Guilt on vacation

This weekend we went up to Big Bear.  We have all had so much stress, we decided it was time to take a weekend away.

We had no plans going up.  No idea what we were going to do.  Didn't even look at activities, because we just wanted to wing it.  No pressure at all.

We got there Friday night.  The drive was easy.  We got in to our cute little cabin; unpacked and made dinner.  As this place had a pool table, we played pool (and the kids played darts) and that was it for the night. 

Saturday, we woke up, and Chris wasn't feeling so good.  Turns out, he wasn't feeling well at all.  He ended up spending the day in bed; sick.  Me, mom, Julie and the girls decided to let him sleep for a while, so we hung out at the cabin, watching TV and playing on our "I-gear". 

After a while, we decided to drive over Big Bear Village.  The place looked deserted.  Clearly this was the off season.  We walked around to the different stores (most of which were souvenirs shops) and we lingered around the places that offered food.  By the time we were done with our outing, we'd had lunch, ice cream,candy and fudge.  (The fudge was out of this world!!!)
We heard from Chris on our outing, and had to deliver home some theraflu and sprite.  We stayed home for a few hours, just doing nothing.  It was actually really nice.  The girls tooled around until they couldn't take it anymore, and begged us to leave the house. 

We promised them we'd go out, but as we were stuck watching a Lifetime movie (this ever happen to you?) we told them they had to wait til we were done. 

Finally, we decided to go bowling.   I think there were 5 cars in the parking lot.  The bowling alley was in neon and blacklight.  The girls were instantly excited.  And the people inside were really nice.  (I'm guessing because they were happy someone was in the building).

We played a few games, and then headed back home.  We watched TV, played pool, played cards and vegged the rest of the day. 

Sunday we had breakfast, vegged and then started packing.  We were home by 3:30. 

After we all unpacked at home, I met Julie for a walk around the lake (to work off all the food we ate), and I told her that I felt bad about the weekend.  Like we wasted our time up there just vegging. 

She said, "That's what we were supposed to do".  I told her I knew that, but I feel that we could have done that at home.  And she said, "No....you wouldn't have done that at home.  You would have found a million things to do; driving the kids somewhere, or doing things that did not include vegging.  You needed this!"

And she was right. 

There are so many little things to do, that the simple art of vegging, without any plan, is actually a vacation from my day to day life of using up every last minute with something!  It's a bummer we have to pay to do nothing.  But, if that is what it takes to get a mental break, and rejuvenate myself, then it is worth every penny and a million more.

I was very overloaded and overwhelmed last week.  This week, I feel like I'm reset and ready to go.  And though I have every minute of my day (and week) filled, I'm much better prepared to handle it all!

You should take a "veg" weekend.  I highly encourage it!

Happy Monday!