Holly’s Happenings

Yes, I know, I’ve only been home a few days, but honestly, I think vacations can easily be addicting…LOL! It’s amazes me how little stress I felt while I was gone! I’m not sure if it was because I was away from everything I’m familiar with, or if it was being away from the kids, husband and dogs, or if it was a combination of everything mixed together. I just know that it was the best 8 days I’ve had in a VERY VERY long time, and I’m ready to pack things up and go again!

This time, however, I want to go somewhere with my husband, just the two of us, so that we can experience stress free time together! He works hard at his job and deserves to be able to do something fun and enjoyable for a change! He has family he hasn’t seen in years in the South Carolina area and we could stop and spend a few days visiting them then head out to the coast and spend a few days in the Hilton Head area, possibly even in one of the Sea Pines rentals I’ve heard about. We are both people that love the water and something like this would be a very relaxing vacation for us!

With just a few hours left until I leave for my California trip and TONS of things to do, the only thing I can think about is how nice it is going to be to get away from the hectic things that I deal with on a daily basis! I love my husband and kids with all my heart, but sometimes they can bring a lot of stress into my life, and I’m sure I do the same for them at times too!

I’m about 98% packed, with just a few last minute details to take care of before we hit the road this evening. It’s going to be such a fun trip and I’m so excited to be making this trip with one of my best friends and her daughter as her daughter embarks on the latest journey of her life!

We’ll be making a few stops along the way and seeing a few of the finer sites this country has to offer. I won’t having to think about things like whether or not the dogs have enough food and water, dealing with my daughters latest melt down about how her hair looks or even things like the latest political news or home theater sconces. Nothing like those things will be a part of my life for the next 8 days, and I’m honestly really looking forward to it.

I hope I come home from this trip with less stress and a little more appreciation for the important things in my life as well as a stronger bond with a very special friend and her daughter for allowing me to be a part of such a special time in their lives!

I have a friend that is going to post my email updates to my other blog Just Simply Holly, so if you want to hear about how my trip is going please be sure to check in over there. In the mean time, after I submit this post, I’ll be setting it so that all comments are moderated, so if you make a comment to me please note that after about 10:00 PM tonight all comments will be left in moderation until I return home from my trip!

Take care everyone, see you in 8 days!

I don’t know if I have cabin fever, if I’m stressed out because of the kids being home on Spring Break this week, the “female” health issues I’ve been having recently or what it is, but I have been one mean and grumpy woman lately! If I honestly think about it, I know it’s not from the kids being home this week because my week with them, other than a minor incident Monday morning, actually went fantastic! And my daughter was with my mother all weekend, so since it was just the hubby, myself and our son this weekend, things were VERY quiet around here!

I made a slight detour when I took my daughter up to my mom’s house Friday evening and stopped in to see my brother and sister in law. I hadn’t seen them since Christmas time, and when my mom said they had their grandson for the weekend I decided that I needed to pay them a visit! While I was there, my sister in law let me look through the photo albums from one of their most recent luxury vacations. This time they spent two weeks in the The Turks and Caicos Islands and from the pictures, it was obvious that they were having a wonderful time! My brother works very long hours at his job, he’s worked for the same company for almost 30 years now, and my sister in law said that when they’re on vacation like this, he’s so much happier and at ease than what he is when they’re at home! It makes me feel good to know that they take vacations like this! Their children are all out on their own now and some have children of their own and they both deserve to do wonderful things like this for themselves!

My husband and I are already talking about taking a long vacation to somewhere like Hawaii once our kids are out of school. Our youngest finishes 7th grade in May, so only 5 more years until we can go away on our own luxury vacation!

My husband and I were talking this weekend about “things”. You know, those reality type things that provide the ups and downs for all relationships? Things like bills, and the reality of the fact that I need to make the decision about whether or not I’m going to continue to travel down the road of life with my beloved and trusty Honda. We always talk about this kind of stuff this time of year. Why, you ask? The answer is simple, it’s Income Tax Refund time!

Our “original” plan had been to use our refund this year to pay for a seriously over due major family vacation to the sunny state of Florida. When we first started talking about going to Florida it was because my sister had offered to let us share their time share condo with them. Since the condo was already paid for, the only thing(s) we would need to pay for would be the trip to and from, half of the car rental for the week and anything else that we planned on doing while we were there (i.e. Disneyworld, sight seeing, etc.). Now, all in all, that’s a great deal, especially when you consider that a weeks lodging while on a vacation is at least half the cost of the trip. But I honestly dreaded spending a week under the same roof with my sister and her abusive husband, as did my own husband and children.

So then we started talking about taking our own trip, especially when we discovered that the week my sister had the condo was not the week the kids were on break from school, and I couldn’t justify pulling them out of school for a vacation. I checked into a week near the Orlando area, but just wasn’t sure that’s where I wanted to spend my time. I’m more of a “kick back and relax” kind of person, than an amusement park/sight seeing person, so the thought of spending a week on a beach held more appeal to me! And when I started talking to my husband and kids about it, the beach actually appealed more to them as well.

Unfortunately, reality is kicking in and with the things that need to have major decisions made soon, my husband and I realized yesterday that our vacation simply isn’t going to happen right now. What figures is that I had just a great deal on some really nice travelpro luggage, but I might still grab that because somehow or another we WILL take a family vacation this year, so we will still need to have luggage!

Yes, I’m already awake. I finally went to bed shortly after 3:00 AM, at that point my daughters school was the only one of the 2 kids’ schools that had a delay. But I was fairly sure that by morning, she would not be alone. It was a very short nights sleep, my husband tried to wake me up at 6:00, before he left for work, but that wasn’t going to happen. I remember him trying to wake me up, and I remember telling him to PLEASE drive careful.

