Paul was big pimpin' at the vacation house.
We did it!
It feels good just to say it. “We had a successful vacation.”
Last night, Kristen and I went for a walk in our neighborhood and this was really the summary statement of our week in Carlsbad.
It was nice to get away while only traveling about 40 minutes from our house. I don’t have any fascinating results to reveal… but here is a hodgepodge of things I’m thinking about last week.
- The rhythm and pace of the week was great. Nearly every day we woke up, watched the World Cup while drinking coffee, went to the pool, had lunch, went to the beach, ate dinner, watched a movie, and went to sleep.
- Opening up our vacation to a bigger definition of our family made a huge difference. It just wouldn’t have been as much fun without Kristen’s parent, my niece Allison, Erin, and Lisa. While it likely effected the bottom line a little, it was priceless to spend the quality/quantity time with them.
- It was also fun to bring Stoney, our yellow lab. Renting a dog-friendly house was pretty simple and it was a bonus to have him along. I don’t want to sound like one of those people but he really is part of our family.
- Kristen likes shells… a lot. One two mornings Kristen went shell hunting. It was almost embarrassing how many shells we brought home. Almost.
- We learned the playmate lesson. While it definitely helped Megan to have someone her age to play with… we REALLY needed to have a playmate as well. Next time.
- Have we found a vacation style we all like? Kristen and I like two different types of vacations. I like to unplug and do just about nothing. Kristen finds it very refreshing to explore new places. This really afforded us the opportunity to do either, neither, or both.
- Turning off the computers and my brain was awesome. I don’t have a single blog post I wrote while on vacation. Nor did I think much about work. I told Kristen last night… generally vacations make me antsy to get hyper productive and this one didn’t. I think it just revealed how exhausted I had been.
- Our party on Friday night was a blast. More on celebrating our marriage another day.
- I love hanging with my kids. I know you are supposed to like being with your kids. But I really love being with them. There’s no other way to describe it.
- I cannot get enough beach. That’s pretty funny for a guy born in Indiana. But it is true. Most of our vacations somehow involve a large body of water… I guess I’m just hard wired to relax by the ocean.
- Wine has a magical ability to multiply. We started our party on Friday night with 8 bottles of wine. By the time the party was over we had 12. It was an anniversary miracle! OK, I think its just that people like to bring wine to dinner parties. We still got a chuckle out of that.
- Our garden didn’t take a vacation. I came back a couple of times to water and drove back up to the house with baskets of tomatoes, squash, and green beans.
- Every vacation house needs a soaking tub. The bathroom in the master suite had a massive whirlpool tub. And all of us took turns enjoying a nice bath. It’s the simple pleasures in life, sometimes!
I’ll be getting back to my normal blogging self by the end of the week.
Yesterday officially kicked off my summer vacation. For the first time since I was 24 I’ll only have two weeks of vacation this year, one of which I’ll use for my July trip to Haiti, so I have to make the most of this one.
My intention is to disconnect as much as possible. (More on that later)
Last night, Kristen and I went to Barnes & Noble to load up on some books for our trip.
Here’s my reading list:
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
I am not sure how it is that I lived to be 34 years old without reading the greatest pirate novel of all time. But I have and I am looking forward to diving into this one. If vacations are about mentally and physically escaping from your day-to-day life… I’m thinking this book can take me there.
If not, then at least I can check it off my list of books I should have read in high school but didn’t because I was reading other stuff.
Presence, Arthur Miller
The only other things I’ve read by Arthur Miller were back in high school, Death of a Salesman and The Crucible.
Something tells me that Miller is a master storyteller, and a collection of short stories seems like a winner. And the endorsements on the back used a lot of fancy words.
Broke USA, Gary Rivlin
My first and only experience with this game came when I was 23. Hard up for cash and too proud to ask a friend for a few hundred bucks to make it to the next paycheck, I went down to a payday loan place and wrote a check for $400 to borrow $300 for two weeks. Before I walked out of there I realized I’d stepped into a world I didn’t understand. 400% interest… yeah, not cool. It was a lesson learned.
When the review copy of this book showed up last month, I snagged it and thought it would be a good opportunity to learn more about how people take advantage of the economically disadvantaged.
Born Standing Up, Steve Martin
When I think of Steve Martin I think of movies like Three Amigos and Father of the Bride. I’m not quite old enough to remember him from The Jerk or Saturday Night Live. Yet, I still have a fascination with his work. He manages to walk the tightrope between hilariously funny and believable drama.
I first heard about this book when he made the late-night talk show circuit promoting it. I’ve wanted to read it since than but it never quite climbed into my wishlist. So when I saw it on the bargain rack for $5, I grabbed it.
I’ve got 3 big things on the horizon which are capturing a ton of my attention. Both the details and the scope of them are great!
- In just a few weeks I’m embarking on a road trip up I-5, through California, Oregon, and Seattle. The goal is simple, connect with a bunch of West Coast youth workers, hear what’s going on in their ministries, and share what’s going on at YS these days. Since it’s a youth ministry trip, it’s a low budget deal. Shawn Michael Shoup (my travel buddy) and I will be either crashing at churches, youth workers homes, or sleeping under the stars.
- In June, Kristen and I are hosting a 13th anniversary party. It’ll be a small barbeque with some close friends. We’re also going to do a snarky renewal-of-vows type of thing as part of it. More like a celebration of marriage than anything else. As we looked at venues for that we quickly discovered that it’d be better to just rent a beach house for a week, host the barbeque there one evening, and turn it into a staycation. So we think we’ve nailed down the beach house… but still need a contract. It’s kind of funny when you live somewhere that’s a vacation destination.
- In July, Kristen and I are hoping to head to Haiti for a week of ministry in Port-au-Prince. Lots and lots of details still to be determined on that. But I’m pretty sure it’s happening.
With the difficulty of 2009 it’s fun to have exciting stuff planned for 2010.
