Vay-cay!

Ahhhhh...

You may be wondering where I’ve been.

Or not.

Well, I’ve been on a lovely little vacation. Much needed.

And this one was a REAL vacation. Which means that we did not bring Chiquita, NOR the kids. The whole idea was that I needed a break from taking care of other people.

It all came together when we got an invite to a family wedding. Plus my in-laws had been hounding us to let them have the girls for a week this summer. Add to that the fact that I was starting to fantasize about running away someplace tropical and never coming back, and an idea was born.

We had planned to do a cruise to celebrate our 10-year wedding anniversary, but it never quite happened. A week in August opened up, and we started jumping through some hoops to make it happen.

We started with the wedding date. We checked the availability of cruises before and after the wedding. We came up with one before that worked out well. The only problem was that my sister had already booked a plane ticket to come see us that weekend.

Hmmmm….

So I talked her into flying out, putting the girls in our minivan, and driving them to Chicago. Piece of cake. (They made it in 8 hours flat, thanks to the promise of a new episode of Wizards of Waverly Place upon a timely arrival.)

But our flight left two hours before my sister’s arrived! Now what?

I arranged a sleepover with our next door neighbors. The girls came home Saturday morning, visited Chiquita for a bit, and drove all afternoon and evening.

My sister kept them the next day, taking them swimming and generally spoiling them rotten. She delivered them to my in-laws Sunday night. All day Monday and Tuesday, Mr. Hoagie’s brother took them to museums, shows and movies and generally spoiling them rotten. Wednesday and Thursday, Mr. Hoagie’s parents hung out with them, taking them swimming, rock climbing, bowling and generally spoiling them rotten.

In the meantime, Mr. Hoagie and I enjoyed this cruise. I’ll post more details soon; I have lots of pics, too!

In other news, I just got a job! It’s part-time and starts next week, as does school. So bear with me as I figure out my new responsibilities and schedule. I may be posting intermittently for a while.

It feels good to be back.

Kinda.