Our Staycation

Last week my husband took three days off which gave him a total of eight days off in a row. It seems like whenever he takes time off like that we sit around the house staring at each other and by the end of it neither one of us can wait to go back to work. I get nothing done, he gets tired of doing nothing, I feel like the family chef instead, and he hates that I want him to help me clean out the garage or some other random job. You feel me? This time was different. I told myself to just let go and take a break from my shop, blogging and anything else that I usually feel ‘has’ to be done. It was wonderful. We all had such a great week filled with family time and most importantly we made memories together. We didn’t go further than 25 miles from our house the entire week and we ate great meals every day. Last Saturday when my husband got off of work we dropped all three kids at my parents house and went out for pizza and a movie. It had literally been months since I was without at least one of my children so that break was well deserved and needed. As I drove away from my parents house I turned the music up in my car and jammed out just because I could! Sunday we hung around the house, packed and prepared for a camping trip. First thing Monday morning we headed to a camp site about 15 minutes from our house. It was the kids’ first camping trip and since we had Delilah in tow we didn’t want to go far. It was in the eighties during the day and down in the sixties at night so the weather was perfect for us. I gave myself a pep talk before we left the house that I was going to let the boys be boys and get as dirty as they wanted. Normally I would tell them to stop playing in the dirt and mud but that is what camping is about. The food was so good that my husband made the comment we were almost eating  better camping than we do at home. I have to second that. We had three good meals a day – we cooked our meals over the fire or on the grill. We had breakfast burritos, egg sandwiches, lunch sandwiches, pie iron pizzas, hobo burgers and hot dogs. Of course what is camping without the smores? We had smores every night! We even tried our luck at geocaching and found our first cache! We are excited to do some more geocaching in the future because when we looked it up there are a lot of caches in our area. If you haven’t heard of geocaching it is when you find containers that people leave by using a GPS device (we used our phones). It is like a small treasure hunt and our kids had a blast looking at the silly things inside and leaving their own item behind for someone else to find. Of course there were some breakdowns when the kids got overly tired, but overall it was better than I thought it would be. The boys stayed busy running around most of the day and Delilah was fine because I was holding her most of the time unless I was cooking. When I wasn’t holding her Mike was or we put her in her bouncer seat that I brought with. We had originally planned to camp until Thursday, but since I had some friends in town from Illinois we decided to pack up and head out on Wednesday afternoon instead. When we got back home we unpacked (the worst part of camping!) and I filled up the washer and dryer with our campfire scented clothes, pillowcases and blankets. Thursday we hit the beach with friends, Friday we hung around the house and had the same friends over for dinner. My friend Maddy and I went to school together from grade school through high school and my three kids are within a few months of her three kids. Saturday we met with my husbands family to celebrate his moms birthday and Mother’s Day. We took a picture in our backyard and had it made into a canvas for her. Let’s just say we tried to take this picture about a dozen times before we finally captured one where both boys were looking. Sunday Mike made a pancake breakfast for Mother’s Day and then we met my parents and some of their friends at the beach. To end the day we went back to my parent’s house for dinner. I couldn’t be more thankful for the quality time I was able to spend with our family last week. I spent yesterday catching up on laundry and house work and sorting through clothes my kids have outgrown. I have to say that I never imagined being a work/stay at home mom would ever be this hard. It is the hardest job I have ever done but it is also the most rewarding and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I am working on some camping recipe posts from our camping trip so be on the lookout for those!