Vacation-hoy!

Halverson beach trip, August 2010

We're off on our first official vacation of the summer today, back to the lake house at the Coast where we stayed last summer, and THE CHILDREN ARE EXCITED!

(That is the same as saying the children are driving my crazy, except it sounds nicer. But really, the children are driving my crazy.)

We wanted to leave earlier but the majority of the packing had to be done this morning due to our chaotic evening last night that went something like this:

5 pm: drive to town with the kids to have dinner with Russ and his b-ball team at their team camp, which ended last night.

6 pm: Drive around town running last minute errands while Russ returns school van.

7 pm: go watch the varsity boys play at their team camp in a neighboring town because, as I'm sure you all know, Russell NEVER tires of basketball and is supportive of any team from our school, but especially the team coached by his good friend Doug, and that now includes our incoming freshman nephew, Ben. 

8 pm: leave the high school and stop spontaneously at my parents to pick up eggs (did you know my dad works at an egg farm? Because he does, and this means free eggs for the family every week. It's a pretty sweet perk.)

8: 25 pm: leave my parents after a quick and noisy visit and head back to town because one of Russ's player's parents mentioned that they were having a garage sale this weekend and had baseball gloves we could have for our boys, inviting us to come browse pre-sale.

I'm sure you can see where this is headed...

9:25 pm: LEAVE our friends garage sale, the proud owners of two baseball gloves and  two balls, a bike rack for our Tahoe, a bag full of clothes and shoes for Kendall, and a box FULL of barbie stuff that Kendall managed to get for free and completely swooned over the rest of the evening.

9:30 pm: arrive at our mechanic friend's to pay for and pick up our fixed riding mower that Russ planned to get up and use at 6 am this morning to mow before leaving for vacation.

(This pit stop was prearranged - in case you're wondering if we normally pay people random visits at 9:30 pm in the evening - and fully supported by me because our yard is a HOT MESS and I wanted it mowed, like, yesterday.)

But guess what? They were setting up a garage sale too. 

10:00 pm: By now we own a new toddler bed for Blake and Russ is down the street with our friend looking at fishing gear that might work for our trip while I'm back in the car with the kids wondering how the heck I ended up out and about this late on the evening I was supposed to be home packing. 

Luckily Russ came back quick when I texted him: "your children have run wild. Save me."

So it was a late night. And really it was okay because we were all "VACATION-HOY!" and didn't want to go to bed before 12:30 am anyway, which is what happened by the time I'd baked brownies for the trip and Russ had assembled the new bed, twice, because he did it wrong the first time and I was not about to let it stay that way, and we'd watched a western movie that had nothing to do with packing at all, but was quite good. 

But now we're ready and outta here! So happy weekend to you all my friends!

We'll be fishing and playing here:

lake view left

lake view right

 (And don't worry about our place, or try anything shady while we're gone, because we've got that covered. Plus, our vigilante neighbor who lives only a stones throw away and is ARMED AND DANGEROUS, has informed us many a time that he watches every single thing that goes on over here and not a single vehicle come or go without his noticing, and Russell and I can both attest to the validity of this statement. Guys a phenom.)