Apparently my sub-conscience is more tired of the cold and yucky weather than I am because when I woke up because my husband was calling to let me know he made it to work safely, I was in the middle of a dream. I was dreaming that my husband and I had decided to purchase some beach front property and we were sitting in the office of a Wilmington NC real estate agent discussing our options. The real estate agent was trying to talk us into buying a beautiful property in the heart of Wilmington that was more inland than we wanted, but we were determined to purchase a property that sat right on the beach.   Maybe I’m more ready for our vacation than I thought I was…LOL!

If you read my previous post, you’ll know that my husband and I aren’t getting along too well today, to the point that we’re not talking to each other. That’s too bad because if we were I could show him the great deal I found on an Orlando rental home that’s available the week we plan on taking our vacation. It’s a nice rental house with 3 bedrooms, 2 baths and it’s own private pool, which would allow us to relax by the pool in private, once we were doing running around for the day.

One day it’s Branson, the next it’s back to Florida, who knows what it will be the day after that. My husband and I were talking about vacation again last night and he told me that he’s back to leaning more towards Florida because of the great deals he’s seen online for Orlando vacations. I can’t say that I blame him, I know that we’d get more vacation for the money if we snagged up a great package deal! And I know that the kids REALLY want to visit Disney World, and remembering my own experiences when I went to Florida as a child, I also really want them to see the ocean! So, as of right now Florida is back on, but that may change, so stay posted!!

Well, as much as I hate to admit it, the chances of us going on our trip to Florida are getting slimmer and slimmer. First because although the trip does fall on the week that hubby and I are on our spring break from school, the kids aren’t on spring break then. Which will mean that they both will end up missing a full week of school right around the same time that they’re off school for their spring break. To me, that’s not how it should work, we should go on vacation while they’re on break and hubby and I should be the ones missing time from school.

So, since we won’t be staying in a condo in Florida for free, we’ve been looking at other options. My daughter is still adamant about going to Florida, my son wants to go to Asia (like THAT would happen), hubby doesn’t really care where we go, and I thought a trip to Branson sounded good. I guess only time will tell what we decide on, but if you have any suggestions for great family vacations, please let me know, I’m open to pretty much anything in the continental US!

Raleigh, North Carolina has some AMAZING things going on this fall that you really should know about! The one that I want to go to is the Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries exhibition at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. That exhibition starts at the end of October and is going to run all the way through the beginning of March, so even I don’t have any excuse for not having enough time to make plans!

Some of the other things going on in Raleigh that would make for great Fall Getaway vacations include the North Carolina State Fair, which is going to be held October 12th through the 21st, the Autumn Arts Festival which is on October 13th, and A Celtic Halloween which is going to be held on October 27th. They also have many other stage performances and concerts going on through out the months of September and October, so no matter what your taste is, you are sure to find something that will wet your appetite.

OK, I know, you want to know more about the FREE getaway, don’t you? OK, here’s what you need to do! Head on over to FREE Raleigh Getaway right now and get signed up! If you are the lucky winner, this is what you’ll get: One night of accomdations for two at the Courtyard by Marriott Raleigh Crabtree Valley, a $25 gift certificate to Bloomsbury Bistro, Free VIP admission for two to Rum Runners, 2 tickets to the North Carolina Theatre, 2 tickets to the N.C. Museum of Art’s Landscapes from the Age of Impressionism and 2 tickets to Dinosaurs: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences.

So what are you waiting for? Get over there and get signed up to win a Raleigh Getaway, and while you’re there, go ahead and plan one as well because I guarantee that you won’t regret it!

I’m sure, over the next few months, you are going to get VERY sick of hearing me talk about our upcoming trip to Florida. If you do, then I’m sorry, but this is a huge thing for my family and I want to do what I can to make it a trip we all will remember for years to come!

It was suggested to me that I check out an online trip planner to help me plan a trip that all four of us would enjoy. So I headed over to RealTravel.com to see exactly how their trip planner worked.

I liked that fact that they offer trip planning for all areas of the world, not just the United States. That might come in handy if I do decide to pull up roots here in the United States and move my family to Europe since the jobs seem to pay much better there than they do here in the US. But, back to reality, their trip planner will definitely come in handy for planning our trip to Florida!

If you go through RealTravel.com slowly you will find neat features such as other travelers blogs giving tips as to where the good places to visit are, as well as the places to avoid. I also found out that it is less expensive to stay outside of Orlando, rather than right near Disney, which is something we were thinking about doing anyway. For instance, accommodations are about 2/3 of the price if you stay in Kissimmee or Deltona than they would be if you stayed right in Orlando. So I guess my experience with checking out travel planners has been a good one and I’m very glad that it was suggested to me!

Here I am getting ready to take a vacation to Florida in less than 6 months and it just hit me that I have no real luggage to speak of. I have one, what I would call, “real” suitcase and that’s it. And no matter how hard I try, there is no way I’m packing for 4 people for 10 days in that one piece of luggage. So I need to shop for some luggage. I found some good deals on Samsonite luggage, so that’s probably what I’m going to buy!

Current Mood: Happy

Although it’s still eight months away, I’ve been thinking about our upcoming trip to Florida. We’re planning on going in March of 2008, and being the obsessive person that I am, I really want to get things in order for it as soon as I can. I’m leaning more towards an Orlando vacation rental rather than a hotel because I think it would help with expenses since we’d be able to cook our meals rather than having to go out to eat all the time. I also think it would be more comfortable and offer everyone a little more privacy than a hotel room.