Vacation without the kids!

For the first time in 17 years I left the kids and went on vacation without them. I've never even left them overnight! My sister Liz and I took off and went to the Pacific Northwest.

It was heaven! It was cloudy and misty and warm (sometimes) and beautiful! I've never been somewhere so beautiful before.

I actually wanted to move there. We joked (half hardheartedly) that we would just stay there, buy a house, and have Peter pack up the kids, sell the house and move!

 I stopped by Sothebys to check out the real estate market up there. Problem was everything affordable were tiny cottages and everything big enough was $1.5 million or more! So there goes that plan.

New plan: Get the kids out of the house, sell the house and move to a two bedroom cottage on the beach! Now, how to fast forward the baby. She thinks she's a big kid. Do you think I can put her in high school this year?

All joking aside, it was a wonderful trip. A lot of people thought Liz and I wouldn't make it spending that much time together. But we did fine!

We drove straight both ways. It was a 15 and a half hour trip each time. After that much driving you go pretty loopy! And you totally lose your ability to walk! If I had been pulled over I wouldn't have been able to pass a sobriety test.

But it was a ton of fun! We camped on a beach (well, behind the sea wall). We enjoyed long walks on the beach, shopping in local sea side shops, seeing amazing scenery, and eating delicious food. We also spent two days with an aunt and uncle that live up there. It was great being able to spend real time with them.

Everything worked out amazing. The weather was perfect. We found tour guides to take us to Portland, Seattle, and Tacoma, places we wanted to see but didn't know if we would be able to get around. It was just perfect.

Adapting to the climate there was easy enough. Within a day we could breathe fine and didn't notice. Coming back is more of a challenge though. Same with adapting to being on vacation! It was very easy to go there, and very difficult to come back.

I still feel like my head isn't in the game two days after being back. I don't know what end is up, what's going on, what food is in the fridge, and I'm still moving at a very slow pace. Maybe I'll acclimate at some point.

In the mean time, I don't know if I'll be able to do it again. My little girls keep coming up and hugging and kissing me and sometimes crying about having missed me. They're telling me to never leave them again. Maybe in a year they'll get over it and forget and I can do it again!