Vacation?

Well, each September we try to take a week and plan, see and do our family vacation. The last couple of years have been really fun...camping and sight-seeing in Wisconsin and South Dakota. Because of having such a young one in tow this year we had decided to stay close to home. Originally we thought to go see some of our fun state parks down south...but Isaiah remembered his days at Silver Dollar City a couple or few years ago and he convinced dad that should be our destination again this year.

I was at first quite excited about it. Silver Dollar City is a fun park full of lots of things to see and do, and September is usually their arts and crafts festival where you can watch blacksmiths, weavers, carpenters, etc. produce their wares. It's a fun time. Steven said we would camp near the park and avoid the hustle and bustle of Branson - it sounded like a good plan...until I started taking it a step further - figuring out what to pack.

We still have two kids in diapers...Lillie still needs a bottle quite often and is starting to really want that good stuff (baby/table food) too. Avery is such a handful right now - just totally headstrong and belligerent and can scream at the top of his lungs the highest pitched scream many have ever encountered. Thinking about it all just made me tired.

Then the other questions was how in the world are we going to get all this stuff into our van? I mean Steven and I almost divorced over packing the van last year (okay it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't that good either). This time we have another kid...more stuff - for example, we have to have a stroller of some kind and that in itself would take up the majority of the trunk space...so what is the solution? I'm not going.

Actually Avery and Lillie aren't either. I told Steven to take Isaiah and Huston, go camp a couple of nights, hit Silver Dollar City and have fun doing it. Well I think it has now ballooned into a little bit more than that, but oh well. I will miss the fun of the vacation, I will miss seeing the boys experience the fun of the vacation, but at least I will be avoiding the frustration and headache of constantly wrangling the little ones (and you know that would be my job the good majority of the trip).

So my vacation plans will be to simplify and organize this house. I hope to go through every nook and cranny and pull out, sort through, THROW away, reorganize, label and return a shadow of what it was to a happy home. I hope the boys return home seeing clean desks, closets and counter tops - fall in love with the new look and do their very darnedest to keep up appearances....I know, I know that's about as far fetched as me camping with a baby.

I also hope to take the time to really focus on Avery and maybe, just possibly, break some of these behavior habits we've fallen into. He has already made some improvements, but we still have quite a road to travel.

So it may not be the vacation I would have asked for (not the five-star hotel just walking distance from a really neat, must see attraction), but at least hopefully everyone will end the week with a worthwhile experience. (I do plan on taking Lillie and Avery places too - like swimming, they love swimming). So our vacation photos this year might be a spread worthy of Better Homes and Gardens...one can dream I guess.