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The view from our room

This weekend my husband and I celebrated our five-year wedding anniversary. We had a grand weekend planned, involving one night at an indoor waterpark resort, followed by a party with friends the next night. Best of all - no kids. It was the first time since Mira was born that I would be able to spend a night childfree and sleep until I felt like waking up.

So you can imagine my panic when the snow started coming down heavy on Friday morning. We were leaving Friday afternoon, and by noon the roads were already treacherous. The resort was in Cincinnati, normally an hour and a half drive, but with the snow we weren't sure if we could make it.

"Want to scrap the plans?" my husband asked.

"Nope," I answered quickly. "The reservations are paid and non-refundable. Even if it takes us four hours to get there, I still want to go. We need this."

"I agree."

We gave our final instructions to my mother, who was spending the weekend at our house with the girls, and then we started the adventure. It took three hours to make the drive, and in that time we saw countless cars slide off the highway into the snow banks. Driving slowly and cautiously kept us safe, as well as our determination to have a weekend away without the kids. Priorities, people.

The resort was amazing. The indoor waterpark was enormous and while it was filled with families, with kids running everywhere, we enjoyed having no one to look after but ourselves. We floated in the lazy river with our eyes closed - no children to hold or swim diapers to adjust. Having a drink with dinner (a dinner without chicken nuggets!) was a plus, too. The snow continued to fall, but we were warm and happy in our large whirlpool suite.

The next morning, however, we soon realized that leaving might prove to be more difficult than we expected. We couldn't go visit our friends because they were under a "Level 3" snow emergency, meaning anyone caught out on the roads would be ticketed or arrested. But we couldn't go home, either, because the roads between Cincinnati and Columbus were also shut down. We waited for a while, watching the snow continue to pile up, hoping that we could eventually leave the resort that afternoon. But then Cincinnati was also placed under a "Level 3" snow emergency. We were officially snowed in.

The resort was very accommodating to us and the other guests who were supposed to leave that day. We negotiated a steep discount for staying another night, put on our swimsuits and returned to the waterpark. While it wasn't what we had planned for our anniversary trip, the second night was welcomed. We had a quiet evening watching the DVD of our wedding, reminiscing about that wonderful day, and laughing at how much some people have changed in five short years, including us.

Five years ago, I couldn't have imagined how different my life would be now. I never would have thought I'd be staying home with my two daughters, going back to school for another degree, and sharing all of my experiences on the internet, all with my loving husband by my side. Sure, there are some things that could be better, but overall we're so happy with the life we've created together. And I'm thankful that we spent our anniversary snowed-in so that we had that quiet time to reflect on all the good that has come into our lives in the past five years. The Blizzard of '08 gave us the time to reconnect and remember why we started this journey together in the first place.