Warning: Vacation Imminent

Which isn’t to say a vacation from blogging — even with being on holiday, I feel that I owe it to myself to get my writing done. It’s just how I do things. 😀 But we *are* heading out on vacation in the next week, which means the boring planning stuff, like packing. Z is handling most of it because he’s a superstar, but I’m trying to be at least vaguely helpful by getting household chores in some sort of decent order. Which means that all that’s really left for me specifically is getting my bag packed (and not overpacked). We’ll see how it goes.

Now, coming into this whole family vacation thing, I have to admit that I had my reservations. I don’t do cars very well unless the air conditioning is ice cold and pointed directly at my head. I can’t read or else I get a blinding headache. I can sometimes get away with playing a handheld game on my phone or on a DS, but I don’t feel that I really can in my solemn duty as driver-supporter. I’m sure that Z wouldn’t mind too much, but *I* mind.

There’s also the fact that my parents moved us a lot. Some of my earliest memories are driving thousands of miels across the US to move. And then to move again. And again. And again. By the time I finished high school, we had moved something like… well, I lost count. But I had attended nine different schools from Kindergarten through 12th grade, and I know there were a handful of moves before that. In my time in the military, I moved less frequently than my parents moved us.

There was also the fact that their idea of a great family vacation was a road trip. Now, I have three siblings, some with sharp elbows. Combine that with the aforementioned with emphasis on how little air conditioning makes it to the back of your standard four-door car, and uggh. They were miserable experiences for me, and my brain appears to have blocked a lot of it out for the sake of staying sane.

The last vacation I can remember was… everything that could suck, piled on itself. It was around the time my health started its initial decline, and I begged to stay home for the week to sleep. I seriously wasn’t planning anything more than that — I just wanted to be alone to sleep, not shoved in a van for a week driving around my home state. Alas, I was shoved in the rental van with everyone else and driven around and around. The vacation was funded by my step-dad selling off part of his life insurance (!!!!!!!!!), and he got super-ill the last day of the trip and ended up in hospital.

That’s sort of glossing over other things, but it gets to the point — I don’t really have a positive experience of the whole family vacation thing. I’ve been dreading the thought of a vacation with the children since before we had kids, and had hoped to avoid it. It just seemed… too much of a hassle, with too much chance for drama, and… well.

Well.

My husband and his parents, on the other hand, had a largely positive experience with the annual family vacation. Like all good Brits, they picked their place and kept going there, and that’s where we are going too. And by ‘we’, I mean the four of us, plus my in-laws. And you know what? I’m actually feeling largely positive about it after having nearly a year to reflect on it. I know that Z is really excited to share this experience with us, and that sort of excitement is contagious. I don’t know exactly what to expect, but I know that with my in-laws in tow, combined with how Z and I approached our anniversary trips means that it will probably be a mainly laid back experience, which is totally my jam. And, cheekily, I can thank my Pokémon Go addiction for getting me pre-tanned so I don’t fry myself on the beach, hee hee.

As for today, the first day of the school holiday, it’s been pretty relaxed. Smallhausen went to work with Z, and was reported to have behaved herself. As for myself and Littler, we went for a small walk in the morning, and then she slept most of the afternoon. I took advantage to get some chores done, as well as getting a bath in. I’d half-intended to get my hair dyed tonight, but I am thinking that’s not going to happen ’cause we’re watching Only Connect. Maybe tomorrow night, then? We’ll see.

For now, I’ve talked too much, and should probably skedaddle. Of course, having said that, I spent longer than I spent writing this post trying to get a screencap of this from Episode #2 of The Critic because yanno, I have totally needed a clip of this to use for years. Thanks y’all for being the impetuous of getting me to finally make it, ha ha.

<3