Saturday, July 13, 2013

10 Things of Thankful, Week 6

I have a confession.  I am currently on vacation.  I have actually been on vacation for the last 7 days.  You couldn't even tell, could you?  Well, except that I haven't replied or commented anywhere on the internet.  You may have noticed that.  I didn't tell you, since I don't know how many thieves are out there, just waiting for me to leave so they can break in and steal all my killer...all my valuable...my antique...yeah.  There's nothing worth stealing.  Regardless, I'm on my way home, so there's no time for a thief to take anything anyway.

How, then, do I have my 10 Things of Thankful, you ask?  Easy.  I wrote them before I left, then scheduled them to go live today.   It's pretty easy to predict what I'm thankful for on this vacation.  Every year, for 11 years now, we go on vacation with another family.  It's always a different location, but we always rent a house and do roughly the same things.  So, I wrote them early.  If anything is different than what I predicted, I shall change it for the Sunday portion of the thankful hop. 

Aaaand since I wrote this so very early, I don't have the link-up HTML yet.  You're going to have to go to the site of our Hostess with the Mostes' and link up there.  Please.  Pretty please with sugar on top? 

To the list...

10 Things (I Predict) of Thankful

1.  I am always thankful for the couple who take such good care of our animals while we're away.  When we first moved to the farm, we carpooled to school with a family.  It was for one year only, as they went to a different school the following year.  During that school year, we were planning on going out of town for Thanksgiving, but had no one to watch the dog and chickens.  We mentioned it to the mom of the carpool, and she mentioned her neighbor who dogsits.  I called the woman and learned she grew up on a farm, had several grandchildren, and would love to help us out.  For eight years, she and her husband have been coming and taking wonderful care of all our animals.  Since she grew up on a farm, she knows all about chickens and pigs.  She brings her grandkids and they spend an hour out here keeping everyone company.  Her husband goes around and fixes things for us, too.  Plus, they never go out of town, so they come even on Christmas Day.  I could not be more grateful for the love these people show our animals.

2.  I am thankful for our annual vacation friends.  As you know, C.O.W. and I went to high school together.   We vacation with one of our friends from high school.  He has a wonderful wife, and they have one child who gets along beautifully with Phoenix.  (Can you even believe a family with one child WANTS to vacation with us?  We made sure that they always will by making them godparents to Giant and Turken.)   He is a Catholic elementary principal, and she is a math teacher.  It works out very well.  For now.  I'm a little worried about what will happen in four years when their only child heads off to college and we still have 5 kids in tow.

3.  I am thankful for Lake Michigan.  It is an awesome place to vacation.  Honestly, it is just like the beach at the ocean, but without the salt in the water.  And, it's only 4 hours from our house.

4.  I am thankful for VRBO.  With this many people, vacationing in a hotel is not practical.  So, for years now, (all 11 vacations with this family, plus some others we've taken) we rent houses through Vacation Rentals by Owner.  There are wonderful, affordable properties all over the country.  We've never had a problem with one, and they have all helped us to have fantastic vacations.

5.  I am thankful for late-night card games.   Every night of every vacation, after the kids are in bed, we adults stay up and play "hand and foot".  We play, we talk, we eat junk food the kids don't know about, and we laugh until way past our normal bedtime.

6.  I am thankful for morning walks with the little boys.  The little boys go to bed, and thus wake up, way earlier than everyone else in the house.  To keep them from waking the entire house, I(C.O.W. needs his beauty rest) always take them on a morning walk.  With PJs on, the don some shoes and off we go to explore.

7.  I am thankful for this year's house more than any other.   This year we managed to rent a Buddhist retreat center for the week.  It is on 10 acres, with a private pool (!!!! No public pools for us this week!!!!!), a playground, and wide open spaces to play. 

8.  I am thankful for peaceful drives.  "How can you predict this?" you ask?  Because our kids are very used to going on long drives.  We have             Cross your fingers that no one throws up.  That does seem to happen with alarming frequency on road trips. 

