We are home!

We are home from vacation and exhausted, but we had a wonderful time! All my prep last week paid off as we had a very stress-free departure last Saturday morning. We have enough children now that prepping for vacation is a ton of work, and in years past I grew resentful and stressed prior to our departure. This is the first year that I completely cleared my calendar the week leading up to vacation–and it paid huge dividends on Friday night and Saturday morning.

For the past four years, we have headed to the Jersey Shore for a one-week vacation with my extended family. My parents are very generous and rent a house on the beach for all 3 of their children (and spouses), and six grandchildren. With all of us living in one house for the week, there is bound to be a least a little tension! My brother and sister both have children younger than mine, and so in years past not everyone was on the same schedule. This year, however, all the children were old enough to be on roughly the same schedule as my children, and this made the vacation go REALLY smoothly! Everyone just seemed to be in step with everyone else, and helping hands surrounded us as we managed to take our kids back and forth from the beach two times each day. With so many hands, the burden was much lighter, and this was exactly the recipe my pregnant body needed to have a fun and relaxing time!