Our Griswald Family Vacation...

Not a very promising title is it?  But, yes...that is how our 'dream' vacation started.  Okay...let's first define 'dream' vacation....Not vacation that I've been dreaming of...Caribbean, white sand, palm trees, pools and cabanna boys...BUT dream family vacation...full of expectations:  Great family time in the car...Lauren playing DJ, Preston with all the funny one-liners, gifts for the kids every hour, them guessing what they are and then laughing if they are right or wrong...spacious, clean beach house, nice sandy beach, cool water...you get the picture.  So. NOT. what. happened.  Our trip was starting out stormy at best...

First off - Our large SUV rental from Enterprise...fail!  All they had for us was a Dodge Durango...Really?!  After confirming on the phone that we had a large suv...aka Suburban or a Yukon with a luggage rack...all they had to offer was 'their' version of a 'large' suv.  That is no bigger than our car...so 1 hour before departure, we have decided to use our two vehicles...that have not been prepared for vacation travel.  No service jobs etc...thank goodness Randy takes really good care of our vehicles.  Biggest disappointment of the trip...NOT a good way to start out.  I think that most of my being upset, was the dying of the dream.  Half the fun of the trip is traveling together.  I was sad & mad that it wasn't going to happen as I had planned.

 We headed out...leaving the HOT mess of summer to a less hot mess in Texas!  Go figure that we'd have to go to Texas to find relief from the heat.  On our way we stopped in Oklahoma City for supper..we were trying to find a fairly quick salad/sandwich place.  We settled on Jason's Deli thanks to Garmin...but it lead us straight into the parts of OKC we'd rather not visit...even in the daytime...and there was NO Jason's Deli where it directed us.  So as we are trying to turn around and find another place for supper...the beach house rental agency calls.  They were expecting us today...no, we told her...all of our communications had been that we were arriving tomorrow...Saturday!  No notes were left on our file...does no one do detail work anymore?

We ended up going to Texadelphia in Bricktown for supper.  Not where we intended, but Garmin wasn't being very reliable.  Grabbed a nice light supper, chatted with my Dad who called to check on us and was trying to finish supper when the smoke alarms go off.

The employees are checking to see where it is coming from and still continue to take orders.  I have a bad feeling, quickly finish our supper and then head out...just as we hear the fire trucks coming.

I just know that they are going to pull into the parking lot blocking our vehicles and we'd be stuck there for hours (cause that is just the kind of day it started out to be) so we tell the kids to quick jump in the car and we'll switch riders down the road.  Never did find out the source of the alarm and I didn't want to stay to find out.  We headed on to Denton ready to settle in the hotel for the night and get out of the car.

Funny how more people we knew had either gone through or were staying in or near Denton the same time we were.  When we got to Denton...everyone was checking e-mails, facebook and stretching out.  A friend from McPherson was staying in a hotel 5 minutes down the road with her girls and came to pay us a visit!  It was so nice to catch up!  Funny it was in Denton hundreds of miles from home!

There were many other 'Griswald' adventures during the week...most were small and we could laugh at right away all except the disappointment in the beach house.  So dirty...it totally disgusted me.  I had to look past it as no one let me give in to my urge to clean!  After all...you see all that blue on Garmin?  I was at the BEACH!  My Home away from Home!

Despite the car rental fiasco and the uncleanliness of the beach house...we had a good time.   We've only had one other Griswald vacation experience before and that was on our family cruise with 25 to 30 foot sea swells...causing us to miss out on one complete port and not seeing any beaches...so I guess we were due with some vacation let downs.

Most of the disappointment was probably my own doing...it was all the expectations that I had played out in my head.  We had lots of laughter, played games, relaxed, soaked up the sun on the beach, saw sea gulls, pelicans, dolphins, rode jet skis, read books and magazines, people watched, made sand castles, shopped & toured the area.  It was good to have time away with family, seeing my daughter with her baby belly relaxing on the beach, the boys having fun on those jet skis, dreaming of living in one of the beautiful beach houses down the road, no worries, listening to the umbrella flap in the sea breeze, smelling the fresh sea air, reliving memories of childhood - my own & my children's, showering in the outdoor shower, seeing my serious hubba be silly once in awhile and realizing that Wal-marts everywhere are crazy!!  Some day we will laugh at all the Griswald-ness of our trip...just not quite yet today.  Until then I choose to focus on the fun we had and memories we made...