This Summer.

While right now is incredibly stressful, and will be for the next couple weeks, the light is growing ever brighter at the end of this tunnel. We have a lot of plans for this summer, and I can’t WAIT to have the freedom (most the mental freedom from stress) to get to them!

The best part of my babies not really being babies anymore (which I hate, I just want them to stay little), is that they are basically easy now. Heh. When we get in the car, we don’t really have to worry about the diaper bag and snacks and drinks for a quick trip to Lowe’s anymore. And they CAN be rational and understand the concept of waiting now (sometimes they choose not to of course, they ARE still 1 and 2, but still…).

As a result, this opens up a world of fun and exciting activities that we haven’t been able to partake in for years now.

We are going to start the summer by heading over to Seattle on our first real road trip since Lila was a little baby, for my cousin Hannah’s graduation. I am still skeptical that they will sleep in a strange place, and with anyone else in the room, but they will work it out and we will all be a little unrested, I am sure, but I am excited!

Then, we have decided Lila is probably old enough that camping won’t be the hell it is with a little baby, so we want to plan some camping trips this summer. With me being the only one in school, and even that is so limited (squeeee!), we will definitely have more time to do things that are actually fun.

Toward the end of the summer, we will head up to CDA for the annual pig pickin’, which we always look forward to, and we will get to see “Beebee Keegan” (who is also NOT a baby anymore!), and Aunt Justiney and Uncle Kemer.

THEN, my Dad is taking Justine and I (since he took the other two last year) on a Hawaiian vacation! Woohoo! At first I had totally talked myself out of it when he asked. I told myself there was just no way I could swing it, that I am a Mom and wife and I can’t just abandon my family for a week to go lay on the beach… I have work obligations, and school… there was just no way.

Then I thought about how much I’ve sacrificed for my family, and what it has taken to get through the last three years, how I never have the time to just be with my Dad and my sister (or myself for that matter) and just truly enjoy the time and moving slowly and taking things in, and dang it, I deserve a vacation (pffft, and a medal)! My Dad doesn’t have the best of health and when will I ever be offered the trip of a lifetime again, let’s freaking do it! (I still feel fully guilty btw, but I put on a good front. :))

So Steen and I talked and talked, and talked with my Dad, and worked out a time that works for all of our insane schedules, and we are doing it! We are going to Oahu (I know very little about Hawaii) for a week. I am so excited, and have been using it as an “end” focal point, to just get there and something to look forward to at the end of the summer and to start the last semester of my undergraduate career. Which is also going to be a crazy time. Here’s what my August looks like: Weekend class on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, immediately leave for CDA, pig pickin, drive home with Stu and the kids, pack, Monday meeting at work for our annual statewide meeting, leave on 6 AM flight the next morning for Hawaii, vacay for a week, fly home on an 8:45 PM red-eye with two layovers, get home mid-day, start class that night at 6 PM. WHEWWWW. It’s going to be busy, but hopefully amazing as well. :)