Sleeping Little and Using Up Sunscreen

My french-braid smells like a campfire because tonight, our friends cooked dinner on a huge grill over an open fire by the lake.  The fire mesmerized my boys and then they ate plate after plate of bacon, pancakes, sausages, hashbrowns and eggs.  Sometimes the amount a teenage boy can eat alarms me. 

The sun wakes us up very early in this home by the lake.  The windows face the rising sun so when we wake up, it’s as if the sun is shouting at us to GET OUT OF BED!  My daughter joined the sun in rousing me from precious slumber . . . she poked me and announced, “Mommy!  The sun is up!” 

It was 7:00 a.m.  I dream of the day that a vacation means sleeping in.  Oh wait!  I am having that vacation next week when I head to Portland for three days.  If you live somewhere around Portland and would like to meet me for a casual dinner or lunch or something, email me and let me know.  I intend to shop, sleep, and mindlessly wander.  Mostly, I look forward to not having anyone say “Mommy!  Mommy!” to me.  (My daughter’s newest phrase begins with, “Mom, do you think . . . ” and then, after buying time with that beginning, she thinks of something (pointless) to say.)

Anyway, though it’s really fun to vacation with the family and all, I must admit that this much time with people wears me out.  I’m such an introvert.

Today, we took the kids to the mall, handed them $20 each and let them shop.  My twins put their money together and bought a video game for their GameCube.  My youngest son didn’t spend a dime.  I bought my daughter a pair of Converse high tops (oh, so cute! for only ten bucks) and she picked out Dora shoes. 

Then we ate lunch in the food court and returned to our home away from home.

We spent the whole afternoon at the lake.  My youngest son’s favorite activity was riding on the inner-tube, being pulled by the boat as fast as it could go.  All the boys went fishing from the dock.  My oldest son caught a fish big enough to eat, which was cause for great celebration among all the children.  They all jumped from the boat house, dunked each other, floated on noodles and wore themselves out.

I even got into the water, which was cold, very very cold, though I admitted that it did feel marginally less cold after awhile.  (My friends were saying, “It’ll feel warm in a minute!”   Uh, no, it did not.)

Oh, and I dropped my trusty Olympus Stylus camera onto the stone path so hard that it bounced twice and then refused to turn on again.  Big, super-big bummer.  Although, since I couldn’t take any more pictures, I did find myself relaxing more, rather then jumping up to photograph this moment or that.

We’ll be going home (to our man-eating tiger) on Friday.  I’ll be glad to sleep in my own bed again and have a little bit of space between me and my children, but in the meantime, we are on a continuing rampage to Have Fun and Make Memories.