I think it takes me longer to adjust to being home after a trip than it takes most people. I have been so tired this week and I am just finally catching up on my rest. It hasn’t helped that the baby has decided to wake up in the middle of the night again. She was sleeping through the night for a few weeks for a while there but I’m not sure what happened? This morning when I woke up I was ecstatic because I thought Rocky had slept through the night but it turned out that Brent had gotten up and given her a bottle. I was so tired I didn’t even hear him. There were a few times this week that I would loved to have slept all day but alas, there was too much to do and too much going on. The Minnie Mouse Mylar balloon dangled in the living room teasing me as I pieced together our house after the Disneyland adventure. My husband even mentioned that he missed Disneyland this week. It’s a sign that our trip was a good experience if we were all feeling a little disgruntled at returning to reality after our trip.

If you are getting to know me by reading my blogs by now you’ve probably realized that I am a bit of a glutton for punishment. I have a hard time managing my three little ones and yet I still manage to do things with them that push the limits a little bit. For example, today I took Georgia and the baby with me while I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things. While I was driving past Raley’s I was thinking to myself, “ECart! ECart! Why don’t I just do ECart?”. But I am stubborn (wonder where my kids get it from?) and I don’t want to give up on the possibility that today might be the day that Georgia doesn’t use the little carts in Trader Joe’s to ram into the backs of people’s legs. I am pretty sure she is getting better because today was a successful shopping trip. No legs got rammed into and I only had to bribe her with a couple M&M’s to get through without too many issues, but hey, it worked. Eventually, she won’t need any bribing, I am sure of it (ha!).

To further illustrate my point, I have yet to let the dust settle from my last trip and catch up with the family schedule long enough to plan yet another adventure. We are heading up to the snow tomorrow with our neighbors/friends. Brent and I have wanted to take the kids up to the snow and we jumped at the opportunity to travel with another family. It might seem a little nuts to pack two trips so close together but I am hoping that we can make this adventure in as low key of a way as possible. I am also hoping that my children will really enjoy being with other kids they know as we travel with another young family.

I may be a glutton for punishment but I am also realizing that what I really am becoming is someone who tries. I feel like there used to be a lot of things in my life that honestly I didn’t do because I was afraid. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be good at it or I worried what other people would think of me so I didn’t do them. I remember not trying out for the soccer team my senior year of high school. I had gotten really out of shape and I was afraid that the coach was going to cut me and I would be humiliated. So instead, I told the coach that I had gotten into a car accident (which I had but it wasn’t serious) and couldn’t try out. I offered instead to take statistics for the team and that was how I lettered in varsity soccer.

How is it that I can go from being someone who is so afraid of failing that I saved myself the potential of failing by not trying to becoming someone who might struggle with biting off more than I can chew? In addition to this last minute Tahoe trip, yesterday I found myself at Athletic Soles signing up for a half-marathon training program. I had called and asked if it would be okay if someone like me, someone with little running experience, could sign up. They said, “sure”, but when I went in to pay the fee I was asked if I could run 5 miles comfortably. Wait, what?

A friend told me today that we have to take advantage of the time when our children are young and enjoy everything as much as possible. One day there could come a day that they won’t want to go up to the snow with us because going to the snow with your parents isn’t cool or something (although, I’m hoping that our kids will still want to spend time with us no matter what). Yeah, there is that small part of me that is afraid. I worry that my kids will be a disaster in front of this other family. There is always the possibility that our neighbors will not want to hang out with us afterwards because we have kids that can be overly excited or whiny. Perhaps they won’t like our cooking or feel like we are too anal in how we pack. But we are going to try anyway and if we keep a positive attitude, we are going to have a great time. Either way, I am sure to have something to write about when I get back. Here’s hoping for another great adventure…