me in an entirely different universe than all who have loved me in our failing ways before. And that He believes that I deserve it. Wow.

Luck is a lady in my life.