It wasn’t our plan, but we ended up taking the weekend off. Away from the blog. Away from Facebook. Away from our work. Which is why you haven’t heard from us in a few days.

Yesterday was Robbi’s birthday. We kept things pretty low key. We went up to Delaware to walk with our friend Amy in the rolling hills outside Wilmington.

We stopped on the way back at our favorite rib joint.

Why I did not take a photo of the ribs, I cannot say. They were, of course, delicious.

Kato helped Robbi open her presents.

Both of the big kids helped Robbi water her birthday amaryllis.

There was no Jell-o cake because, when I gave up coffee, Robbi gave up sugar. Click on the link to consult the recipe. You will note that, without sugar, there’s not much left.

Today, we slept in, did some grocery shopping, went to the playground.

At the playground, I was asked to be the “scary dragon,” the job of whom is to run around growling and waving his arms in a threatening (but not too threatening) and dragon-like (but not too dragon-like) way, almost (but not quite) catching the kids as they run around screaming. Occasionally, I would get too threatening, too dragon-like and too close to actually catching Kato, and he would let me know how he felt about it.

Alden, on the other hand, was utterly unfazed by my antics, no matter how threatening and dragon-like I was.

Now I’m watching football, the big kids are napping, and August is getting an early start on his potty training. I don’t have the heart to tell him that he’s supposed to take off his pjs first.

And Robbi is back at her desk, hard at work on our Williams College poster (while wearing her genius hat and watching Netflix on her iPad, of course). Girl knows how to multitask.

Tomorrow is monday. Reality returns.

But was good to get away from it all, if only for 36 hours or so. A short week looms ahead, with more relaxation to come.