Mother Son Weekend

It started with a simple idea in Mexico. Erin and I should plan a weekend trip with our two girls before they start kindergarten. And then that idea bloomed into something more: I should aim to have a weekend away with each kid once a year for some proper one on one time. It had been years since Oskar and I had that one crazy night at Timber Cove and I still look back fondly on that moment with just the two of us. So this year both kids are getting their very own mother / child weekend. Alva’s weekend is locked in for August, so I gave two suggestions to Oskar for his: we could do a Nascar race weekend in Sonoma in June or an Indy race car weekend in Laguna Seca in September. Oskar wanted to go first so Sonoma it was! 

I had so much fun planning the weekend but loved even more all of the impromptu decisions we made along the way. The Nascar race was on Sunday and the weekend started on Friday and we made the most of everything in between. 

I picked up Oskar from school Friday afternoon and our first stop was the convenience store for snacks… we landed at a BevMo and I refused to say no to anything Oskar put in the basket: chips, sure, popcorn why not, pretzels, those are healthy and would, in theory, counteract the skittles, cookies, sweet tarts, pop tarts, gummy bears, gummy worms and who knows what else. $70 of junk food purchased later, we were on our way. 

We got to the hotel in Sonoma just before dinner but, fully snacked up from the drive, (we had already dug into the graham crackers, red vines and goldfish) we were able to take our time checking out the features of the hotel during which Oskar proclaimed “this is the best day ever”. We then walked to HopMonk Tavern for dinner and, since it was a nice night, we sat outside to eat our meal and listen to the live music. 

Back at the hotel, the first surprise of the trip: a Lego race car set with two separate cars that we could build. We sat on the bed until 10pm each building our own car and having such a nice night. Cars finished, we finally turned off the lights and went to bed. The next day had even more in store.