Vacationing takes a lot out of you.
When I think of vacations past, my mind seems to always go directly to the memory that, vacations were always a lot more work than you'd think. You pack, you prep, you plan, you buy 5# of Jelly Belly beans/fruity chews from the bulk wall in Target (no? just me? alrighty then.) I think the least stressful part of all was the ride there, and that's only because I hadn't developed full-blown anxiety just yet.
When we arrived wherever we were going, depending on the size of our group (which at times, was quite...sizable), we either had to pretend we weren't 13 deep in a two twin room, hope we wouldn't get thrown out of Wal Mart for playing games of coffee filter baseball, or try our best to not overwhelm the cashiers at Mc Donald's. A smaller group would have just been the five of us, and that usually meant taking pictures of boulders/mountains/cacti/road signs, a stop at the Las Cruces Motel 6, and grumbling over the fact that our parents vacation like they watch tv- nothing's changed since John Boy and his kin were on.
The most taxing of all family vacations? The camping trip. Oh my goodness, could our mother turn "getting away from it all" into "taking it all with us, further into the woods." I think I hated it most when they had the pop-up camper, because a) it had to be set up, which took a small army, and b) I just hated sleeping in the thing. Plus, when you vacation with Betty, that basically means, she's on a break (from what, we still haven't determined), and you are her unpaid staff. Unless, of course, you had the brains to sneak off to whatever lake was near early enough. If not, have fun being a one person Starbucks by Cotile/Kincaid lake. Still, I hope that, one day, Mady, Kaitlyn, and whatever future kiddos may factor into the family equation, will get to experience the mosquitoes, the flaming marshmallows, the fish fries, and their grandmother, belly-up in front of yet another episode of The Waltons, and whining for a cup of coffee with (probably by that time) an entire box of Splenda and half a jar of Community creamer. I'll just make sure to bring the Nutella, because I think s'mores could use the magic of cocoa and hazelnuts.
Hope everyone's summer is getting off to a fantastic start!
Also wishing our Uncle Timmy a happy birthday, and hoping we see you soon!
