Vacation time

It's the time of year when everyone is going on vacation. Elian is in Holland, she's on her second week there. Ana just got back from Toronto and she's going to Vegas Friday. Jeanette and Randy are planning their August cruise in Alaska, which her BOSS gave them, I might add. I need to get on the stick, or we'll be going no where.


It's always hard to fit in a vacation, even when you're self employed. Most of my clients took the whole week of the fourth off. It rained, so I worked. My husband and I did go to Houston for a wedding last weekend. It was the first time we'd been away together in a couple years. It was enough like a vacation -- great hotel, room service, shopping, a fabuolous wedding party, Sunday brunch with bottomless Bloody Marys...it will get me through for a few more weeks.


But my kids are another story. Some might argue that every day at our house is a vacation. There's the pool, an infinite number of video systems and games, four televisions, kids to play with. The lake. But after six weeks of that the kids are getting bored and they're starting to ask about going on a vacation.

But with our vacations so much depends on work and sports schedules that it's hard to fit anything of any length at all in. That leaves us with trying to schedule shorter trips that usually end up costing twice as much, and since there's no real downtime, you come home more tired than when you left. I've suggested a weekend in Dallas, maybe a trip to Six Flags or Hurricane Harbor, but my son said, "That's not a vacation, that's a field trip." I suppose that's true. The way I look at it, it's at least a day off.

Now we've been to a couple Rangers day games and we went to the mall once. None of that counts, I guess. While we were in Houston my sister came to stay. She took the boys to Chilis for lunch and then bowling. They went to the music store and Blockbuster. "That was sort of a vacation," I told them. They agreed that it was fun, but vacation it was not. "We didn't leave town," Dill said.

So in addition to the umpteen things I have on my to do list, I now have to plan a vacation. I've been saying that for a few weeks. But now that we're nearly mid-July, I need to get going on it.


A couple weeks ago when my son asked, "Where are we going on vacation this year?" I suggested he take care of it. "Let's go to the X Games in LA," I said. "Get on and find out what events you want to see and find some flights. We can stay where we stayed last year. Best Western Hollywood. August 2 -5. Thanks!"


"Huh?" I heard him say as I flew out the door.


Needless to say he didn't get that vacation planned. If we're going to go, I need to do that.

We are also going to my grandmother's 95th birthday party in Indiana the second weekend of August. I've been stalling on planning that until I figure out what I'm going to be working on and how much time I'm going to have. If we have time, I'd like to take a week and drive -- leave right after we get back from LA. I've even toyed with the idea of swinging through Iowa. The boys and I like road trips. But I think hockey is going to get in the way for one kid. That means we need to fly and plans need to be made, money spent, etc. It gets so complicated and expensive!

It's a wonder anyone goes anywhere at all.

So until I can get going on it I'll just revel in my friends' stories about their trips. I'll keep plugging away on my to do list and hopefully sooner rather than later the item that says 'plan vacation' will rise to the top.

At least I hope it does before I miss mine.