A Vacation without our Kids?

It seems surreal. How has life gone by so fast that my youngest is now eight and we are letting him go off for a week of summer camp in Pennsylvania? (The condition for this decision was that his brother, Steve, would be his counselor and keep a protective watch on him all the time.) Sarah will be his chum whenever she has free time, I'm sure. Ben is 22 and rather eager to have the house to himself for awhile. Just the dog and him.

Selfishly I want a week at the beach, but Paul cannot get time off Monday or Tuesday because of "going live" with a new computer system at work. But from Wednesday through Saturday we are planning a mini trip. Ideally we will get a full day at the beach without anyone saying, "Dad! Dad! I'm thirsty! Can I get a lemonade? Mom! Mom! Let's go back in the water now! Dad! Dad! Will you help me make a sandcastle? Mom! Mom! I'm bored now. Can we go?"

Instead, Paul and I will have our tall iced teas and no Capri Suns. He will have his stash of Guitar Player, Kiplinger's, and Cook's magazines. I will probably have a murder mystery that's caught my interest from a book review by one of my fellow bloggers. (Suggestions, anyone?) And I hope I will have found a pile of cast-off shelter magazines that someone or some library wanted to unload. (Let me know if that's you. All my subscriptions have expired.)

Our plan is to meet up and stay with my sister and our two missionary friends from Russia. Jill' has a friend whose parents are letting us use their beach home in Chincoteague, free of charge! Our Russian friends, Andrey and Valeria, want to put their toes in the Atlantic and get a couple days of sunshine--true heat they don't experience in Birobidzhan--amidst their two weeks of a heavy-duty speaking schedule.

A second day, I hope, will include some trail riding for me and maybe the others. (Paul's a no-go when it comes to riding.) It's been 30 years since I straddled a saddle, and so I'm thinking I might want to do this on the last day of vacation. If I am crippled by stiffness from two hours atop a lazy mare, I surely don't want it to impede some exciting shopping in a quaint seaside village .

A third day would include a boat ride. A fishing boat or a speed boat. Nothing too big or too fancy. Just something we can do some fishing from, for a couple hours. For me, it's more about the solitude and relaxation on the water, in the sun, with the man I married. I have no desire to eat what I catch. (A mentality that the fish also favors, I'm sure.)

The fourth day, Saturday, we might head back up to camp to get Joel, or let him stay over with Sarah at the Kurtzes'. My guess is that he'll be exhausted and ready to see his parents again. Maybe not, but it's my hope, too, I suppose, that he missed us a little but didn't get homesick.
If we go up Saturday, I would love to stay again at the Iron Corbel Inn in Altoona. It's a lovely
B&B run by a young widow with two small, adorable kids. She and her husband had bought the manse as a dream home to fix up as a B&B. They moved there and, when the younger child was 18 months, the husband got very sick, was admitted to the hospital, and died from being given a wrong medicine. The woman continues to make a living at the Iron Corbel, and has my deepest respect. When we visited last summer, she served a cheese frittata and some tea, then walked her children down the street for children's choir that Sunday, then came back and cleared tables.
All the while battling what sounded like bronchitis. I was humbled and amazed and more than glad to support her with our night's stay.

So, that's that. Today I am knee deep in organizing things that came off a bookshelf I can't stand anymore. It was fine when I had three homeschoolers, but now it collects far more than books and art supplies and junk than any soul needs in one room. There is also more laundry (goes without saying) to wash, dry, and fold. Bathrooms that need to be cleaned. I'm so glad for the capacity to dream and plan while doing such mundane things.

Vacation, here we come. I'm trying to contain my giddiness and keep my expectations low enough to accomodate flexibility, yet high enough to make some special memories.