There was a very tired and stressed out mother/wife who just wanted there to be not so much work all of the time. She wanted to go with her family on a vacation somewhere where they could all relax and have fun together, instead of always working to get this project done or that project done. She was saddened by the thought of her children growing up and going off into the world and that they would never be able to take that time to get away and just be a family for a while without all the rest of life's baloney.
Okay, I am awake now. Must have been dreaming again.
I do look forward to hubby and I taking the kids and going to do something fun away from all that we have going on here, while the kids are still kids. It has seemed like we would still have so much time, but it has flown passed so quickly, and before we know it, Eldest is going to be done with high school and off to college.
Today was spent first running Middle to the chiropractor to get his back adjusted and get my spine in line too. I wish he lived next door so I didn't have to spend 2-hours running to get that done every time, which is 2-3 times a week now since Middle hurt himself during soccer season. Then I got back to work on the chicken house (outdoor runs) some more. I was sure we would get them all up and ready to put wire on before it got too dark, but Daughter had dance and Eldest had work and Hubby had to take them while I kept plugging away. Then Middle needed help carrying rabbit cages that he was cleaning and I just ran out of daylight for getting the frame done. Now tomorrow is supposed to be rainy turning to snow and then we are supposed to get 4-6 inches of the white stuff tomorrow night.
How pleasant.
Middle is just chomping at the bit to go snowboarding, so he is yelling "Bring on the snow!" While I am saying, "Can we just skip winter this year? Please?" We have been quite lucky so far though, this fall has been warm and dry and good for getting projects worked on out there when I do have the time away from the family/parental obligations.
When I was a kid, we always had a trip that Mom and Dad took us on in the summer and we ALWAYS went to Florida for 2-weeks. My grandparents had a house down there and my dad hated being up north all winter. So, when I was 2, we started going to Florida every year in February for 2-weeks. The last time I made that trip with my parents, I think I was 13 or 14. After that, I got to stay home and do chores with my older siblings. I was glad then that I didn't have to go. I liked going to Florida, but who wants to go with their parents to a small town that wasn't close to anything to spend 2-weeks? I did enjoy my grandmother's company though. We sat almost every night playing cards and laughing about some stupid things, listening to stories of mischief and mayhem. My Gram was quite the hell-raiser when she was young. Then she had 11 children and 44 grandchildren to tell stories about. She was definitely NOT a dull person to be with. I sure loved that lady.
One summer when I was 7, whole family, minus 2 brothers, went on a trip "Out West". We loaded up a motor home, towing a pullout camper on the back, and we went from Buffalo, NY to Billings, Montana. My father had a cousin of some kind out there, so we went on a loooooong trip out there. There were 13 of us because my grandparents went along too. Being that I was only 7, I don't remember a whole lot. We almost always stopped at a KOA Campground that had a swimming pool. One night, it was near the Badlands in South Dakota, there was a huge thunderstorm and we couldn't stop where there was a pool, and I just couldn't understand why not. Well, being the hopeful child I was that Mother Nature would surely see I need to take a dip, I believed that once we found the one with the pool, the rain would stop and we could all go swim. Of course, I was a knucklehead for not realizing that that was no way going to be the case, and we went to a place without a pool. Funny thing is, I don't remember anything else about that night.
I do remember, most of our trip was a lot of flat plains with nothing to look at. We listened to George Jones and Dolly Parton a lot on the old 8 Tracks. There was other country music too, but those are the ones that stick out in my mind that always make me think of our trip "Out West". There were things that were easy to remember, like this huge game reserve park with bears all over that we drove through. Those are the places that have the signs that tell stupid people who don't have enough brains in their heads to NOT FEED THE BEARS. Yes, some other knuckleheads would always come in thinking that these were the real Yogi Bears and they would just steal your pickanick baskets and run. Let's see....does your pickanick basket include your arm? Maybe just a hand? How anyone could be so stupid as to ignore warnings, I just don't know. But there were plenty of stories that told of how someone would be that stupid.
