You know how it is: you think, we need to get away. A trip to the mountains is what this family needs.

Your loving husband uses Marriott miles to get a room at the RITZ CARLTON in Beaver Creek. The kind of place you should celebrate your anniversary at, alone.

You both somehow forget that two year olds are no fun to travel with. They get carsick and they're loud in hotels and they never, ever cooperate in restaurants. And five year olds? They are stubborn, and moody, and LOUD. And they are genetically programmed to fight with two year olds.

You have an agenda: we must hike this or that trail,  and eat at this restaurant, and check out the Adventure Park on the top of Vail Mountain, and have FUN!

Your kids want nothing to do with your agenda. They want to eat marshmallows and hurl the bocce balls down the hill at other hotel guests.

But if you pay attention to how the Ritz regulars approach their weekend, you'll learn some valuable lessons:

1. Treat your resort like an island. The regulars are not sightseeing, or taking day trips. They are hanging out at the pool, ordering lunch poolside, drinking Manhattan's and making s'mores by the fire. In other words, there is no agenda.

2. They've figured out the "Club Level." While we were loading up the car to go to Burger King for pancakes instead of ordering $21 eggs off the Ritz menu, the regulars were staying on the club level, where kids the whole family eat for free. Burgers, sodas, snacks, breakfast, lunch and dinner, beer and wine. Pays for itself the first day.


3. Order Shirley Temples. Poolside. With extra cherries. 


4. Their idea of a "hike" is to walk just up the catwalk on the ski mountain, pose for some pictures, and come back for a game of horseshoes.

And after you figure that out, promise yourself the next time you return it will be for a girl's weekend.