Stages of Vacation

Vacations in my world have stages.

Dreaming stage 

The idea pops into your head or you are invited to the special party, wedding or event, and the dreaming begins. How fun! How wonderful! We can visit great Aunt Ruth and Uncle Benny! We can go to this children's museum and this amusement park. And oh... look, there is a wildlife adventure park just 60 miles away...

Planning stage

You commit and begin the logistics. Its still fun making reservations and planning routes and just thinking about what you will do. Maybe we won't visit Aunt Ruth. She does have a beard, after all. And after reading the reviews, I figure the wildlife adventure is mainly cleaning up wild animal litter -- and you know, once you've cleaned up cat poop from the front porch, its all just bigger and smellier, right?! AND what hubby and I really want is time together, peacefully relaxing at the hotel or in the hot tub. The kids can swim and play mini golf and stuff near the hotel. We've started taking the fun out of it already...

Packing stage

This stage sucks all the fun out of every family vacation. Its the doing -- doing laundry and finding all the right clothes for each activity; finding someone to watch the pets, the house, get the mail and all that stuff. Task lists grow. Shopping. Cleaning out the car. Why do I always wait until the last minute to get this stuff done???

Leaving stage

This is a hiccup stage. We leave. We go back for the stuff we forgot. We leave. We go back because someone has to go to the bathroom. We leave. This is the most frustrating stage for my husband, who always seems to pack the car before I've finished the packing stage. Its MY fault. I put suitcases by the door - he packs it in the car. I just always forget something. He's not here this time. We are picking him up in Dallas. My 16 year old son has successfully taken over his position, though. No worries! What'd ya do with my pink bag??

The frustration stage (otherwise known as the roadtrip). 

Why is it that some people want to be there as soon as we leave? You know someone like that. They drive fast, they hate stops. They don 't make detours for garage sales, thrift stores or outlet malls. You know the type. Mostly males.
I can't imagine why anyone would be like that. But anyone who has taken a trip with me (except for Debby) is magically transformed into such a person. This may have something to do with our typical day of driving:
It is inevitable that when we stop for a potty break someone will be asleep, someone can't find their shoes, and someone doesn't "need" to go. First round of kids have gone in and are back when we finally get the shoes found and that kid goes in. 
Last time we didn't wake the sleeping one. We got the other kids in. We let the one sleep and the one who insisted on not going in stay in the car. We pulled out of the parking lot and the sleeping one woke up. Kid you not! Once she stopped crying we figured out she had to go to the bathroom. So we stopped at the next stop and ran her inside. Too late. Back to the car, into the suitcase -- of course her clothes are in my suitcase, which is the biggest, so its on the bottom. Unload everything, get clothes, hubby reloads car while I take her back inside, change clothes, back to the car, pull away. 2 miles down the road, we laugh. Only a few extra minutes added to the drive, right? 
Then kid who didn't need to go says, "I really have to go BAD!" REALLY?! So we stop at the next stop. We'd made it 10 miles in an hour. And we'd gotten the kids drinks. At the second station the kids were fussing. As we were leaving the third station we find out it was because someone left their drink in the seat and someone else had sat on it. So at the fourth station another change of clothes with the whole unloading/reloading cycle. 

I kid you not. That is how it goes. My family won't even ride with us on road trips anymore.

And its not just the kids. Chaos hunts us down like Liam Neeson in Taken!
We bought a CNG shuttle bus from an airport up north. My husband flew out to drive it home. We planned on a leisurely three day trip getting it home.
He didn't get out of the state when he'd cracked the windshield and busted a hose. That was only the beginning! EVERY hose that could fail did. (Lot Rot - NOW we know what Lot Rot means!)
I flew out to him on the second day. I thought he might 'unintentionally on purpose' drive it off a cliff if I didn't. 
The trip took more than twice as long as we'd planned. At one point, I crawled under a fence of a 'secure' facility to find someone to open the gate so we could get CNG from the only pump in the area. We'd made arrangements in advance for two days previous, and it was after hours. The men who came running didn't have guns! What's a day or two in the grand scheme of things, right? 
I now know how to fix and install water hoses. I installed a phone charger. I helped wire the muffler up so it would stop dragging on the ground. My husband did the hard stuff. 

So maybe that's why he hates the roadtrip phase...

I HATE the...

Unload Phase. 

