Vacation was...not quite what I anticipated

As you may recall, we were due to leave for Door County last Wednesday morning. On Tuesday, I was working from home and not feeling that great. But...no big deal. However, by the time I took Lucy to swim practice, I felt awful. I brought both girls home afterward and told Darren, "Here are your kids," and went to bed (I of course did have NCIS and The Mentalist on in the background, but I could not even lift my head off the pillow. Tragic, you see?)

Of course, I hadn't packed a thing for our trip. I'd made soup and done laundry. The next morning (we wanted to leave at 8:30), I started to pack. It was a slow process. Where we stay we also bring our sheets and towels, so that's an added step. I would throw a few things in a suitcase, then lie down on the bed and rest. Toss sheets in a bag, lie down and rest. You get the idea. We finally hit the road by about noon. I brought my pillow and blanket and laid down in the third seat, which, since I'm 5'8" and it's about 4' was super duper comfortable as you can imagine. But I really didn't care at that point. Darren and the girls stopped for lunch (at B'arby's), and he got me a Sprite and some saltines.

We reached Door County at around 4:30, and really I don't know much what happened after that until Friday. I just slept and hallucinated things like Darren taking me to the hospital and discovering I have cancer of the stomach lining and that I had signed up to team-teach the Bible as literature at community college (which I actually wish were true). Everyone else in my family (my parents and Chuck and Rome were there too) had a great day. Here's a picture of pretty scenery I didn't see:



Friday I felt marginally better. I rested on the couch and read, then in the evening we all went out to a great new tradition Darren established, eating at PC Junction. It wasn't crowded because this was the last weekend of the tourist season up there, plus it was a rainy Friday night. It's one of those cute places where they send your food to you on a train. The girls absolutely loved it.

Here are the three of us, just because this picture cracks me up (check out Elaine):



And here are the four of us:



Oh and yes, I did let my kids drink 12 oz of cream soda (each) out of the neck of a bottle because at that point I just did not care.

Saturday was much, much better. First we went to Peninsula State Park and climbed to the top of the tower. That had been Lucy's ambition for the entire trip. Elaine and I climbed part of it, then went back down and played together at the bottom.

Then we went to Hands-On Art. If we had gone at least a day earlier, we could have done ceramics but we chose a wooden birdhouse to paint so we could take it with us. The girls had a great time painting, and while we waited for it to dry, we went out to see the animals on the farm. They had the sweetest, gentlest horses I've ever seen. We petted and talked to and fed them, and in return they tried to eat Lucy's coat.

We then visited our favorite orchard farm market and bought a few things, but after a raging stomach virus not much looks good. I did pick up cherry scone mix for Lucy's teacher and teacher's aid. Saturday night my parents watched the girls so Darren and I could go out for a little bit.

Then...Sunday morning? We came home. And that was vacation! I'm still glad we went because my family had a blast. And I figure I could be sick at home or sick in Door County, so really, what's the difference? The one thing I really missed doing was shopping at Made in Britain; however, we're planning to spend a week up there next summer, maybe just the four of us, so I plan to get everything I missed crammed in at that time.

All of this was a wake-up call for me that I need to stop rushing around, willy nilly hither and yon and taking every commitment that comes my way. September and October I have been operating at breakneck speed. And losing Elaine that Sunday before didn't do much for my mental and physical health either. I think inherent in having little kids is that you rush a lot. But I'm looking at my life and seeing a lot of running around but not a lot of quiet time. I see myself flinging us all through the house each morning before school, shrieking like a harpy, and getting frustrated over little things, such as children who move like turtles walking through molasses.

As we move into the holiday season, this is the perfect time for me to slooooow down. In fact, I had things that I wanted to make happen that I've just had to let go. Then there are other things that I really plan to make a priority.

So...all in all, it wasn't what I had anticipated, but it turned out to be a very good thing!