twilight33 | IIIIIII don't wanna work

I am so dreading work tomorrow.

It's not because I hate my job or fear a week's worth of backlog. On the contrary, it's all rather easy to deal with after about a half hour of surveying the scene. I still get to spend the majority of the day with Kieran on the average workday... but it won't be with Kieran & Ryan all day on vacation.

We went to Sequim & Victoria in June for our first (technical) family vacation, but I discovered something during this past week that I count as our first real family vacation. A 3 day weekend does not count as a true vacation because you don't really leave your daily routine & thoughts about work/life/crap/whatever behind you and just bask in wherever you are. I think most of the European world considers a vacation at least two weeks off; I'm content with one.

It's strange to admit this, but I loved this vacation with Kieran where we didn't even do anything all that spectacular more than all the longer vacations Ryan & I took from Alaska to Europe combined. We played. We explored different parks, a bay & a lake. We met new friends in foreign countries (ok, Canada). We laughed. We laughed a LOT. If this is the basis of our family vacations from here on out, we are going to have so much fun together until Kieran decides he can't stand us.

Kieran's communication skills have exploded over the past week. He's far more interested in knowing what things are called than before, and figured out how to calmly ask us for what he wants without tantrums or whining (although he still does plenty of both when he doesn't get it). It's probably a coincidence with whatever stage of toddler development he's at now, but I would like to think that all this time away from home checking out new places & things helped at least a little.

I can't wait until vacation time again, not even going to bother with trying to go somewhere for a 3 day weekend again... it's at least a week or we just relax locally from now on.