Anniversary / Birthday / GETAWAY

After a few long weeks, Wade and I were able to get out of Bangalore “just the two of us” if you can imagine. Not that every weekend was a romantic getaway in MN, but living four miles from mom and dad had it’s advantages for date nights! So, nearly six months into our Bangalore stay, I prepped Caden during the week about how everyone needs “special time” from now and then, and that “Dad and I are having some special time together on Saturday” and “you get to sleep over at Murphy’s” until he caught on – responding; “ok, when you get back, Dad will stay at Murphy’s and you and I will go get ice-cream.” Deal.
After packing up more for Caden than for the two of us (tiger cub, book, three outfits, an airplane fleet, a PBJ sandwich, etc. etc.…), we headed out to a “rural” resort 35 km out of Bangalore. If that doesn’t sound like a lot to you, you don’t live in Bangalore. Two and a half hours later, we arrived literally in a rural setting at an incredible, quiet resort – Taj Kuteeram. It’s only 9 rooms, and connected to Nrityagram, a traditional dance village. It was incredibly beautiful and very green. We settled into the room – a stone hut with modern amenities… and took a nap. Hey, I imagine most parents understand. We also joined the 5:00 yoga lesson in the meditation center – ok the “lesson” was just us and the yoga teacher, but Wade was a trooper even with the added attention – “no, like this sir.” I thought it was entertaining anyhow! Then we proceeded to the magic show, which was incredibly entertaining and well done. The resort was beautiful and rejuvenating – on Sunday we watched the dancers practicing at the village – they were really good. Apparently it’s a three year on-site program and pretty serious. But you can’t take pictures unfortunately. It wouldn’t have captured it anyhow – it was pretty cool to watch and we stayed a while. The drive home we were more prepared and decided to stop for lunch to break up the journey – why not the “Only Place” in Bangalore with burgers. We got to the restaurant to find a wait – just 15 minutes. 30 minutes later we were seated and ordered as promptly as possible. 20 minutes later our waiter returned… empty handed…and informed us “no more burger today” and asked what else we would like. Uh, the bill perhaps (we’d had soup and drinks anyhow). Well, one of my frequent observations (despite our limited dining-out) is that menus in India are more of a rough guide to what the place might have than anything else. Menus are usually LONG; offerings… not. So we stopped at the “grocery store” on the way home to grab cheese, wine and buns (for the canned hot dogs for the kids…mmmm). 45 minutes later, I was close to a breakdown and fantasizing about Simon Delivers. Easy come easy go with romantic retreat mood. Luckily, when we left we had both cheese and wine… and a date for me at Baskin Robbins.
Notably (for those of you that know him), after three years of pleading, Caden ate NOT-white ice cream. The same kid that burst into tears when I put chocolate sauce on his ice-cream – “ruining it,” had, after continuous tasting thanks to the Baskin Robbins folks, found something not-vanilla to eat. The first time he tried a couple new flavors he spit it out into my hand. The second time he swallowed it and said – white please. This week, he tried the “yo-yo blast” mango and orange sherbert swirl, and decided he liked it. Whose kid is this anyhow?