Lake Bosworth "Summer" Vacation!

Two items of business to report on this week: Our lake house staycation, and our continued lack of "big news." I'll stop being vague and tell you we're waiting to hear back about a job Jared interviewed for a few months ago. They initially told us we'd hear back from them by the end of May, but Jared talked to his recruiter this week and was informed that they took on a few extra interviewees, so they will be making the decision this next week (probably tomorrow) and be getting back to us shortly after. Obviously we hope a job offer will be extended, but at this point we're mostly just anxious to hear back either way so we can plan out our summer/year/life, whatever the decision. We've been stuck in limbo for several months now. It was good to have a little family vacation to distract us last week!

So like I mentioned in last week's post, we found a VRBO cottage on Lake Bosworth, which is pretty close to where we live. Vacation rentals fill up FAST in this part of Washington since we're so close to Seattle (lots of people looking to go on a summer vacation). Knowing that this might be our last summer in Washington we really wanted to do something as a family. Top of my list and what seemed easiest with a toddler was to stay at a house on a lake and spend the days snacking and napping in the house, lounging on the dock, and playing on the water. The tricky part was not knowing if we'd be moving this summer. If we do find ourselves moving, that would likely be happening in August. So we blocked August off as a no-vacations month, just in case. In July we will likely be visiting Utah for a family reunion--especially if we aren't going to be moving to Utah the next month for a new job. So we blocked July off too, just in case. That left June. Not the hottest of months in Washington, but if this was our only guaranteed option for a "summer" vacation we'd gladly take it. And at the time of booking our vacation (two months ago) Alice still wasn't tolerating long car rides, so we decided on this lake close to home. We booked the only two nights still available.

Unfortunately, it did end up raining the entire time we were there so there wasn't much dock-lounging or water play, but we had a great time nonetheless. Two days and nights of games, yummy snacks, braving the rain, and making some wonderful family memories. It was worth every cloudy, rainy minute. Jack went to bed in his window seat overlooking the lake with the biggest grin plastered across his face each evening after we played several board games. And neither of our kids woke up during either of our nights there! Like, at all! That rarely even happens at home, and never on vacation for us. It might've been our very first trip since before Jack was born that nobody woke up in the night. It was an unexpected vacationing-with-young-kids miracle. (We did have AMPLE difficulty getting Alice settled to initially fall asleep for her bedtimes and naps though, so we didn't get let off the hook too easy.) Here are some pictures from our lovely, cloudy time at Lake Bosworth:

^^This is a cute picture making me regret that we didn't do a family picture during our little trip! I need to remember to do that more often.  

^^Cute cottage bedroom overlooking the lake.

^^One evening we had a frozen pizza for dinner. The next night we had chili that I had made at home before the trip. 10/10. 

^^Would have been fun to spend the whole day rolling around on the grass and eating all our meals on the dock! But we did hang out here during a brief hour-long break in the rain.

^^Going on a walk along the private dirt road our cottage was on.

^^Jared and Jack squeezing in a little time on the water.

^^This is very cute and looks like an idyllic relaxing cottage family vacation. And that's why this is the moment I snapped a picture of, instead of 3 seconds before or after, when Alice was trying to destroy the Connect 4 instead of "play" like Jack wanted, and it became more turbulent. They're able to play together a little more this summer than last summer though, and they'll be able to play together even more next summer! 

I did find myself feeling annoyed at how easily Jared could slip into "leisure" mode and I became the default parent. At these ages, the kids' needs and requests are fairly constant, and nothing about that feels like leisure. But I knew it wouldn't be the most ideal of solutions to repeatedly invite Jared to put away his book to help field all the requests. I eventually had the thought, "If you can't beat em, join em." The problem wasn't that I wanted Jared to stop enjoying his vacation. The problem was that I wanted for me to be able to start enjoying mine. (With reasonable expectations--a vacation with kids is mostly just parenting in a different location.) I somewhat awkwardly began outlining a coloring page for myself to use as the cover of my "Vacation, Holiday, and Birthday Notes" binder. I haven't done anything like this since before I started college probably. I've never been much of a doodler or colorer. But you know what? It totally worked, and it was fun! It was something "silly" that I normally wouldn't spend time on in my everyday life but was a great vacation activity. I sat myself down in a nearby chair with some colored pencils and the kids got busy doing their own "work" when they could see me doing mine. I think seeing me color was something they could relate to and the requests slowed wayyy down. And when they did come up, Jared could see that my hands were busy and he was much more likely to jump in about as often as I did. He even started peeking at me very so often to see what I was up to and commented, "Hey, that's really cool!" Coloring is my new way to stay fresh and mysterious.

So there's my marriage/vacation childcare hack haha. I did in fact write it down in my "vacation notes" binder while Jared was getting Alice to bed (after he read for an hour and finished his book while I was handling the dinner details). Is this blog becoming a relationships and parenting hacks blog? TBD. But here is my coloring page and the kids keeping uncharacteristically distracted with stickers in the background:

^^Jared dropping Jack off at school on Monday morning. He realllly wanted to go because it was pizza day. And since it was rainy and we weren't doing anything he'd feel bad missing out on, we obliged. He had a great day and was so excited to be picked up and taken to our lake cottage instead of riding the bus home like he usually does. 

^^Me and Jack getting a little over-adventurous. We didn't realize the wind had created a current in the lake and we were drifting away from the dock pretty quickly. But we made it back ok!

^^After the kids were in bed me and Jared played games together. Our quiet but giddy evenings together were my favorite part of our vacation. The whole trip felt a lot like being in my childhood cabin. Lots of games and family time and rustic charm. If we're still here next summer, we'll be back! In a less rainy month!