Vacation, Shmay-cation!

Oh Vacation... you are a cruel, torturous bitch!  

This week marked my first time off since returning from maternity leave more than seven months ago.  Other than a day here or there, I have been working like a dog since February, and was very much looking forward to my extra-long week off.  

I went to work Thursday morning, with the intention of being home by noon to enjoy an extra day-and-a-half tacked onto my week's vacation.  I arrived home Thursday afternoon ready to relax!  Until Charlie the wonder-pup wandered out of the guest room with wet feet. A pipe behind the wall had burst and our guest room was a soggy mess.  Danny knocked down the ceiling and put a bucket under the constant run of water, and we cursed a little.  Well, Danny cursed a little, and I cursed a lot (shocker!).  We decided we were just going to fix the leak itself and deal with the damage and renovations at a later time.  The next day my sister mentioned calling our insurance company.  The thought hadn't even crossed our minds, but by that afternoon, we had an adjuster in surveying the damage, the contractor from the restoration company arrived, and three industrial strength dehumidifiers were delivered that afternoon to start drying things out.

Although we had just had a disastrous leak on the first day of our vacation, things weren't looking too bad.  We realized that we were going to get new flooring, walls, and paint on the last room in the house to be renovated (a project we had scheduled to complete in late fall), and somebody else was going to do all the work and clean up all the mess.  It sounded pretty damn good to us!

Fast forward to Saturday, and a full day of dehumidifiers running in the house, and we were not a happy family.  The bathroom door was warped from the dehumidifier running all night, so it wouldn't close from the inside (it would only close if you pushed on the outside right-hand side while pulling it close).  That meant that not only did my children get a front row seat to bathroom time, now my husband would as well.  Fantastic.  Also, it was about 800 degrees in there.  When I entered the bathroom at 3:30 a.m. to have a pee, I thought it was the greatest thing on earth!  The room was warm, the toilet seat was heated.  It was heaven.  However, at 3:00 p.m., when it was 28 degrees outside and the humidex was over 30, it was hell.  I instantly broke into a sweat upon entering the bathroom, and had to explain to Gracie 243 times why the wall was torn apart, and what that big noisy machine was.  By Tuesday morning when we were ready to leave for our mini-vacation, we were all pretty hot and miserably cranky SOBs.  And deservedly so.

Now, back up to the day before we are ready to leave.  The workers are scheduled to arrive Tuesday morning to begin tearing down walls, ceilings, and tearing up floors.  The girls are scheduled to go to Nancy's for two days, and my sister is taking the dog for us.  Except she forgot to mention that to her husband, who has vetoed that decision at T-20 hours before vacation.  Up goes a desperate plea on Facebook.  Because the workers are going to be at the house, and because Charlie is nervous at the best of time, leaving her at home with strange people isn't an option, unless she is crated for two days... which also isn't an option.  Luckily, at around 5:30 that night, a friend came to our rescue and offered to take Charlie for us.  Disaster #23, averted!

Tuesday morning we delivered the kids to Nancy, and tried to kiss them goodbye.  However, Ella hadn't eaten yet and wanted nothing to do with anything except her breakfast smoothie, and it was pouring down rain which meant kids and parents were converging inside, in a little tiny entrance.  So we basically waved goodbye from the driveway and drove away from the kids for the first time ever without a proper goodbye.

We delivered Charlie to Jessica's house.  When we opened the door, Charlie's new friend, Coco, greeted us in proper doggy fashion.  She sat very quietly at my feet and gave me those big puppy dog eyes and wagged her tail.  She was adorable!  Charlie greeted her new friends by running through the front door (soaking wet, by the way), straight into the kitchen, back down the hall, jumping up on Jessica, spinning around the entrance three or four times, back into the kitchen, sliding into a wall, growling at Coco, jumping over an invisible fence, and crash landing at my feet where I finally got a hold of her collar and settled her down.  "Hello, Coco and Jessica. Have fun, and good luck with Charlie!"  And we high-tailed it out of there before they could change their minds! (For the record, Charlie apparently did pretty good with her new friends, thank goodness!)

