my pink toes

Here we are at Legoland!

We had about as much fun as can be expected on a vacation with three children and most of your extended family in a climate that is supposed to be sunny and warm but was not. Ha. Actually, we had a great time. Legoland and SeaWorld are exactly perfect for our kids' ages and interests, Peter enjoyed his first plane ride, and all the cousins had a blast being with each other AND Grandma and Grandpa IN CALIFORNIA! All of the adults loved being around the kids' excitement, and we like hanging out with each other, too. Dave and I went the whole week "unplugged" and it was exactly what we both needed. He's been working crazy hours with huge stress, and I've been bogged down by the thousand little things of a stay-at-home-mom-of-small-kids who is trying to start a freelance career, go on a spiritual journey, lose a huge chunk of weight, manage a chronic illness, figure out some other significant heath issues, and keep up a teaching certificate.

It was what we needed as a family, too. We've been so busy that Dave and I have mostly been tag-team parenting, keeping each other afloat with enough time to accomplish our individual mountains of work. It was good to spend time together as all four of us, hanging out, having fun, and just being a family.

But oh, the crush of reality upon returning from a vacation! Dave's work project exploded spectacularly while we were offline, and he's spending his other few remaining waking hours on stabilizing, rebuilding, moving, backing-up and "optimizing" our church's Exchange server. I have a huge backlog of stuff I need and want to do, like: replying to the awesome comments y'all have been leaving; writing up, reflecting on, and posting more about my Lenten Journey; wading through the piles of undone stuff that has built up over this last 6 weeks of being sick; spending time praying for and preparing for my wonderful Lambie Pie bible study ladies; making myself rest enough to prevent a post-vacation fibromyalgia flare; continuing in my Sisyphean effort to get my insurance to pay for some really huge claims; and yet another Chinese assignment. Oh, and a Chinese Mid-Term. Which I must go take. NOW.