quality time

We just returned from an Independence Day weekend trip to the beach. Our friends R&S's parents have a house out there on the canals, and we went as one of three families and had an absolutely wonderful, relaxing time...sometimes surprisingly relaxing considering we did NOT get to leave the children home (!) but they are now of the age that they can play together relatively well. As P mentioned a couple days ago, these are the kinds of trips that these kids will remember.

Although I did not get to take the kayak out in the early morning nor go for a nice long walk by myself on the beach, I still found the time away from our physical home quite rejuvenating. My patience level is higher today and the children seem much more relaxed and willing to spend time doing something other than hanging all over me in the summer heat--or at least to a lesser degree!

The most stressful part of the trip was, of course, the drive but I chose to leave both days early in the morning, thus missing the holiday traffic on both ends. For our first road trip following the accident, things went pretty smoothly and our new car drove wonderfully.

I leave in a week on my personal vacation and am now practically counting the hours. If I feel this good after a weekend, I can only imagine how filled with new life I will be following 11 days! Maybe it will be noticeable enough for MQE to send me away EVERY summer for a week! (jajajajaja!)