The vacation scoop

Some background info to start...everyone in our house had the flu in the week leading up to our vacation. Lil Princess had it 3 different times. It was the 24 hour bug, not the REAL influenza, fortunately, but yucky just the same.

The Designer had been working 65-70 hour weeks for about 4 weeks leading up to the vacation preparing for a huge presentation. He is the lead design architect at his firm and he has to do all the presentations to the clients as he is the only one that knows what is going on in his head. The day before we left (Wed) he had a meeting to present his work to the board. He woke up with the flu that morning. Fortunately the weather was so bad that the school district he was presenting to (he designs schools) was closed, therefore no meeting...or so he thought. He received a call from someone saying that since we were going on vacation, he HAD to present that day or the project would get behind. He drove an hour there, presented and had to excuse himself several times to run to the bathroom to be sick and then return. He came home and slept the rest of the day.

I packed everything for everyone and basically dragged him out of bed in the morning to shower and we boarded our plane. We traveled with his SIL, her son (he is 7 months old) and his parents. When we got to FL we met up with some other family as well. The place we stayed in had 6 bedrooms and a loft, so there was plenty of room to spread out. One of the people that stayed there is The Designers dads uncle....uncle Don. He is a feisty old man. He was picking on me and my SIL a lot. I am not one to be spoken down to, so I had to basically tell him to knock it off or he would see a pissed off version of me. His wife finally got on him and he backed down a little.

The Designer, Lil Bug, Lil Princess and I all felt pretty good on Friday (the first full day we were there) but it was cloudy and rainy that day, so we didn't do a whole lot. We did go to the beach in the morning and looked for shells, but the rest of the day we stayed inside primarily. My SIL came down with the flu (the real influenza, achy body, fever, vomiting, cold, etc) and was sick pretty much the rest of the trip. That meant that my MIL and FIL had to take care of her son for her. I am pretty sure she wasn't as ill as she played for the entire trip and after the first day or two she was just taking advantage of having live-in babysitters.

The next day The Designer came down with the influenza as did Lil Princess. They were pretty much out of the rest of the vacation. Lil Bug and I felt good for all of the vacation until the day we were to return home...we both started getting yucky feeling.

Since SIL was sick she didn't really want the rest of us to do anything because she didn't want to miss out on it. I can understand, but that is ridiculous! She couldn't seriously expect us to not do anything just because she was ill. One morning I woke up and proclaimed that Bug and I were going to Busch Gardens and did anyone want to go with us. If not, we were planning to go alone. The Designer and his dad both wanted to go. Lil Princess wasn't feeling well enough, so she stayed home with MIL and SIL. It was sad that she wasn't there, but we did have a nice time. The Designer wasn't feeling well most of the day, but he is glad he decided to go anyways.

My MIL has some "issues" that the family has been dealing with since just before Lil Bug was born. That is about when she had a breakdown. She is doing much better, but still has some issues. Well, she had a lot of stress on this vacation and was not doing well, annoying everyone there and making people mad. I took a long walk one morning on the beach and FIL came with me. He told me his frustrations with his wife (MIL) and that he wasn't sure he could take much more and was strongly considering ending the marriage.

Later in the week, after some ridiculous moments from MIL he told me he was done and would be telling her when we all returned home.

I am sad. I spoke with MIL and told her that I noticed some tension between the two of them and that I think she should get back into counseling and fight for her marriage. As of last night, she and FIL are working on things. They have been married for over 20 years and I hope they can work through this too, but honestly, I couldn't be married to someone like her EVER.

For some reason both MIL and FIL trust me with all their thoughts and so I was getting fed info from both sides and couldn't really say anything to the other. I just listened. It was stressful to be in the middle and took away a lot of the enjoyment of this "relaxing" vacation. Add to that a baby with a fever of 102 and a sick, sick hubby and I was ready to be home!

So, that is my vacation in a nutshell.

Last night/early this morning Lil Bug was running a fever of 103.6 and couldn't breathe so that was stressful. Lil Princess was awake 3 or 4 times so I didn't get much sleep. I'm tired.

I NEED A VACATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the midst of all of that I had some great times and made some amazing memories. I am glad we went, but I was never so happy to be home from a vacation in my life.