I swear our (suitcases and bags and shoes and) stuff breeds while we drive. I don't know how, but surely we didn't pack this much stuff! 
And how is it that we are always on the upper floor of every hotel, motel, resort. Always. UP THE STAIRS. It seems to be proportional, too -- the later we arrive at a place, the more stairs we have to climb to get to our room. I try to keep the kids quiet. Really, I do. But they have slept, drank sugar-water-otherwise-known-as-pop and been confined to a van for HOURS. They are rambunctious. They have no idea what day let alone time it is. Their father and I are near delirious after all the stops. We've lost all luggage organization. Clothes and bags have exploded. We are cranky and tired. GPS is NOT our friend. And somebody has to go to the bathroom. In their hopped-up, yet exhausted state, their little brain convinces them, "Surely if I scream this information loudly from the van up to Mom in the room, I will magically be transported to a bathroom." I go tripping all over myself to get downstairs to make them stop yelling, only to walk them up the stairs. Why they didn't go up the stairs to the room in the first place is one of life's great mysteries. But, no big deal. I *needed* to make that trip down and up the stairs. I need the exercise. My legs were stiff from sitting so long.
Trip after trip. Clunk, clunk, clunk. Suitcases are pulled wearily up the stairs waking everyone within a 5 mile radius. 

I'm sorry if you are ever in a hotel or resort room next to us. 

Enjoy Phase

Then, finally, is the ENJOY phase. It takes me a while to get to this stage even after we have arrived. Everything gets put away. Beds and sleeping arrangements are sorted. Strange noises are accounted for. And finally, finally, hours and hours later, all I can think about is sleep. TOMORROW I will start the enjoy phase. After sleep. 

For a while EVERYTHING is AWESOME! (You can sing along!)

That phase ends way too soon. We do enjoy our vacations. With kids, without kids. There is so much in the world to enjoy. It doesn't matter where we are -- there is fun stuff to do. Even if we are stuck in the room. Just being all together is great. Especially if there is a whirlpool bathtub. I bring extra shampoo or bubble solution and the kids don bathing suits to play in the giant tub of bubbles. We mini-golf, swim hike and play silly board games. We watch cable. (A whole other blog post there!) We have a great time.

Then its all over. We have to pack up. I'm telling you -- our stuff breeds on vacation. Suitcases won't close. We didn't even go shopping! How is this possible? Shoes disappear. I hate socks. Don't even get me started. I make everyone pack everything the night before except for wet clothes. Why do I even bother? Bating suits never dry the last night of any vacation. If they happen to dry hanging outside, it rains about 5 minutes before check out time. The girls change their mind about what to wear the next day and have to unpack. Someone 'forgot' about something and has to find it. It is a race to see if we can get everything out before check out time. Hilarity is one word for it. Chaos is equally good. But I prefer teamwork Woodruff-style. Its not that bad, really. Its a mini version of the packing stage at the beginning. Half of us don't get everything packed up and then "find" stuff about the time the other half has gotten to the car with the bag said stuff belongs in. Good times... good times.

Other than making everyone pack up the night before, I have tried various strategies to keep this from happening. I seriously don't TRY to stress my husband out before he drives hundreds of miles home. I tried packing the kids' clothes -- one complete outfit minus shoes -- in a Ziploc baggie. The ones from the beginning of our vacation were mildewed by the time we got home. 

I've tried packing in tubs -- all of the girls' stuff in one tub, boys' in another. Disaster! They were wearing each other's clothes, no one took responsibility for making the mess of clothes, or took it upon themselves to pick them up. Nope, not good. 

It is better now that they are older. MUCH better. But We still lose something every trip. What will it be this time?

Then we have another roadtrip. This time everyone is more tired and a little more cranky. The good news is that they sleep more, so we stop less. But the stops take longer. Its like we are stuck in molasses. Do you have that post-vacation stupor? All the way home the miles drag on. At least they don't argue about having to go potty. 

And then, 

The home phase.

Most of the family sleeps off the vacation. I have mountains of laundry to do and school planning to do. (I take it with me saying I'll do it on the road. I don't. ever) And everyone wants to eat. Real meals. We've had our fill of fast food. We want good, home-cookin' like momma used to make before vacation. (I try to have stuff made before we leave so I can just heat it up. Seriously good idea.)

When my friends ask me how our vacation went, I often can be heard to reply, "I need a vacation to get over my vacation."

We leave tomorrow. Literally, no later than 7:30 a.m. We go to co-op (starts at 9) then choir and electives. We are all done at 2:30-ish. Steve's flight arrives in DFW around 7:30. Its 4 hours of driving time from co-op to DFW. Four hours from 2:30 is 6:30. That is only an hour to spare. Only an hour for stops and traffic.

You know how that goes...

He's just gonna have to wait...

We will pack the van tonight, 

but first we have to clean out the van. 

Let the one phase I forgot to mention begin... 

PANIC!