home again!

I do not feel like putting pictures up. Anyhow, pictures cannot really picture the mini-vacation we just had...

Although I did wonder a few times if it was really a vacation for the MOM.

Mostly, it was.

I swam, sunned, swam, sunned. Paul stayed home and went to work, Joe and Mirielle and Mali and Sam stayed home. Except for on Sunday, which was my birthday. Mirielle made taco salad and these yummy English-pudding type fruit dishes for dessert, made with blueberries and strawberries, and only about a hundred calories each. (so I had two...)

Anyway, it was just my eight youngest children, ha - the bottom half of the kids, and me.

My sister-in-law was there with six of her twelve kids, too.

So we were far from childless...

We did take it easy. Coffee, sitting around ignoring the kids' requests to go swimming until we good and felt like it. Swimming until they were bugging for the next meal. Back to the campsite to eat...our meals were simple. One night I cut up four pounds of potatoes and fried them in margarine with onions. Served with salad and hot dogs, and put out with the taco salad Kim had...marshmallows, chips, junk. I ate one chip. One marshmallow. Then, one of my girls roasted one of those huge-o ones and didn't want it. Oops, I ate that one too. I resisted the popcorn, the chocolate zingers, and the caramel Bugles. I ate a peach last evening, shared the rest of them with my nieces and nephews, which was a tiny bit hard because I couldn't have one today...got home to a huge box of peaches on the table from Gramma.

Vacations are not all fun and games. There are still a few fights between the girls, a few messes to clean up, kids that are way too silly to go to sleep when they are tucked in...and wake up way to early in the morning.

But this little vacation accomplished more than relaxation. Margaret was the oldest child there with me, she is 14 years old. We had good fellowship, and got along so well! We needed these few days together! I think because she was the oldest, she blossomed and bloomed, and was so extremely responsible.

I didn't bring a book to read, had no internet, no distractions. Time well spent.

Now, I am tired....glad to be home, and tired.