A Relaxing Weekend Away

There's nothing like a weekend spent at a beachside resort to relax you, except when that weekend is spent with young children!

So Carla (Mackenzie 3mths, Charlotte nearly 2), Meegan (Owen 21mths) and I (Caitlin 10yrs, Mim nearly 3) packed ourselves into 2 cars and headed for Portobellos, at Dicky Beach, Caloundra.

Disaster struck quickly, and without warning. In the carpark called the Bruce Highway, we had a flat tyre so pulled onto the muddy side of the road. Meegan had only had the car for 3 weeks, so we consulted with manual to discover the location of the jack. Meanwhile, Carla decided to continue driving, in the hope that Mackenzie would stop screaming and fall into an exhausted sleep. Luckily a good Samaritan, who happened to be an ex-mechanic stopped and helped us change the tyre, all to the accompaniment of Owen's screams to be released from his carseat. Just as he helped us put the now useless tyre onto the back of the car, the rain started. His timing was impecable! Within 15 minutes, we were back on the road again.

Portobellos was lovely but with a few obstacles. When Carla booked, she was told there was a lift to the 3rd floor ... what they didn't tell her was that after you got out of the lift, you still had to negotiate 8 steps down to the landing. Whilst this isn't a problem for most adults - you try transporting portacots, prams, suitcases and 4 small children down these stairs! But we managed it.

Friday night we took a trip to the beach and let the children run on the sand whilst dusk fell. It was lovely and the kids enjoyed it. When it got dark enough that we couldn't distinguish Owen's clothing from the sand, we knew it was time to go home. Most of the children went to bed on time - except Owen, who would not let sleep claim him. He sat on the couch, glazed eyed and clutching his bottle, fighting sleep!

On Saturday, we spent time in the pool and then time down on the beach. Caitlin and Mim had a great time on the beach, collecting shells, playing in the sand and swimming in the waves.

I took Caitlin and Mim down to the beach on Sunday morning for a swim, before we had icecreams and then upstairs to pack. The trip home was a lot less hectic than the trip away.

The girls and I are going to try camping in the backyard over Easter, might be a bit less stressful.