Vacation?

It's been long enough now that I can talk about it. In fact, time has started to soften the edges and make me think it was almost all fun and easy; great memories constantly.
We made great memories, that's for sure. And we did have lots of fun. But easy? No, it was not easy in any sense of the word.

But as long as we kept repeating our mantra of "This vacation is not doomed. This vacation is not doomed..." (initiated when the rain became an absolute deluge as we were packing the car) we kept our sanity for the most part.
This was really the first family vacation we have taken without any other adults around to help -- just Mitch, me, and the kids. And boy, did we get a learnin'.

Vacation with kids is not anything like the vacations you used to know. You'd think that would be obvious going in, but there's just something about it that you can't grasp until it's just you, your frustrated, exhausted hubby, a tired, crying baby and a whining, cranky toddler trapped in a one bedroom villa with minimal toys while it rains for the second full day.
But we made it work. I think we got the accelerated course in Two Year Old 101 and got better as we went. We're still unsure if Julian's attitude was from being sick (he spiked a fever the night before we left) or if it was a "I'm on vacation and the rules don't apply" 'tude. Either way, he was a bit of a handful. The poor folks of Petoskey witnessed a couple breathtaking tantrums.
But all that being said, we had a great time.

We took turns sleeping with each kid (J on the pullout who sleeps like a pile of puppies, cuddling and squirming all night and Evie in the bed who loved burrowing under pillows and slept like an angel).
We had lots of picnics on the beach, and subsisted on a diet of mainly pizza and ice cream (except for Evie). We all had a blast at the water park. (Julian went down the huge slide!) We found playgrounds and beaches and shuffleboard and learned that "looking in shops" is not Julian's thing right now. We looked at boats and threw rocks in the water and played in the sand. We rough-housed in bed way past our bedtimes. We had fun.

Throwing rocks!

Aaaand all the mothers gasp with me...no neck injuries incurred.

In fact, maybe I only imagined the difficult parts. Were there crying, squirming children in the backseat? Was Evie so constipated she was screaming? Did the restaurant really take over an hour to get us our dinner while we struggled to entertain two kids? No, I must be remembering it wrong.
Although there were several times I couldn't help but be reminded of Clark Griswold's quote from the movie Vacation: "This is no longer a vacation. It's a quest. It's a quest for fun. I'm gonna have fun and you're gonna have fun."
But as is always the case, any hardship was totally outweighed by the great memories made. The kids had so much fun and got to try new things. Julian still talks about "baycation" every day. It was completely worth it.

Eating handfuls of sand

And a BIG thank you to Anne and Mike for letting us use their timeshare!!