Vacation, All I Ever Wanted, Vacation, Have To Get Away

I know it's been awhile since I last updated. I can't blame my absence on the lazy days of summer, because nothing around here has been lazy since camp ended. I don't think I can emphasize enough how much I am ready for SCHOOL TO START!!!! Our house is filled to the brim with arguments over IT'S NOT FAIR and HE WON'T LET ME HAVE A TURN and YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME.

So we're getting out of Dodge. We're going to a place that's three hours away and supposedly has some hot weather and a pool. If I'm honest, there's something nostalgic driving this trip for me. When I was a kid, my parents and I went up to a place in northern Michigan every summer. We stayed in a cabin that was on a small lake, and we just hung out. There was a beach and paddle boards and a game room and other kids. There was also a ghost that inhabited one of the buildings, and she prompted several intense searches that would rival anything you could see on the A&E channel's Children of the Paranormal (and this show is HILARIOUS. You should check it out).

(And I know my parents are reading this right now, saying, "That didn't happen. There wasn't any ghost hunting." But you have to trust me -- they were too busy leisurely reading books to notice any hauntings).

Anyway, I want that kind of vacation for Blue and Green. You know, the stuff of good memories. The only difference is that my kids are not really inclined to run off and dig holes and find companions and search for ghosts. They're more likely to turn their freckly faces up at us and say, "What now?" as if we hold The Itinerary of Fun in our back pockets. This has made it so that I have to plan for every contingency. What if they suddenly become really independent and go hunt for ghosts? I'm bringing 3 books and a silly magazine just in case I magically have the time to read. What if it pours down rain for three days? Ack! I'm bringing a sack full of Legos and some craft projects and a big bottle of whiskey. What if it's too cold to swim but not raining? Tennis rackets! Balls! Board games! It occurs to me as I write this that maybe the reason that our kids can't just amuse themselves is that their imaginations are buried somewhere under the luggage.

The most pressing question that plagues us as we get ready to go on vacation is whether or not to bring the laptop. Isn't this the biggest thing that distinguishes the Brady Bunch vacations of the seventies from the trips we take with our own kids? Michael is worried that he might slip in his fantasy baseball rankings if he can't stay connected (and while he's checking the stats, he could also make sure everything's going OK at the office...). And then there's our habit of watching The Closer DVDs in the evenings. What will we do if we have to wait until the weekend to find out what color lipstick Kyra Sedgwick wears in the next episode? I'm all about rustic family time, but that might put us over the edge.

I do think that the computer will tether us to our daily lives in a way that will diminish the getting-away quality of this trip. The question is, do we have the fortitude to leave it behind? Stay tuned.