It appears we need a vacation from our vacation....

We're back. What a whirlwind. For the sake of not being a negative nelly about our week away, suffice to say that we had a good trip overall. But phew, Mommy & Daddy are recovering from a high stress time away. The house we rented was perfect - we had a great set up. And the weather was flawless. And the family we were with were awesome to be with - it was great to spend time with everyone. The cousins were awesome - and as I've said before, it's great to see the kids relished with so much love and affection.


Sadly, my kids didn't seem to feel that way most of the time. They were so out of sorts the whole trip that it was really hard to enjoy ourselves at times. I have held off posting anything because I really wasn't sure what to say about it. After we've been home a day or two, we now can see that the kids do not do well with adapting to change quickly. They fueled each others fires and often times if one was melting down, the other followed suit. It's probably a combo of their age (almost 2), lots of people and chaos, a new place, a new sleeping arrangement and LOTS of fresh air. They were exhausted and so were we. I think part of my stress was that I was disappointed as I really didn't consider that they might blow up without their normal routine. It caught me off guard for sure.

We did a lot of fun things though and I relished in their nap times to get a couple hours of peace and quiet. I had visions of reading and relaxing which wasn't quite the case - but that's just the way vacations are with little ones. We had a lot of extra help around which I appreciated so much (when the kids allowed me to leave the room without crying), and after about 5 days, the kids started to get adapted to things. Then it was time to leave. We all were quite happy to arrive home and sleep in our own beds. For the last 48 hours, the kids have been sleeping more than they have been awake - they're making up for lost sleep over the course of the week I guess.

Their first beach experience was a good one - although Cole isn't quite sure about sand. He fussed when he got sand on his hands but after a few times there, he learned to dust himself off and keep going. JD absolutely loves the sand, and the ocean. They both really loved the pool - it looks like our swimming lessons this winter were well worth it.

I've enjoyed the weekend being home (we got home about 1am on Saturday morning) to re-group and get ready for the grind again. I shudder to think what my departure tomorrow morning will be like - I have a feeling that our nanny is going to get a run for her money tomorrow and throughout the week. They will have to re-adjust to not having me around all day long.

I am sad that our vacation is over. We waited so long for it and it went so fast. Even despite the lack of sleep and sore arms & shoulders from carrying babies all week, I did enjoy spending time with our family who we don't get to see often; and it was nice getting out of the daily grind. We had fantastic weather, took some fun walks, had lots of laughs, spent a few moments with just our family of four, and saw some wild horses - and that made it all worthwhile.

Until next time...we're hoping this is just a phase with the kids and the next time will be a bit less stressful. We will return again - perhaps with a different mind set going into it! We're scheduled to depart this weekend with my side of the family, cousins and all, for a weekend in Deep Creek - consider yourselves forewarned family!