One More for the Road

It's been a crazy week between trying to wrap up work and making pre-Disney lists (packing, shopping, and pre-departure to-dos like laundry, plant watering, etc.).  Both kids were home and battling all week.  I was in and out of the office for meetings while trying to minimize the kids' alone time.  We still had things to work out with Jacob's new school situation, including a personal tour since he's missing orientation, and as a result we just got his schedule and his school supplies had yet to be bought.  Suitcases came upstairs but were not packed.  Laundry was partly done.  And, oh, Craig left for Canada on Thursday for a work thing and will have barely 12 hours at home before we leave.  Of course, it finally started raining earlier in the week for the first time in forever, which meant we had to add in a round of yard care this week on top of everything else.  

Monday was extra rainy, and in the evening I noticed the sun shining even though it was pouring.  I was expectantly watching for a rainbow because it seemed to be perfect conditions and I honestly needed that kind of spiritual boost this week--the "it's going to be okay" reminder that rainbows usually bring me.  I spotted a super faint, tiny section of one for probably a half hour as it continued to pour with bright setting sun, but then suddenly I looked up to find this:

It wasn't quite the full-sky beauty I was expecting, but at least that one little section was bright and there was a faint half arch beyond that.  I guess it was a reminder that God's always hiding there somewhere but doesn't always do things the way we're expecting! 

Speaking of outside, the flowers in my yard are losing a little bit of their luster these days so most of my joy is with my violet!  I repotted it a while back and added some Miracle-Gro soil to the pot, which made the leaves extra green and lush.  But it still didn't bloom so I pinched off a bunch of leaves a few weeks ago to make more space to water it, and BOOM...buds everywhere!  They're still blooming and I already took off the first spent blossom the other day.  It's incredible--though I'm sorry I'll miss the peak while we're gone!

Jacob wanted to go to the Y Friday night to shoot so of course Carter wanted to hit up a playground while we waited.  I found a few new ones within five minutes of the Y and figured we might be able to hit up two of them.  One was an elementary school in Gates which I figured might be similar to another one we did earlier this spring, but that one was good so I figured this one was worth a shot.  It was different (despite the schools looking nearly identical), but it was pretty cool.  One section was a ship setup similar to the playground near Seabreeze, but for littler kids.  But Carter liked doing the "king of the world" thing from the front of the ship!

It was a fun little setup, and it was surrounded by a little track!  Carter loved running around the track.  

Across the way was a bigger kid playground with a bunch of climbing things, a slide, and some swings.  On the left there were a couple sets of monkey bars, some wobbly "vines", as Carter called them, chain ladder, a rock wall, and lots of other things to cross and climb.  It also had two things (far left of the apparatus) that looked like slides but seemed to be more for climbing as they did not have a "channel" like most slides--they were convex instead of concave, if that makes sense.
  

Carter liked the actual slide--it was pretty fast and steep!

This doesn't really do it justice...it felt much taller!

We had fun climbing on the big web.  I found this one a little easier to maneuver through than others.  I had to take a pic up top...

...and a selfie down below...

...and one from below when Carter was up top!
 

Carter loves being dramatic and this one turned out cool!

We had about 20 minutes before we had to pick up Jacob so I suggested we try another one five minutes away.  It turned out to not be the most exciting one and there was a party there with a lot of kids, but we made the best of it (and it was fine since we only had about 10 minutes anyway).  There were a couple different things I haven't seen elsewhere--one where you sit almost like you're going to do a shoulder press and move the bar to bounce yourself, and another where you stand on a little pedestal and bounce yourself.  There were a couple good slides and a big rock wall, which Carter climbed all the way around and then once over.  

Peeking over!

Then it was time to pick Jacob up, but it was nice to get to a couple more playgrounds before heading out on vacation (and coming back to the unofficial end of summer...sigh).  

The rest of the weekend has pretty much been just stress and endless checklists.  Carter and I shopped for school supplies while Jacob was at basketball Saturday, so it was good to check that off.  I managed to get Carter packed on Friday when his laundry was done, and packed my clothes while I was stuck on the phone for something super random on Saturday.  Saturday night I had to run to Walmart to pick up two last school supplies, a couple other random things, ponchos and--most interestingly--my new Apple Watch.  It's my birthday gift to myself (offset by some gift cards) and I wanted it mostly for a couple health tracking things.  I am far from having figured it out, but it will be fun to track steps at the parks!  Sunday involved more prep--setting up my plants to self-water with watering bulbs and old plastic bottles, cleaning up some things around the house, setting up light timers, tracking down odds and ends for packing, and just trying to mentally and physically organize whatever I could.  There are so many last minute details and I am freaking out about it.  Just trying to fit everything into carry-ons is hard, but we're close.

I feel like COVID gave me such anxiety, and it's a struggle to beat it back right now.  I'm out of practice on a lot of this stuff and then adding in fears of illness, lost bags, weather, and whatever else is making me crazy.  There are so many details, and while I feel relatively capable thanks to lists and being generally neurotic, there's still a lot of anxiety about things not going well, guilt if I could have done something better, and concern that some random thing is going to ruin the vacation again.  My family thinks I'm nuts when I'm trying to remind them to put liquids in baggies or bring a change of clothes, shoes, and a bathing suit in their personal item carry-on, because weird things have happened to people's gate-checked carry-ons.  But if I didn't and something went wrong, it could ruin the vacation and I am doing everything in my power for that to not be the case.  It's a lot.  This could be the trip of a lifetime and I don't want anything to get in the way.  Twelve hours from now we'll be on our plane.  Wish us luck...and maybe a little pixie dust, too!