Worst. Vacation. Ever. (Stepping Back to Find the Positive)
If I had to rate bad vacations over the course of my lifetime, I’d have to rate this one as #2 worst vacation ever. (#1 was a trip to the beach with my parents and step-brother that was just awful, but that’s a story for another day.) On saying that though, my good holidays such as once staying in accommodation from Exceptional Villas definitely outweigh the bad ones. One of my favourite ever trips was our cruise. We saved up for ages and treated ourselves to one of those fly cruises, where you fly somewhere and take a cruise from there. We flew out to Italy, which is a beautiful country, and took a 7-day cruise around some of Europe. It was one of the most amazing experiences ever – total relaxation. Another of my favourites was with one of my friends in Florida when we went to go and visit her in her new gated community house. It was BEAUTIFUL! You had all of the vacation luxuries right on your doorstep and what was even better, is that you had them all year round. I think she found it through somewhere like Metro Places, (you may need help finding information here). I think once the children have grown up and moved out, I will consider moving there as it was just so peaceful. And who doesn’t want a constant vacation? However, that’s enough positivity – unfortunately, this holiday wasn’t anywhere near as good as those ones. Let’s just say, I’ll be staying away from tents and will be promptly looking at accommodation warrnambool, or somewhere equally as nice for my next vacation.
If you don’t follow my Twitter account, you may not know that, over the past week, we attended Creation Festival Northeast. If you weren’t following the livecasts (or if you don’t know what Creation is), you may not know that it rained. Almost. The. Entire. Time.
So how did our trip start? In the rain. Actually, stormed. BUT… We were able to get our tent up before it started storming.
On Wednesday morning, I woke up to Princess Anna letting me know she wet the bed. So…later that day, we had to take a trip into town to the grocery store and the laundromat. BUT… I did get some one-on-one time with Prince Charming.
On Wednesday night, we got to listen to Reggie Dabbs speak and watched Lecrae perform. Lecrae isn’t really my husband’s type of music, nor my in-laws’, but I thought he was awesome and Rapunzel loved him too. Like mother, like daughter. 🙂
Princess Anna fell asleep during Lecrae (not sure how, but whatever), and when Prince Charming was about to go back to the campsite, she woke up suddenly having to go to the bathroom. We made a mad dash for the port-a-potties, but before we could get there, she peed all over me. Grossest. Feeling. Ever. We hurriedly walked a mile back to the campsite to get her out of those clothes. BUT… At least it gave me a funny story to share with you. (Because I know you just laughed.)
On Thursday morning, I woke up to Princess Anna announcing that she wet the bed again. Yes, you read that right. AGAIN. BUT… Prince Charming was sweet enough to run to the laundromat so I could get to the speaker. He also picked up some pull-ups from the store this time.
Rain. On Thursday night, I missed the speaker and that Skillet concert, because I really didn’t want to walk two miles in the rain. BUT…It didn’t rain until 4:00, so we were able to get most of what we wanted to out of the day. I also stayed behind with a sleepy little Princess Anna and got some reading and journaling accomplished.
Friday actually went pretty well. I have no complaints for that day. I spent most of the day at the children’s tent, but I did get the chance to go to another seminar. Rapunzel made it to the second day of the Shock & Awe show, where she saw The Rubyz, Abigail Duhon, Spencer Kane, and Amber Montana for the second day in a row. She was one happy little girl. Heath Adamson spoke in the evening, and he was really good. I think I got more out of him than I did any of the other speakers the entire time.
And then there was Saturday. Saturday was, I’m pretty sure, by far the worst day of the whole thing. Because it rained. All. Day. I really had wanted to go see Laurie Polich Short speak, so I sucked it up and went down to the main stage in the pouring rain only to watch the last 5 minutes. Then we trekked the mile back only for me to sit for most of the day soaked, wrapped in blanket, under a tent. And I burned my leg on a portable heater. BUT… My burn wasn’t bad enough to warrant a trip to First Aid. And I guess I should be glad that I got some exercise.
Finally, we decided that we would head to my in-laws’ hunting camp.
Let me add that I have yet to have an experience at the hunting camp where my lungs did not completely close up, even with my inhaler and allergy medicine. All I wanted to do was go home. BUT…The latest allergy medicine I’ve been taking worked miracles! My chest was a little tight but I was able to breathe. And I got a warm shower.
Unfortunately, Princess Anna, somewhere along the way, developed an earache. She screamed and cried for–I kid you not–hours. It was miserable. BUT…My wonderful mother-in-law took the teenagers to Wal-Mart to get my baby girl some medicine so she could sleep. She did end up waking up throughout the night (waking me up as well), but my wonderful Prince Charming took over around 1:00 AM so I could get some sleep.
Yesterday, I woke up with my lungs closing up and a swollen eye, which took all day to shrink back to normal. BUT…I know you’re not supposed to share inhalers, but I borrowed someone’s inhaler and it worked miracles. And after I took my allergy medicine, my eye started to return to normal.
And then packing up tents. My least favorite part of camping. And the mud. Ick. And spiders. Many. Nasty. Spiders. I shudder just thinking about it. And the car smelled like wet shoes the whole way home. But we were on the way home, nonetheless.
After such a bad trip and a night at home, I was better able to step back and see the positives of our trip. I hope I’m not the only one who has trouble focusing on the positive in the midst of negative situations. And even though I was able to pull out the positives from the middle of the situation, what I most am thankful for now that I’m home is a warm shower, a warm bed and covers, flushing toilets, my puppy dog, consistent internet and cell service, a routine, my computer, and sunshine. And I’m looking forward to checking out the seminars that I had missed online.
What about you?
What was your worst vacation ever? And how did you find the positive afterwards?