How To Leave Your Vacation in 10 Steps (Vacation Days 7/8)

Sweet Connecticut!!!!

(Aaaand, now I’m going to have This Song in my head the rest of the week.)

We are finally home after leaving Virginia Beach yesterday and coloring all over the dining room mirrors of my friend’s house where we stayed the night.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  Here’s “how to leave your vacation” in 10 easy steps:

1: Recognize the signs that you and your children are going into vacation insanity mode caused by lack of consistent sleep and routine. (Hanging off the coffee table while watching TV…check!)  2: Plan a family photo shoot the day before you leave.  Expect to take 80 or so shots of your kids, and leave with 1 or 2 that are…well…better growling than not looking at all.

3: Assess all the things that you had once packed so carefully…breathe in… and haphazardly shove them into the nearest available suitcase. Suck it up! Now is not the time to cry over a little disorganization!!

4: Walk your kids down to the beach to say “good-bye”.  Your desire to stare longingly out over the beautiful, rippling water will be cut short by your boys running away from you.  You should probably catch them, even though they’re being punks and they can totally hear you yelling at them to come back. Ahem.

5: Start your trip carefully following your phone’s GPS and trustingly believe it when it says the “accident in the tunnel” will only cause you an 11 minute delay.  After waiting in dead standstill traffic for 5 minutes, turn around in a mostly legal way. Er.  Close enough.  (It will take you months to trust your GPS again…but with therapy you’ll make it.) Pull over to take a depressing family picture while your husband researches a new route.) 

6: Regroup at a cute little rest area complete with lawn art and a toddler sized toilet.  (Decide to use the toddler toilet because frankly the bathroom line is unnecessary.) Be careful to avoid the “wet floor” signs…they’re kind of subtle.

Step 7: After some crazy rain and flash flooding, finally make it to your overnight stay at a friend’s house.  Let the kids run amok in her home and obsess over their exotic door mail slot.  

Step 8: Take your time in the morning to properly release your family chaos all over your friend’s peaceful townhouse.  Allow your friends to cook you an amazing breakfast and drool over the delicious Croatian leftovers they generously send you home with.

Step 9: Stop about an hour away from home to grab a bit to eat.  In an irritated attempt to find your son’s shoes that he likely threw during a moment of car rage, inadvertently drop the soft cooler that’s holding your new coffee mug.  Take a moment to mourn your loss. Step 10: Power through that last hour of trip and then beam briefly at your trip odometer.  Not too shabby.  Now, quit smiling and get inside to start unpacking and dealing with the post-trip melt-downs. These are simply signs that you’re alive and made it.  

(We loved VA, but it’s good to be back CT.  For those who survived all of our mini-vacation episodes…thanks so much for sharing this adventure with us.  It’s been a blast!)

Sincerely,

~Carrye