The Rest of Vacation

What "rest" of vacation? What exactly does vacation have to do with rest anyway? Those of you with children already know that vacation no longer means rest. That doesn't mean it isn't a whole lot of fun or that I don't look forward to it. But it doesn't mean rest. Not ever. In fact, at our house, things are likely going very poorly if the kids are on vacation and I'm resting. That means they're bored. They're fighting. They're dying for something more entertaining to do.

So, while camping filled part of our Spring Break, it lasted only until Wednesday. I'd scheduled a whole bunch of appointments for the kids on Thursday, so we had to get back. I hate rescheduling, especially since some of these appointments are rather difficult to come by. So, we had a busy Thursday at the dentist (both kids), the speech therapist (Mam) and the physical therapist (Smunch). But then came Friday...

And by Friday morning, I was resting with my coffee and my newspaper after succeeding in packing away most of the evidence of our camping trip. The kids were outside, fighting and getting on each other's nerves. As far as I'm concerned, THIS is exactly what letterboxing was invented for.

So, I looked up some of the more recent boxes planted around here, packed the kids in the car and headed for the coast. The coast is always a good bet because it means beach. Of course, letterboxes aren't generally planted on the beach since shifting sands aren't particularly friendly to unburied treasure. So, I use the beach as a bribe to get the hiking done instead.

The town we were looking for was so small that I blew right by it the first time past, but we finally found it and the park we were looking for. It was a little creepy. Not particularly well cared for, but beautiful nonetheless.Nice spring flowers and towering eucalyptus trees. Lots of vines (kudzu, maybe?) growing over everything.

Our destination was an overlook with this lovely view...and a lovely letterbox. We were first finders of this one, so that made it a bit more fun for the kids too.We headed back down. As we neared the bottom of the hill, the kids were walking hand in hand (cute!) singing "We Will Rock You" as loud as they could (not particularly cute, but kinda funny).I'd packed a lunch for the beach, so we headed down and found a place to park. By that time, the beach was windy and not all that comfortable, even though it looked great. Still, the kids had a great time getting sandy and wet, as I'd carefully instructed them not to.There's no real doubt that they're the best of friends. We didn't stay long, but they didn't complain. And on our way home, we dropped by a tiny little scrapbook store that was going out of business. I got some great deals...and logged another letterbox...and best of all, the kids were happy...and tired!

That was more than a week ago already. The past week went by in a whirlwind of meetings and baseball. The weekend was all about sifting compost and getting the garden ready to plant. I can't wait to get my veggies in. In the meantime, all the planning for the summer is starting to really take shape and plans are getting firmed up. I don't think there's going to be a lot of time for boredom and fighting!