Okay, so I showed the great pics of our packed van. We took off, getting gas, last minute drinks, last minute pit stops. An hour after pulling away from the house, we were actually on I-90. This is how family vacations go, right?

About half an hour or so down the road, we lose a few things from the car top. Totally unexpected. (To everyone,else, anyway.) We do have a top to our car top, but it wasn’t thought enough would fit, so we used a tarp. Something people have been doing for how long? Since they were invented, right? And sheets before that? I know, so cheap. Yes, I am.

Well, we find the lost chair, tighten the straps and our oldest decides to use zip ties to tighten the edges. Of course, my dh, in a very manly way, decries the ridiculousness of this idea. (Which he later reversed. Was he humble about it? I’ll have to ask. ) Men.

But how much can be said when our then wise daughter starts playing with a zip tie and gets it stuck around her wrist. I have the cutest pic I won’t post of her trying to chew it off. (She did eventually get free, but heck, who thought hours in a van would be boring?)

Ahh, so we were off, across WA and heading to Forks, home of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse just days before the release of Breaking Dawn. On the way:

Yes, we love taking landscape pictures. And with such a lovely place, why wouldn’t we indulge? So, we make it all the way west, spend hours in traffic between Tacoma and Olympia. Seriously, half our driving day was spent going about 30 miles. Ugh. But, we survived. We made it through.

To the Olympic National Forest…

and it’s enormous trees…

and nearly as big slugs…

but then we were there…

the coast and the most beautiful sunset we never saw again…

We were too late to find a campsite, so we drove into Forks. And that’s another blog.

You know the saying “Recovering from vacation?” Well, that’s what I thought we’d be doing. I would get home and vegetate from our exhausting but fun time. I would sit and organize pictures and make DVDs of our trip and I would blog about it and conference and would generally bask in the memories as I rejuiced from being gone for a week and a half.

Is that what I’ve been doing? Nope. I arrived home to find the first pass pages of Cursed waiting for me to read the damned book yet again. Oh, wait, Damned is #3. lol I hate to reread. I already know the story and each reread just loses more of the magic for me. But, I did my job and good thing, too. Someone a little too literal actually spelled out the word “Apostrophe”. See? That’s why I had to do my job. Not that there aren’t times I don’t make mistakes like that, because Boy Howdy.

So, read the Cursed book. Check. Re-fill four teeth. Check. Fix one cracked tooth. Check. All five were molars. Yes, I’ve had a headache all week. Get more prescriptions and referrals for therapy. Pick up one hot tub a wonderful friend gave us for me to use for therapy!! Check.

Set up my new workspace. Yay! I’d take a picture, but the brand new camera bought to replace the lost one we still mourn wasn’t where it was last put. Hmmm. And, somehow, I got blamed for it. Typical.

But, the worst, best, definitely most dramatic award goes to my sis in law. While we were gone, my sis in law woke up partially blind. Holy cow, how the hell does that happen, you ask? Well, a tumor at the base of her spine going up the spinal chord about 6 inches. Too much longer with it and she would have been paraplegic.

Thanks to prayer and lots of family love and support and good doctors, she made it through surgery and is regaining all she was losing. Still scary stuff, though. Someone actually wanted to know where our water supply came from because he didn’t want to drink any. Funny in a way, but my too literal side says what water? She hated water and would only drink Pepsi.

Of course, with the advent of medicine, she now has changed taste buds. She demanded a cigarette for days and when she got it, it only lasted two puffs before she discovered what I’ve always thought. Cigarettes taste gross. Also, the Pepsi isn’t quite right at the moment. I’m sure that will fix, though. But I really hope the non-smoking sticks.

So, I should tell lots of great things about our vacation. Let’s start with this and I’ll post more later.