I married into a large family and when each of Tim’s siblings got married and had kids, the family grew even larger. Between the five couples we have a grand total of 18 kids. 17 of them are ten and under. There’s no such thing as a small family gathering.

Every summer we make our annual pilgrimage to visit Tim’s grandparents for a family reunion. We take all the time we can to spend with each other, visiting, swimming in the lake, sitting by the fire, and watching the kids play.

Life doesn’t get much better than this particular week of the year. The kids run themselves ragged with their cousins each day, and sleep soundly at night. They push themselves out of their comfort zones and they build the friendships that will carry them through life.

This is my happy place.

It’s the place I can float in the lake and watch the puffy clouds drift across a perfect blue sky.

Where I can listen to the laughter of my children as they conquer the world with their cousins.

Where I can warm myself by the campfire, eating smores, and watching the embers from the fire dance and drift through the air.

The world bustles on, and soon we will return to it, but for now we will linger in the only place where time stands still.

By the time we got back to the cabin this evening the kids were exhausted and hungry. We sat at the table eating sandwiches and talking about our day.

It was a wonderfully full day, complete with swimming in the lake, rides on the Gator, and archery lessons in the backyard. As the kids chewed on their food, their eyes hit heavier.

No one complained about crawling into bed!

Day one of vacation is in the books and I’m pretty sure the kids are going to sleep hard tonight. They spent the entirety of the day playing with their cousins, and this evening we took them swimming in the lake.

I was surprised to see Baby E take to the water the way he did. He’s always been very anxious when we swim, despite the fact he is wearing a life jacket. He decided tonight to swim quite a bit without holding onto me.

We finally decided to head back to our cabin as the last of the light was disappearing. The kids chased fireflies all the way to the van.

Many hours and five states later we arrived at our cabin for the next several days. We got here at midnight and the children promptly woke up and started running around and exploring. Now everyone is finally in bed. Let vacation begin!!

Also I have zero reception at this cabin, so while I’ve written it this evening, it won’t actually post until tomorrow.

We just wrapped up another late night at the shop. These seasons don’t come often, so I don’t really mind them when they do. I actually enjoy the time I spend there. By the time I got home this evening the kids were asleep on the living room floor.

Tomorrow we leave for vacation. Unlike every other vacation that Tim and I have taken during the entirety of our marriage, I have not even packed a thing the night before. Our lives have been so crazy lately, it never crossed my mind. So in the morning I will be throwing stuff in bags and hoping that I didn’t leave anything important behind!

The past few days have been a race against the clock to make sure that everything is in place for when we go on vacation. When you own your own small business, you can’t just drop everything and leave. All the i’s need to be dotted and all the t’s need to be crossed before you walk out the door. Hence the crazy hours we have been putting in over the last week.

To top it off, I have editing clients I can’t leave in the lurch, so when I’m not at the shop, I’m editing. It’s been a crazy busy week but it will all be worth is when we are swimming in the lake or walking down the railroad track.

Vacation can’t come soon enough!

We spent most of our weekend recovering from our long days and nights at the shop. We slept more than usual and we were just all around lazy. This evening, we decided to take the kids out for some treasure hunting (a.k.a. geocaching.)

We ended up finding three out of the four we were looking for. We tromped through tall grass and weaved our way through thick underbrush. The kids enjoyed opening up the caches and seeing the ‘treasures’ inside. They were disappointed when the sun went down and it got too late to look for any more.

They are already asking when will be the next time we go treasure hunting.

• 

Have you ever been so tired that you’ve started seeing things? It’s never happened to me before until last night.

From 4pm Thursday afternoon until 4 am this morning (Saturday) was a span of 36 hours. Of those 36 hours, I spent about 30 of them at the shop. From Thursday night into Friday, I only got three hours of sleep.

After dinner last night I kept doing double takes because I thought I saw things out of the corners of my eyes- things that shouldn’t be there… A rat. A kid. A puppy. At one point I clearly saw the panel in front off me start to tip over, so I reached out to grab it only to realize it had never moved. Later I was sitting in a chair and even though I wasn’t moving, I was convinced I was falling out of it. I knew logically it was my mind playing tricks on me, but it was such an unnerving sensation.

I was in no state to drive, so I was thankful that my sister wasn’t nearly as tired. We got home close to 5am and after clumsily navigating the staircase I collapsed into bed and straight to sleep. Needless to say, today was pretty much a bust. Hopefully a full night’s sleep will do the trick!

I’m currently running on three hours of sleep. It’s 3:30 in the morning and we are still at the shop. Everything aches and I am having a hard time forming thoughts. We are leaving soon. I cannot wait to crawl into bed.