At least I got tan.

Two & half weeks in Sunny SoCal kicked my booty big time. It was challenging, fun, exhausting, memorable, frustrating and wonderful. Would I do I again? No way. I over-estimated the amount of time that we could really be gone without all melting down... by about a week. Am I glad we did it? You bet. But even more glad it's over. And for the first time in forever, I came home TAN! (Huh? How the heck do you go to CA and not get a tan? Well, we go to CA to visit people, not for a seaside vacation, in general. We don't usually spend a lot of time lounging about by the pool/bay. Plus, the kids are older now, I'm not holding a BABY 24/7 and they can actually play on their own. Lots of sunshine for Mama!)

We got home last week and I got sick on Day 1. Then around Day 5, I woke up with Pink Eye-type symptoms. Didn't I predict this? Sassy got sick at the tail end of the trip, who then gave it to me. BigBoy was sick at some point between us, but in normal fashion was only down for the count for about 1/2 day.

This happens every year, but this trip wore me down especially. Perhaps because BigDaddy left a week before us and got back a week after us. Thankfully my MIL flew home with us to help with the trip back and helped me get all settled at home again. It was pretty miserable. I was a mess, the house was an instant mess and I was just trying to get groceries stocked in my house again. Fresh produce that our bodies were sorely missing, organic milk available upon request, dairy products galore, and of course, my beloved fresh eggs from the farm.

My garden became a bit of a jungle. Our tomato plants are crazy-big, over my head at this point. The zucchini and peppers are quite happy and producing regularly. Our watermelon plants even look pretty happy with lots of yellow flowers. The carrots and beets? Not so much. And our lettuce bolted, as did our broccoli, but I got most of the crop before we left.

BigDaddy got home today after traveling for almost 24 hours. yikes! Finally we are all home. Group hug. Big breath. I'm so beat, I'm almost not thinking about how our summer is almost over. Or that BigBoy is going to start Kindergarten in 28 days. Or that Sassy is going to start preschool in 36 days. Actually, I'm not thinking about it at all. really.