A Vacation is Like Love

Especially for your reading enjoyment, Kellie from La Vida Dulce - one of my new and favorite bloggy friends, will be guest posting today!
This is my very first guest post and I was honored that she said yes. We share a love for North Carolina and coffee among other things.
I read her blog regularly and enjoy many laughs and so much inspiration. I invite you to go visit her and show her some love.


From Kellie...

Janel has asked me to guest blog for her while she is on vacation.

(Quite frankly, it would have been better had she asked me to come to the beach as the nanny, but I’ll take what I can get!)

So while Janel’s lounging away at the beach being fanned by the cabana boy and eating bon bon’s, can we talk vacations?

Since I have had children (and I have two by the way) vacations have sort of taken on a whole new meaning.

Gone are those days when I can travel with my bottle of water and a couple of magazines. Gone are those days when the “snack” thrown in my carry-on was a pack of Trident gum and a Powerbar.

Here is a short list of what must be packed when going on a family trip: Goldfish crackers, the favored blankie, Cheerios, two thousand books, juice boxes, a couple of movies, Nilla Wafers, eight pairs of shoes, a cooler of drinks, clothes for warm weather, clothes for cool weather, extra blankets, wipes, paper toilet seat cover things, and duct tape (cuz you just never know when you might need some duct tape).

And that’s just the stuff I pack for my husband.

After all has been packed, you get everything in the car, drive down the road, and have to turn right back around because someone has to tinkle (although she didn’t have to when you left the house); But it’s alright because The Planner and Packer (that would be me) has forgotten her toothbrush, but she wasn’t about to admit it.

Honestly, we have enjoyed some amazing trips over the years. We’ve been to Montana where we stayed on a working cattle ranch. We’ve been to Yellowstone Park, where we waited for almost an hour to see Old Faithful Geyser. Right as it spouted up in its faithful glory, I helicopter flew over and hovered nearby. The kids, not taking there eyes of the copter, missed the old geyser (I just love saying that!)

We have been to the Atlantic ocean, and Washington DC.

When we took the kids to Mt Rushmore for a nighttime lighting ceremony, The Girl (who was three at the time) didn’t like the dark, so she cried in fear until I took her inside the museum...before the lighting began.

We took them to the Great Smoky Mountains in early spring 2006. When we got there it started to snow. The snow fell so hard as we laid in the tent that we hauled our pajama’d selves to the car and found a hotel down the mountain. When we found the tent the next morning it had collapsed with the weight of the snow.

That next summer we decided to try our luck again and went back to that same campground. What we didn’t know is that August is yellow jacket season. We stirred up a nest while hiking, and were each stung (The Mister taking the brunt of it with 26 stings).

Good times.

Right about now you may be thinking me the most pessimistic mother in all BloggerLand, but that’s far from the truth.

In all these trips there lies one common theme: we came home tired, but we came home happy.

I had prepared and planned for a picture perfect vacation, but what we really desire are the trips.

We love the company. The conversation. The prolonged chunk of time in togetherness.

Yes, there were bees, snowstorms, messes, and work (cause you can’t leave the title of “Momma” back home), but there was also quiet moments of skipping rocks across the pond; roasting marshmallows over a fire; carrying a sleepy child to his sleeping bag at 6:30pm, cuz he’d run himself ragged.

There was reading fire-side with The Mister; early morning coffee while watching the sunrise; quiet conversations with the kids.

It’s the hard parts of a trip that make the good parts a vacation.

So, Janel, while it’s highly unlikely you’re sitting beach side drinking slushy drinks out of a coconut, I do pray that you will make memories this week that will last your family a lifetime...

I also pray it doesn’t involve insects.

As Erma Bombeck said,

“A vacation is like love - anticipated with pleasure, experienced with
discomfort and remembered with nostalgia”

Happy summer everyone!
Kellie from La Vida Dulce



Thanks Kellie - You Rock! And come on down if you really want to nanny! It would be fun to be sure! ;) And yeah, where is that cabana boy, by the way?