Probably the most beautiful memory of that trip was the morning we reached the top of a mountain somewhere in the Rockies, and you could smell the flowers and hear the water running off the snow cap that was still there on the mountain tops regardless of the fact that we were WELL into summer. There was a beautiful lake and it was just so serene. In fact, when I hear or read the word serene, that is the picture that comes to mind for me.
It was a bit scary though. We had this big motor home and looking out the windows, everything was straight down. As we wound our way up and around mountain roads, there was a shear drop on the one side all the way up and all the way down. I recall being scared half to death that we were going to slide off the side of the mountain. My grandfather HAD to sit in the front seat next to the window all the way there and back, and when we were going on those snaking mountain roads, you could see the terror on his face. It is a wonder he didn't have a heart attack on that trip. He was going through nitro like they were Tic Tacs.
The lucky ones to get to sleep in the pull out camper were my grandparents and 3 of my siblings. One night, all the rest of us were in bed in the camper (or on the floor in sleeping bags as it were for some), and we heard all kinds of noise coming from the camper. We had all assumed it was Grandpa telling stories again went to sleep. The next morning, we found out it wasn't the laughter of Grandpa's storytelling. Every night the camper had to be hooked back onto the motor home for stability. We had probably unhooked it to service the motor home or go to a restaurant or something, but it didn't get hooked up again. My grandparents outweighed my siblings by enough that it had tipped up and my siblings rolled over onto our grandparents and they were screaming and laughing and couldn't get themselves righted. Grandpa was really in need of his pills then! The next morning they found Grandma's teeth in someone's shoe and Grandpa finally did find his pills somewhere in the mess. I am certain that no one forgot to hook up the camper after that.
There was one place that had a fishing pond. It was a fun for us kids, it was almost guaranteed that you would catch something it was so stocked. When we ran out of bait and Mom and Dad said no to getting more, we started throwing Cheetos to the fish. BOY, did they love those!! We should have used that for bait, but we already turned in our rods for the day. So, it was just about as much fun watching them go after the Cheetos as it was catching them, and not nearly as messy. Then the owner/manager/whoever was in charge came out and yelled at us and talked to our parents so we couldn't do that any more. They were mad because our feeding the fish the Cheetos was making them too full and they wouldn't bite for anyone else. I think we all spent the rest of the day plotting our revenge for them having spoiled our fun.
There was stop we made along a river where there was a public beach and 'watering hole'. We got to go in swimming and it was a nice way to cool off in the hot summer sun. There were a lot of local kids there. There was a group of teenagers off in a spot down the river a little, and they had some inner tubes to float on. One girl went floating out into a spot that had a hard current and was a bit deeper than the rest. A smart aleck boy went and pulled the tube out from under her and she started flailing because she couldn't swim. A bunch of her friends came to her rescue while that boy dragged the tube up the beach. My grandmother was just livid. She got up and went over to that boy and was determined she was going to take that tube away from him after that stupid stunt, and she did. He even tried taking it back and dragged her down the beach a little, but she did not give in. I think he learned a lesson about how stubborn and strong some grandmothers are. It was a funny sight to see though as a little kid, your grandmother with her arms wrapped around an inner tube and a teenage boy pulling like they were in a game of tug-of-war.
So, as I spend my days building chicken houses and pens, and cleaning up the yard and cleaning out our closets and picking up clutter inside and out, along with running kids to and from their things they have going on, I think about how it would be so nice to get away. I think about how nice it will be if we can go on a trip that will give my children stories to tell about the trip they took with their family and the things they remember. In all the things that I have always thought my parents didn't do right, that was one that they did do that I will always be glad for, the trips we took. Not all the trips were the best time ever, I can't say as any of them were that great, but I have memories of things that will be with me my whole life. Some make me laugh still, 38-years later. That is what I hope we don't put off until it is too late.
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