The family and I just returned home from a wonderful 9 day vacation to sunny, fabulous Florida. No one really wanted to come back to the Mitten. Why would we? It's beautiful down there, the weather was amazing (I love hot, not cold) and well there was no craptastic family bs to deal with. 9 days of not having to deal with all the crap of our daily lives. It was heaven.
We went to visit my mom who I hadn't seen since last summer when we were there, and I can't even begin to describe how good it was to see her. No matter how old I am I still miss my mom and I have to admit it kinda sucks not having her around all the time. But I guess if she has to live 1000+ miles away at least it's somewhere great to vacation.
We didn't do anything huge this year like Disney or Sea World. We did go to the Jacksonville zoo which is absolutely beautiful. Other than that we spent time with my mom and grandpa, did some shopping at the outlet mall and visited my great grandmother. Oh and of course practically lived at the beach. The beach I'm very sad I can't be at right now, the beach that I love almost as much as my family. I've been going to this beach since I was just a little one and I'll go back again for probably the rest of my life but for some reason this trip the beach was just well like home. All of us had so much fun, playing in the waves, walking along the shore, picking up shells, building sandcastles. Both kids were totally into playing in the ocean this year, even my timid little guy that wouldn't leave his tidal pool last year, this time we couldn't get him out of the water for love or money. Pretty sure they were meant to be beach bunnies not snow bunnies.
So after 9 wonderful sunny days of vacation we had to pack the van up and head back to our reality. Our reality is we our moving from the house we've lived in for the last almost 10 years into the house the hubs father signed over to us. The problem with this is my father in law is leaving town and all he is taking from the new house is his personal belongings (clothing, paperwork, a few photos) everything else is being left behind. Were talking 4 or 5 peoples worth of stuff from over 40 years. We get the pleasure of cleaning out all of it. Almost like if he passed away only without all the sadness of him actually passing. (thank goodness for that). But It's a shit ton of work, every room is full of furniture, knick knacks, clothing, etc. Not to mention that the house itself needs work.
Every room needs no less than a coat of paint and new carpet. But many of the rooms have wall paper that my wonderful FIL and his wife in all their wisdom decided to half ass paint over, some worse than others. Any room they decided to redecorate in, well fixing their work is going to be an exercise in patience not to mention a giant pain in my ass.
I'm trying really hard to be excited about the move the fact of the matter is the house is much bigger than the one were in, the payment is way cheaper and were going into it with equity already. The neighborhood is nicer, and the school district is supposed to be better. (not that the schools matter since I'm not really planning on moving the kids schools for at least another year). But there's so much work.
As if the work we have to do there isn't enough we still have to worry about packing and moving all our stuff. Deciding what were keeping and getting rid of from both houses and consolidating them.Having at least 2 garage sales to get rid of the stuff we don't want worth selling, several trips to the dump to get rid of the stuff not worth keeping or selling. Then there's finding a place for and moving my MIL and BIL which is another issue all on it's own.
All this reality pretty much smacked us in the face as soon as we returned home because you know real life waits for no one, and to make it all that much more fun we went from sunny 90+ degree days on the beach to rainy dreary and not even hitting the 70's. (Someone forgot to give Mother Nature the memo it's summer in the Mitten too).
Talk about wishing we could turn around and go back. When we got back, heard the weather for the week, started making lists and plans for all the things we needed to get started on the hubs and I looked at each other and both said we should have stayed the rest of the week and just enjoyed the last few days of our vacation before coming home to deal with this.
We went to visit my mom who I hadn't seen since last summer when we were there, and I can't even begin to describe how good it was to see her. No matter how old I am I still miss my mom and I have to admit it kinda sucks not having her around all the time. But I guess if she has to live 1000+ miles away at least it's somewhere great to vacation.
We didn't do anything huge this year like Disney or Sea World. We did go to the Jacksonville zoo which is absolutely beautiful. Other than that we spent time with my mom and grandpa, did some shopping at the outlet mall and visited my great grandmother. Oh and of course practically lived at the beach. The beach I'm very sad I can't be at right now, the beach that I love almost as much as my family. I've been going to this beach since I was just a little one and I'll go back again for probably the rest of my life but for some reason this trip the beach was just well like home. All of us had so much fun, playing in the waves, walking along the shore, picking up shells, building sandcastles. Both kids were totally into playing in the ocean this year, even my timid little guy that wouldn't leave his tidal pool last year, this time we couldn't get him out of the water for love or money. Pretty sure they were meant to be beach bunnies not snow bunnies.
So after 9 wonderful sunny days of vacation we had to pack the van up and head back to our reality. Our reality is we our moving from the house we've lived in for the last almost 10 years into the house the hubs father signed over to us. The problem with this is my father in law is leaving town and all he is taking from the new house is his personal belongings (clothing, paperwork, a few photos) everything else is being left behind. Were talking 4 or 5 peoples worth of stuff from over 40 years. We get the pleasure of cleaning out all of it. Almost like if he passed away only without all the sadness of him actually passing. (thank goodness for that). But It's a shit ton of work, every room is full of furniture, knick knacks, clothing, etc. Not to mention that the house itself needs work.
Every room needs no less than a coat of paint and new carpet. But many of the rooms have wall paper that my wonderful FIL and his wife in all their wisdom decided to half ass paint over, some worse than others. Any room they decided to redecorate in, well fixing their work is going to be an exercise in patience not to mention a giant pain in my ass.
I'm trying really hard to be excited about the move the fact of the matter is the house is much bigger than the one were in, the payment is way cheaper and were going into it with equity already. The neighborhood is nicer, and the school district is supposed to be better. (not that the schools matter since I'm not really planning on moving the kids schools for at least another year). But there's so much work.
As if the work we have to do there isn't enough we still have to worry about packing and moving all our stuff. Deciding what were keeping and getting rid of from both houses and consolidating them.Having at least 2 garage sales to get rid of the stuff we don't want worth selling, several trips to the dump to get rid of the stuff not worth keeping or selling. Then there's finding a place for and moving my MIL and BIL which is another issue all on it's own.
All this reality pretty much smacked us in the face as soon as we returned home because you know real life waits for no one, and to make it all that much more fun we went from sunny 90+ degree days on the beach to rainy dreary and not even hitting the 70's. (Someone forgot to give Mother Nature the memo it's summer in the Mitten too).
Talk about wishing we could turn around and go back. When we got back, heard the weather for the week, started making lists and plans for all the things we needed to get started on the hubs and I looked at each other and both said we should have stayed the rest of the week and just enjoyed the last few days of our vacation before coming home to deal with this.
