Thursday, August 29, 2019

A Weekend Getaway

As I've mentioned, Eliot and I have made a gallant effort to make time for ourselves this summer.  This is the first summer in a few years that I feel like we've really enjoyed it.  Usually, we're holed up in our house working on ear orders every weekend.  Of course, for us summer isn't complete without a trip to Six Flags at least once.

Earlier this summer, Eliot and I got a special deal to renew our Season Passes at a discounted rate so we jumped at the chance.  At the time, we weren't sure when we'd be able to go but for about $50 per person it was a steal.  Even if we only used them for one weekend, it was totally worth it.


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This past weekend, it was time.  We'd been planning to head down all summer and this was our last chance to go while the waterpark was still open.  It was now or ever!!!  I made our hotel reservations, we packed up Friday night when Eliot got home from work and we were off!  It's about 4 hours from here and we didn't get there until midnight, but we were getting a weekend off for a getaway and we didn't care!

We got up Saturday and had breakfast at the hotel.  They had a buffet of eggs, bacon, sausage, home fries, waffles, bagels, and more.  It was pretty good.  Plus, it was included with staying there!  Then, we got dressed and ready to head to Six Flags.

First, we went to the waterpark for about 3-4 hours.  We went into the lazy river, and hopped from pool to pool.  We relaxed on beach chairs and both of us almost fell asleep.  Eliot even went on one of the water slides.  Then, we got changed and went back into the theme park.  Eliot rode Superman 5 times over a three hour span.  He stayed in line when it broke down a few times but was rewarded by getting to sit in the front of the rollercoaster.  At about 9:00 pm, we had decided it was time to go home for the night.  We had dinner at Chili's and then went back to our hotel and to bed.


Sunday morning we got up, had breakfast, showered, packed up and checked out of the hotel.  It was cooler on Sunday so we decided to skip the waterpark.  Instead, we went into Six Flags so Eliot could ride a few rollercoasters before leaving.  He went on Wicked Cyclone while I sat in the shade enjoying the cool breeze.  Then, he took one last ride on Superman before we headed out.

Next, we made our way to the Holyoke Mall.  Eliot had reminded me that it was the location of the closest BoxLunch store to us.  (It's apparently the only one in New England... get on that BoxLunch.)  I was dying to go since I've never been to one.  Eliot had only been to a store one other time and he promised we could go since I spent about 5 hours sitting around while he was riding rollercoasters.

I'm so glad we went!  Not only was it awesome to finally go into one, but we found so many cool things!  They had a lot of the new merchandise that was debuted at D23.  I enjoyed seeing it in person.  They even had the giraffe bag I had asked Nori to get me.

I also found the Gus Gus fanny pack that I really wanted.  It sold out online within three days of me first seeing it.  Apparently, everyone was obsessed with the fanny pack's nod to Cinderella's mice friends sewing her pink dress.  I immediately went through the two they had and picked the one I wanted to take home with me.


Eliot and I found a few other items to purchase before we headed out.  Thankfully, they were running a buy one get one 50% off deal so we did pretty well.  I also had $30 in BoxLunch rewards so we used that on the Princess Dress Loungefly mini backpack that I've been drooling over for a few weeks now.

After that, we had just enough time to drive up to the Yankee Candle Village.  They close at 6:00, but we knew we'd get about an hour and a half in before they closed for the night.  We got there and immediately went to get food first.  We hadn't eaten since breakfast and at that point we both really hungry.  The pizza was delicious!


After that, we walked around the store.  If you've never heard of it, it's enormous.  It's like an IKEA for candles, home goods, bake ware, decorations, toys, etc.  The first time I went was on my 20th birthday and I fell in love with it.  This time, we didn't have too much time to wander around browsing, but we still were able to make it through all of the sections we wanted to see.

I love it so much.  There's a toy section with Santa's workshop and a countdown to Christmas next to singing elves.  Santa was even inside his house on Sunday!  I wanted to go say hi but I didn't want to disturb him.  There's a place where it "snows" every four minutes with the same snoap (soap) that Disney uses on Main Street.


My favorite part of the entire store is the village section.  My Nana has a porcelain Victorian Village that my family bought her back when I was a child.  We'd get her new pieces to add to it each year and she always let me help set it up.  It's one of my most favorite memories from Christmas... and this room at Yankee Candle is like heaven to me.  There's an entire room that's set up with different village sets from Department 56.

There's a Margaritaville village, a Charlie Brown Peanuts village, a Halloween village, a Beetlejuice village, a New England village, a Victorian village, and so many more.  I could spend hours in this room looking at all of the details.  They've used foam to make the villages look like they're on a mountainside.  They also have caves and ponds carved out of the foam.  I love getting ideas for displays that we could make.  Plus, Eliot and I always enjoy going to see the Mickey Mouse village set.

But this time, there was a new addition... a Harry Potter village!!!  It was so cute!  There aren't too many pieces in the set yet either.  Maybe it will be my next village set to collect.  I already have two of my own village sets that I worked very hard to find back when I was first out of college and making really good money at La-Z-Boy.  I have all of the Mickey's Toontown Village set and I have most of the Main Street USA Village set that were both sold at Disney Parks years ago.  (They're really hard to find and almost always expensive when you do find them on eBay!)


After getting our fill of candles and decorations, Eliot and I decided it was time to start heading home.  I got my chocolate covered Oreos (only $1 each!) and a chocolate marshmallow pop.  He grabbed a few wax melt tarts of his favorite scent that were only 50 cents each .  Then, we got two of the clearance candles of our favorite Christmas scent.  We checked out and made our way to the car with our merchandise.

I drove around the building one time before leaving the Yankee Candle Village.  They always have the most beautiful gardens around the building!  (I should have taken pictures.)  We went down the road to gas the car up and get some water.  Then, we made our way home- pulling into our driveway at about 10:00 pm.

It was a quick weekend getaway, but totally worth it!  Eliot's parents are here visiting most of this week.  Then, this weekend we'll be at my parents' house and visiting Bar Harbor over Labor Day.  Next week will be a whirlwind as I'm preparing to leave that Saturday for Walt Disney World and my Disney Cruise!  I'm really glad we took a few days to get away together and relax before these hectic two weeks!  °o°

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