It was that time of the year again – the most important birthday in the house! Unfortunately Toby didn’t realize the importance of his mothers birthday and he had soccer try-outs scheduled for the Friday night before and midday on Tracy’s birthday.
The birthday morning started with breakfast in bed which was a bit stressful because I had to make it and Tracy had requested poach eggs and I’d never cooked them before! With a bit of flooping about some muffins were toasted, eggs poached and hollandaise made and surprisingly enough it didn’t taste disgusting!
After breakfast was tidied away, we got Toby ready for stage two of the try-outs and I packed the bag for our overnight stay at Suncadia – a resort up in the mountains. I probably shouldn’t pack again because we had a very full bag for one night away – including about 3 pairs of trousers each for Toby and Harry, 3 pairs of jeans which Tracy had just left on the bed to be put away rather than be packed plus a variety of other things that weren’t really required!
Anyway, the car was loaded and off we went up to the Highlands for soccer. Luckily the rain held off and Toby had fun charging about and bossing his potential team mates around! With a few minutes left of try-outs Tracy walked up to Zeeks and got a take-out pizza for the drive up to Suncadia. We collected Tracy, started scoffing pepperoni and drove up the mountains to the East.
We arrived at Suncadia at about 3pm and checked in. We had a nice suite in a lodge which was slightly separate to the main area and after unpacking all the clothes that we didn’t really need we went back to the bar with a view and relaxed with a nice bottle of wine and admired the very nice view.
After demolishing the wine we went back to our room via the driving range where the boys filled their pockets with golf balls.
Back in the suite it was time for the boys to enjoy the deep, round bath – which provided allsorts of enjoyment apart from the moment where Toby slipped and Harry ended up with his butt in his face!
Once we were all clean we went back to the main area and had a lovely meal. I can’r remember exactly what we ate (mainly due to lots more beer and birthday wine) but I know there was a nice steak in there somewhere and maybe some salmon. As an added bonus the waiter apologized that the food had taken a long time to be served (it wasn’t that bad) and they knocked all the drink off the final bill – that saved us some money!
Then it was back to the room, where Harry and Toby had a couple of the birthday cupcakes that had been delivered and then we all crashed into bed, exhausted from our very busy day and the excitement of a 42nd birthday!
The next morning we woke, slightly hazy, and decided to clear the head with a walk down the steep hill to the river in the valley floor. Apparently I had bet Harry $5 that he wouldn’t be able to throw a stone across the width of the river and so that is where we were heading with Harry smelling the dollars! He did very well with his efforts – much better than the birthday girl – but he couldn’t quite get a stone across to the other side.
He did nearly brain a few birds as they flew over the river but they just managed to avoid the flying stones. Having walked down the steep hill, we were all hungry and set off back up the hill. It was all very hot and sweaty walking back up but we made it in the end. We stopped at the cafe and got breakfast plus Toby got a cuddly toy – as he just doesn’t have enough of them already! Then it was into our swimmers and off to the spa/pool/slide area. The pool area was lovely with a nice warm indoor pool with slides plus an even warmer outdoor pool – which it needed to be because although the sun was out it was freezing! We spent lots of time in each with Toby doing very well with his swimming and trying to create his own whale impression. Unfortunately Toby’s impression involved him spitting lots of water up in the air and was not quite as impressive as Harry’s efforts in Mexico.
After a couple of hours in the pool it was clearly lunch time – we hadn’t eaten for at least 3 hours! Lunch was followed by pinching more golf balls and then with the afternoon relaxed away it was 6pm and time to check out. An hour later we were back home and the birthday weekend was over. It was fun though and I have a feeling we will be back to Suncadia again some time!