Our wild fun vacations.

Vacationing with a baby is somewhat oxymoronic. For Chris, however, it's delightsome and wonderful. For me, it is exhausting. My ideal is utter relaxation, his is closer to Clark W. Griswald from those Vacation movies.

Although tiring, I did enjoy myself and we made some great memories. I am including the beach in our vacation because it was only 2 days before we left to go camping, and going to the beach is a lot like camping. You have to bring shelter or else you will bake. You have to bring sustenance or else you will wither. And you must bring strong arms because you will be lugging a lot of crap back and forth. Oh yes-let's not forget the fire.

The beach was more fun than I thought it would be. It has been, perhaps more than a decade since I have swum at a California Beach. And it is the first time I have ever swum with Chris, in the nearly 6 years we've been married, at a California beach. But it was so dang hot that nothing sounded better. I was so drunk on the summertime beach feeling that so many trite songs are written about that I didn't even mind that the sand was everywhere, even in my baby's mouth when I was breast feeding her. Of course when she started crying, and crying I was less pleased but she eventually got over her jag and went to sleep. At the end of that day, and after being bothered by a possibly literal "gang" of people for our fire pit, we left the beach tired but happy.

Camping was slightly different because we did not go home, we slept there amongst those majestic trees and close enough to the restrooms to have people walking through our camp to get to them. You never appreciate walls until you don't have them, and the flicker of flashlights off your tent disturbs your sleep. Perhaps the trick is to camp in a remote enough area so as to not be bothered by others, but then there is the bear situation.

My sister Tina and her family came camping with us, and for the entire length of our short 2 night and 3 day stay my nephew asked about the bears. That child should work for the Department of defense, the terrorist division because he can think up more hypothetical scenarios than are humanly, or animalistically possible. I was also reminded of how things change with each generation. Jacob kept sneaking bouts with his Gameboy, and Christian watched movies but still lamented that it had been 2 days since he had last watched TV. With all of the besmirching those kids did, I was amazed at how composed Tina and Xavier were. And I was even more amazed that my parents used to do this with 6 kids. I do remember my sister saying once "I'm just going to go on my own vacation with my friends, and then I won't have to deal with any whining."

I have to admit that although beautiful, I do not think I will camp with a baby again. I slept so little that I found it a challenge to be excited about the beauty that surrounded me. Live and learn-live and learn. Regardless of what the actual memory of this vacation was, I know that I will forget the tough stuff and look back on it fondly.