9.  I am thankful for our vacation song.   We took very few vacations when I was growing up.  The first real family vacation I took with my family (with my dad) was when I was a senior in high school.  He borrowed an RV from a friend, and we hopped on down to Myrtle Beach.  The RV was just for the trip down.  Once there, we stayed in a condo on the beach.  As soon as we were on the road, my dad started singing a little ditty he had made up.  Basically, we just sing V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N!, with the T-I-O-N part being sung really fast.  From that point on, every single vacation we have ever gone on (C.O.W. was on that Myrtle Beach vacation with us.  By that point, my parents thought of him as a son.  Don't worry, separate bedrooms.) has started with that song.  My kids actually know how to spell "vacation" before any other word. 

10.  I am thankful for Lucky Charms and PopTarts.   Same Myrtle Beach vacation, we stayed at the condo while my dad went to get groceries for the week.  When he came back, we were all in the common room as he started unpacking.  He plopped a big bucket of ice cream down on the counter and said, "There will be ice cream!"  One of us kids said, "I don't think that will be enough for all of us for a whole week."  Dad's response?  A very excited, "We'll just buy more!"

Thus started the tradition of eating things we don't normally eat in abundance.  Junk cereal is never, ever allowed in our real home.  But the vacation home?  It is made for it.  Before vacation, I take the kids to the grocery store and let them pick out their favorite cereals.  We also stock up on Oreos, chips, and candy we don't normally eat.  Through this week of vacation, we have devoured Cookie Crisp, Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs, and Reese's Puffs, as well as some brown sugar cinnamon frosted poptarts.   Don't worry, I make them eat some fruit on the side.  Don't want to go overboard or anything.

So, what have you been thankful for this week?  If you have a blog, link up at Considerer's.  If not, just let me know in the comments.

I'll be putting the link into my post as soon as I get home!

Have a lovely day!

25 comments:

  1. I'm thankful for friends who call you when they've had too much to drink and tell you embarrassing things. I'm going to have SO much fun on Monday when I tell said friend about the conversation I'm sure she doesn't even remember!

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  2. These are great and I hope your predictions all came true.

    I have holiday cereals too. And Birthday cereals. And Christmas cereals. Usually Cinnamon Toast Crunch, which I love, but is expensive and made by Nestle, who I'm still not sure about on principle.

    I LOVE that you have a vacation song. Sis and I made one up too, when we were young, and we still sing it together (usually with Niece and Neff shouting at us to stop) on trips to the beach.

    And WOW does your vacation house this year sound GOOD. Pics please, or it never happened ;)

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    1. My daughter is ADDICTED to Cinnamon Toast Crunch. She eats cases of it, but I buy the house brand at Aldi instead of the real thing and it's about half the price.

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    2. Even though I already know there are pic, I'm a huge proponent of "Pics or it didn't happen" too ;-) Maybe to varying degrees and reasons, however ha!

      I also love CTC! Mostly Fruity Pebbles, though.

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  3. ...hey, pretend I'm not even here (this time). I just need to try something. No nothing bad or (too) weird, but Considerer is up to her creativity tricks again and is encouraging everyone to try 'cross-commenting'. So.... guess I owe you a debt of.... lol

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  4. What an awesome holiday list! I hope your expectations all became true!

    Shamelessly envy your for this gorgeous house you were staying at! I hope it turned out to be as perfect as it sounds!

    Kudos for the couple looking after your animals. It is surely not easy to find someone who is reliable and knows what s/he is doing. You obviously won the lottery! :-)

    Also, Lake Michigan sounds like the perfect place to stay.

    Enjoy the rest of your weekend! :-)

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  5. I hope you had a lovely vacation! We always eat extra junk food on vacations, too. Some of my best memories are when we were kids and Mom and Dad would take us camping. It was the only time you could open the camper pantry to find it stocked with Little Debbies, chocolate bars, and all sort of other terrible things. Haha! YUM! Nowadays if I eat junk food a few days in a row, even on vacation, I start getting reealllyy sick. No fun.

