We're going to Cancun!!!!

We finally booked our trip last night. I'm exhausted after researching all the different places that we wanted to visit. Seriously...I booked our trip at 1:31am last night.

First, we started with the Dominican Republic, then we moved to Hawaii, but was told by family members that it's the rainy season and since we only wanted to take a week off from work....the 12 hour flight (with layovers) did not seem too appealing.

We even thought about going to Europe, but the Euro is still so strong, and it's cold there....

We decided that we definitely want to go some where warm, where we wouldn't feel guilty just sitting and reading.

This will be our fourth time there, but we've never taken the kids. Because we are cheap...we are taking the kids out of school the first week of January....yeah, I know...I should feel guilty about the truancy issue, huh? But it'll save us $800!

We hopefully will be able to take them to a Sea Turtle Sanctuary and a dolphin discovery program while we are there.

Both Mama and Papa Hu sorely need a vacation. So, we're off to "ME-HE-CO" January 7th!

Voting with a child

I just got back from voting. I couldn't sleep last night. I woke up with a source of nervous energy. The interesting thing....my daughter actually woke up before I did.

For the last few weeks, she's been keenly aware of the elections. In fact, her classmates were discussing "who" they were voting for. I thought this was interesting. I'm not sure if it's due to our proximity to D.C. or if children every where are keen about the elections.

Since our daughter seemed so interested, we agreed that she could come with one of us to go vote. While driving to the polling station, there was a radio ad for Barack Obama, and my daughter said "That sounds like Barack." Again, I am so surprised how much she can differentiate between the candidates.

We discussed that once we were in line, we probably shouldn't voice who we are voting for. I told her that voting is a very personal matter, and other people may not be voting for the same person. She totally got that.

We passed cars with McCain bumper stickers, and she counted them along the way. She also counted Obama bumper stickers as well.

The line wasn't horribly long, but we did end up waiting for 30 minutes (and I got there around 6:55am). The person in front of us is originally from Trinidad, and the person behind us is originally from Honduras, and I'm originally from Vietnam. My daughter asked us why we were allowed to vote since none of us were born in the U.S. I told her even if we were not born in the U.S., we all became U.S. citizens and are priviledged enough to vote. It was an interesting history lesson, and my daughter really enjoyed talking to our fellow voters.

When we finally got to our poll booth, my daughter quietly watched me vote. I had a flashback of my own childhood...going to vote with my parents. That left an impression on me. The importance of a vote, and I hope today left an impression on my daughter as well.

I guess it has....she asked me when she can start voting. I told her when she turned 18 years old.

We left hand in hand, but not before buying $10 worth of baked goods and coffee.

The weekend getaway sans childrens

We were only gone for less than 24 hours, but what a difference it made! We dropped the kids off at our friend's house, and took the metro into D.C.

My husband takes the metro every day to work, but for some reason, he was positively giddy taking the metro a mere 8 stops away from home (and don't think that I didn't take advantage of his good mood, but more on this later).

We ran to the hotel, and dropped off our bag, and had lunch at Lebanese Taverna. The weather was gorgeous, and we ended up staying at the restaurant for two hours.

TWO HOURS! Normally, we'd speed eat to get out of a restaurant quickly due to the kids.

After lunch, we walked from Woodley Park all the way past Farragut North. I know it's probably not that long of a walk (30 minutes), but we'd never get past two blocks with the kids.

Before the kids, when we were just dating/newly married, we'd go to Dupont Circle alot. "Kramer's Bookstore" was our haunt, and we were pretty nostalgic walking into the store. Granted, it's not a mega store like "Borders" or "Barnes and Noble," but I have a soft spot for the non-chain book stores. They're more intimate, and most times I can find books that are not to be found at the chain stores.

Every corner of D.C. is gearing up for the election (and if you read this before November 4th....Rock the Vote tomorrow people!). We saw tons of Obama t-shirts and buttons, but strangely no McCain stuff....hmmm....

Going back to the husband's generous mood. We passed both Ann Taylor and Filene's Basement, and he encouraged me to go in both shops. I left with a new purse, dress, and sweater. Come to think of it, why didn't I drop more money on clothes? He got off cheap.

We decided to scrap the movies. There was nothing playing at the theaters that we had to see. I thought the new Bond movie was coming out this weekend, but it's next weekend.

So, what do we do? We ended up watching "Hell Boy 2" in our room. I got to pick out new clothes, he gets to pick out the movie...it's only fair. Still, $15 for on-demand! Geez...

By 11pm we realized that we totally forgot about dinner. We ended up going to "Open City" and then taking a long walk around town. We didn't get back to our room until 3am.

We seriously didn't want the night to end. I love my kids, but sometimes, well...most of the time...we are in "mommy and daddy mode", and you'd tend to forget that you are a couple and friends. This past weekend, it was nice to just focus on us for a little bit.

Did we miss the kids though? You bet.