Back from vacation .. Back to the real world.

It's always great to get away from the real world for a while. A world where you don't have to do laundry, cook or clean up after anyone. That was my life last week. My husband and I, along with our three children, loaded up our mini-van and drove thousands of miles west to the mountains of Colorado. We stayed at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park, a vacation that included my husband's father, brothers and their families. Overall, it was a wonderful trip with cousins to play with and lots of outdoor activities for the kids. The weather was pretty good. The scenery beautiful. A very relaxing vacation that left me rested and refreshed. As with every vacation, there was one hiccup along the way. On the first day of driving, as we left Des Moines, Iowa after lunch my husband stayed on 35-south instead of turning onto 80-west. "I bet a lot of people do that," he later said. I just kind of looked at him. Anyway, we ended up in Missouri instead of Nebraska and added an extra three hours to our first day of driving. I'll admit that my first reaction was to throw a hissy fit, which I'm sometimes prone to do. Instead, for one moment, I cursed to myself and then said it was no big deal. He was already mad at himself so why make the situation worse. A big argument would serve no purpose so we made the best of it. Although, I did inform him that I would be talking about it on the radio and also blogging about it and that I would never let him live it down. (Hey, I said it nicely and with a smile on my face.) By the way, while Bruce was driving in the wrong direction, I was in the back seat with the kids watching the movie "Pacifer," with Vin Diesel. It was the only movie I watched on a great vacation that allowed my family to reconnect and de-stress. It's now back to the real world of laundry, cooking and cleaning up after the kids. But it's good to be home.