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  6. Totally hoping your vacation has been a ton of fun and love your dad's statement of "There will be ice cream". Totally the way a vacation should be and last year when we went away for a few days with family there was Dunkin Donuts and cereal for the kids at breakfast everyday. Like you this would never happen at home, but it is a vacation, so yes we totally make concessions. Happy weekend and enjoy the rest of your vacation now!! :)

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  7. I knew you were on vacay because Lizzi blabbed in a post comment. BUT I DIDN'T DRIVE TO INDY AND STEAL YOUR PIGS.

    I've been to a beach on Lake Michigan! It LOOKS like the ocean, since you can't see across it. And no jellyfish.

    Will your kids be in de-tox all week from the cereal and other junk food?

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    1. Hah, cos the lack of replies last week wouldn't have given it away! Christine's one of our most stalwart comments-on-every-linked-blog people ;)

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    2. Yeah, that was certainly a big clue. She ALWAYS uses good blog manners and comments!

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  8. #10 reminds me of my family when I was growing up. About once a year, my dad would announce a "junk food" day, and we would have Ding Dongs, Twinkies, and other non-nutritious items. Funny, the anticipation of the event is what I remember most.

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    1. What a fun tradition. It's so funny, the things we remember from our childhood.

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  9. Sounds like a fabulous trip...can't wait to see some pictures? You DID take pictures, right? Have a safe trip home!

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  10. AHA! I knew something was up! Though, I was left worried about it being a negative reason (sick child) being the last post made before the "disappearance". Seinfeld reassured me all was well, however. Sort of.

    Conflicted on how to respond being these are all "predictions" even if they sound... sound. There is a lot of historical backing... ancient almost >.>, but I digress... no public pools! Win-win! Well, unlike in most cases, I hope history repeated itself and you all had a great vacation! I saw Part 2 was full of pics, so I have a feeling I am about to step into your vacation world soon enough.

    Hopefully everything went as planned cause your described vacations sound great! My family wasn't particularly huge on vacations. It sounds like you could name the vacation Diabetes Days! So much sugary goodness. At least you limit their intake on the daily. I have always kind of have free reign with those kinds of foods and ooofta it can catch up fast. :-)

    On to the photo shoot!

    P.S. You may have avoided being thieved by my Ninja Bush Babies this time... but next time you better hope your "sympathy" card play is stronger. They really wanted to steal a pig.

    dun Dun DUN!

    Except... now that I went to verify I spelled Seinfeld right I noticed you had another post on Thursday I completely missed, which would have totally thrown us off guard.

    Well played, Pig Wrangler, well played...

    Jak at The Cryton Chronicles & Dreams in the Shade of Ink

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    1. Can't pull one over on you, you clever one. :)

      I double dog dare you to steal a pig. If you can catch it, you can have it, but only if you get and post a video. :)

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  11. (Selfishly enough) I am glad you are back from the vacation. This was a good weekend for the TTofT. See you next weekend!

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    1. Thank you much. It is a good weekend for our little hop. We'll assume my absence is not related in any way to the record number of entries.

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  12. Such a great summer you are having! I'm thankful that our daughter is still with us after her accident last week. It took me a week to process it, write about it here:
    http://adventuresintheballpark.blogspot.com/2013/07/accidental-blessings.html
    There were so many blessings in this event...I'm so very grateful.

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  13. Ha to nobody throwing up (I hope that one came true) on the car trip. We use VRBO for our vacation rentals as well and have had SUCH great luck with them. Love that you get junk cereal on vacation. Perfect.

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    1. No one did, thank heavens, but we had our plastic bags ready just in case.

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  14. That's an awesome vacation list. Hope you are having a great time. :)

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  15. I love vacays!!! I love late night card games and peaceful drives (or drives where you turn up the music really loud!)

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  16. Thieves are everywhere...why take chances! :) I'm reading backwards so didn't realize how organized you were until now. You are amazing lady!

    Hand and Foot!! YES!!!!! Love that game.

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Thank you for taking the time to tell me what you're thinking!