A Time To Laugh: Sisters' Weekend

I was really thankful to have woken up on Friday feeling much better. Still a bit sensitive in the tummy and a little weak from the previous days, but overall better. I dropped Audrey off at my friend, Ann's house {thank you, Ann!!} and my sister and I were off!

We took a bit of a detour on our way so it ended up taking closer to three hours to get there, but it didn't matter. We had uninterrupted time to visit and talk. Something that rarely happens for us these days. She is a stay-at-home momma to 5 beautiful girls with busy schedules. And, well, we all know my current state these days. ;o)

Upon our arrival our first impression was one of...well, interest. It needs to be said that we have NEVER taken a vacation together. We were so excited about the idea of it that we didn't do a ton of research beforehand. We had a very limited amount of time and a budget to work with. Basically our desire was to "get out of town" and find some place with a spa option {hello pampering!}. A simple internet search for places within Minnesota to fit these parameters brought us to Cragun's.

Just outside of Brainerd

We're here!

Welcome, welcome

Check-in was a bit disastrous, they messed up Shannon's spa package and it took for-ever to fix it and then they had to rearrange our spa time to fit us both in. The resort itself seemed a little run down , but we decided to laugh it off and find our room. Honestly, for two stay-at-home moms a weekend away is a real treat and we wanted to live it up! Dinner that night was poolside {literally} and it was a buffet, family-style with live music. The food was heavy with little-to-no healthy options and we had to sit at a table with complete strangers {a family with 3 young children}.

Finding our room...

Dinner, poolside.

Something we didn't really know beforehand is that Cragun's is extremely family-friendly, so there were a lot of families and kids running around. Kind of ironic in retrospect. Here we were taking a weekend away from our lives and kids, only to end up at a place with lots of kiddos. Another downside about the state of the resort {remember, I said it was a bit "run down"}, you could hear people, ahem kids, running up and down the halls and thumping around above us at 1,2,3 a.m. in the morning. Their menu overall for the weekend wasn't very healthy either and they really didn't have many options, so we ate out mostly {having dinner Friday night and the breakfast buffet on Saturday morning}. It was also kind of spendy for a "family-friendly" resort, in my opinion. Check-out was a whole other thing. They over-charged Shannon and it took awhile to figure it out {on their end}. *sigh*

Now that we got my review of the resort out of the way *smile* I have to say that it was sooooo nice getting away. And I was so happy to be able to do it with my sister. We talked about making it a regular thing, you know, every couple of years...just take a weekend to ourselves. We lounged, watched t.v. {what WE wanted to watch!}, went out to eat, did a little shopping, had spa treatments {ahhh, massages how we adore you} and got to hang out, talk, just be. Definitely worth it! Thanks again, Shan, for doing this with me and for driving! I love you!