We were finally on the road to the hotel, when the heavens opened.  I'm talking torrential down pouring, with lots of wind.  We had already decided to take our time on the drive and had planned on taking the Number 1, and I must say I was awfully glad we weren't on the highway in that weather! 

We arrived at the hotel around 11:30 a.m., and our room was available (yay!)  We headed up and got settled in and decided that after a quick little power nap, we were heading out to get some poutine!

It's a King-Size bed, hurray!

The hotel room. 

Bacon and mushroom poutine.  Delicious!

We came back to the room and planned the rest of the day.  We were going to have a little rest, then head for supper.  The Maxwell's Plum (right across from the hotel) had a really good deal on wings after 10 p.m., and over 60 beers to choose from, so we were going to head there as well.  We ended up napping all afternoon, heading to supper around 5:30, and then coming back to the room to relax again.  Around 9:00 Danny said he wasn't going to make it much longer, so we headed out to pay double for the wings, and we were in bed asleep by 10:30.  Cause we're cool like that.

The next day we had planned on doing some shopping, eating, and catch a movie that night.  We started shopping and were interrupted by a phone call from the babysitter telling us she had forgotten about an appointment that she had scheduled that evening and wondering whether someone could take the girls so she could go to her appointment.  Of course, panic set in, and I called my sister who told me she was working.  She told me that my parents were on their way down, and I called them.  Of course, they would pick up the girls!  After a few stressful minutes, I called the babysitter back and told her it was all looked after.  A few hours later, I get some weird messages from my mom wondering why the babysitter had given them all the bags for the girls, and wondering when they were supposed to take the girls back to her, since Nancy hadn't told them.  I couldn't get a hold of the sitter, so I sent my mom back over there, who discovered that Nancy had assumed that my parents would just keep the girls, since they were here.  The problem with that assumption is that we had suffered a massive leak in our guest room, which was now torn apart, and our house was about 10,000 degrees, since the restoration people had set up giant heaters to dry out the walls.  After texts, and phone calls, and a major cursing tantrum, everything was worked out, and it was decided my parents would keep the girls after all.

The rest of the time at the hotel was pretty uneventful (thank God!).  The next day (today) we decided to meet my parents for lunch in Dartmouth Crossing to celebrate my birthday.  I believe my exact words to my mother were "but you don't know Dartmouth Crossing" to which she replied, "yes I do."

I got a text from her at 11:30 saying "Okay, we're here."  Quickly followed by "Or maybe not.  Is Dartmouth Crossing at Exit 4B?"  I'm sorry, where?  I called my mom, who was wondering why it was called Dartmouth Crossing, if it was so close to Bedford.  Apparently my mom saw a Walmart and though she had arrived.  Apparently my dad had tried to tell her otherwise, but my mom said, "Leslie, just trust me, I know where I'm going."  Once she had to admit she was wrong, we had to figure out where the hell they were and how to get them back on track.  They decided that the easiest thing was to go into Halifax to get turned around (I don't understand that logic either), and we got them back on the highway into Dartmouth.  We explained again the directions and told them to call when they got there.  When they were close, they called to check in.  I said, "you'll see Dartmouth Crossing and you just swing a right and you're right there."  A few minutes later, when they still hadn't arrived, I called again.  My mom answered the phone with "I know, we took the wrong fucking exit again and now we're heading back into Dartmouth."  After getting her calmed down, we realized that they were actually just down by Walmart, but my mom was concerned that all of the "highways" would send her back into Dartmouth or Halifax.  I told them to just pull over somewhere, anywhere! and we would come find them.  We found them in the Costco parking lot and lead them over to Jack Astors where we enjoyed a lovely lunch.  We sent them back on their way to New Brunswick, and apparently they've made it there (although how they ever manage to find their way anyway, I have no idea!).

We headed for home, when the heavens opened up, again, and we drove all the way in the pounding rain.  We picked up the dog, the girls, and we went out for my birthday supper.  And now, here I am, in bed, at 8:00 p.m.  Vacations are overrated.  I am exhausted and, quite frankly, I need a vacation to recover from this vacation!