Vacation

For the few of you readers who may have read my previous blogs, I'm sorry that they no longer exist. I haven't posted on either of them in quite a while, and I wanted a little bit of a fresh start.

As I type this first entry, my husband and I are driving through Central California to get home from our first vacation without kids since our honeymoon. Granted, our honeymoon was only five years ago, but still...it was so very needed and appreciated! We took one whole glorious week to drive from our home in the high desert of California to our friends' home in Petaluma, California. From there, we all took our off-roading rigs to the Rubicon Trail near Lake Tahoe. We wheeled and camped for three days, and had a fabulous time breaking car parts, getting dirty, and using some questionable pit toilets. We also took a day to do the poor man's tour of San Francisco. My husband had never been there before, so we knew that there were several sights that he should see. If you are unfamiliar with what the poor man's tour may be, let me explain. When you have just enough money to get home from your vacation and yet you still want to see some things, you find an inexpensive parking garage in San Francisco. Then you walk. Everywhere. We walked ten miles just in the city yesterday, and that includes up and down some major hills. We had a fantastic time! You also do all of this walking with a backpack equipped with food and water from home so that you do not have to pay $20 per person to eat a sandwich in the city. We got our exercise, we saw some awesome things, and we had some memorable experiences.

I am so thankful for our vacation, and for such wonderful friends to allow us to invade their space for a week. I am happy to be headed home, but not quite so happy that this means that the beginning of a new school year is coming at me like a runaway freight train. Next week, I should receive a call from my son's counselor to pick up his schedule for the year. My son is starting junior high, which is still a little difficult for me to swallow. Seventh grade doesn't seem all that long ago for me, so it seems hard to comprehend that I have a child going into seventh grade. My daughter is going into sixth grade, so this is her last year at the elementary school. My youngest (also a girl) is going into fourth grade. Time keeps marching on, whether we're ready for it or not. The boy, D, is continuing to learn guitar and is in the process of joining DeMolay (an organization for boys). Kat is learning violin, is active in Job's Daughters (an organization for girls), and is playing soccer this year. Mir is also learning violin, is becoming active in Job's Daughters (she's not old enough yet to be an official member), and is also playing soccer this year. I am a wife, a mom of these three incredibly intelligent kids, a mom of two adorable dogs, and I am an Education Specialist for an independent study charter school. I'd be lying if I said I weren't a little bit worried or overwhelmed by this year's schedule. I know that somehow, some way, I will make it through with God's strength.

So, there we are. My kids are visiting their dad in Colorado until next Tuesday, so we've had a great vacation without them, and I get a few days to get settled back in and the house prepped for their return. They have been gone for two weeks, and I'm ready for them to be back; my life is so quiet without them, which quickly feels strange.