Our original plans were to leave my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's house tomorrow morning, with today being a day of packing up (mostly my self-appointed job) and doing our final bit of relaxing before an early-morning departure tomorrow. I got to thinking about what their Sunday was going to look like, namely getting their entire house ready for a party, including a band. What they really didn't need was us departing early morning with two bedrooms and bathrooms needing to be cleaned and reset for company.
We discussed it and all agreed it made more sense for us to leave today so this morning we slept in and then leisurely got ready to leave at four o'clock. Some people still went out on jet skis and there was swimming in the lagoon followed by a rinse off and then finishing up in the hot tub. I spent the time doing what I would normally be doing the day before departure from a trip: packing and cleaning up.
I added to the list getting all linens washed and then put back on the beds as well as cleaning both bathrooms we'd been using. We all made sure the house was tidied up with surfaces cleaned and crumbs, dirt and dust vacuumed. Their version of Kevo did the vacuuming. At this point when I see a Roomba, I automatically think of it as, "Kevo" even though that's just the name of ours. Even so, as the little guy got underfoot, doing his own part in the cleanup, I invariably called him Kevo, anthropomorphizing him, apologizing and telling him salient points about where he should skip for now because I had packing all over the floor. He completely ignored me.
There were really only two downsides to leaving today. First, it was a day early, and we never want to go when our vacation with them is over. And second, it puts us driving into the night which is harder on my husband, who prefers to drive the entire time. I felt good about things though, being able to do our part in getting ready for the party. There's something nice about leaving a place in the same state you arrived to find it.
Another advantage is the travel. We had virtually no traffic to speak of which is in part due to COVID-19 but is significantly due to the day and time of travel. In this case, the car decided to navigate us right through Washington, D.C. My husband pointed the Washington Monument out to my son when it appeared off to the right of the car. My son was scheduled to go on a five-day field trip to Washington D. C. with the third-year Lower Elementary students at his school. It would have been ten students across two classrooms with two teachers and is something the students look forward to for three years, from the time they start their three-year stint in Lower Elementary.
This year, my son's trip, along with uncountable things across the world, didn't happen. My son has learned about our capital though so when his father pointed out the Washington Monument my son looked excitedly to where his father was pointing and then said, "Spider-Man went on it!" I had a flashback to the movie and could picture Spider-Man on the monument.
While we drove past our capital, we talked about going to Washington D.C. sometime on a trip just for him. Perhaps a trip where we split off, one parent one child each with my son going there with one of us. My son was definitely interested in going, claiming his father should be the one to go because "dad likes Washington D;C." So as not to disappoint him and to be sure he knew the difference between a new idea and a fully committed plan, he could remind us he wanted to go but that this wasn't a definite at this time. We told him we thought it was a worthwhile trip to consider taking at some point.
The conversation died down after that and I thought my son had put his headphones back on to listen to his audiobook but he was still thinking of the things he might see should we take him to visit our nation's capital. He asked, "do you know which column is Abraham Lincoln's favorite?" We were confused, explaining he had died long before the Lincoln Memorial was built. No, my son told us, he distinctly remembered them talking about him having a favorite column. I told him they might have meant a newspaper column, That's a mystery that's going to have to wait until my son goes back to school and can ask his teacher from last year.
The Big Boy Update: My son decided yesterday he wanted to watch the Harry Potter movies again. He has Disney+ as an app on his iPad and had gone to find them. Today my husband downloaded them for offline watching in the car. He's giggling and calling out spells in the seat in front of me as I write this.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter loved going on the jet skis at the beginning of our trip. Sometimes a single bad incident will affect you in a dramatic way. The "grounding" in the muck she and Nicole went through the other day has her swearing off jet skis for the remainder of her life. We explained to her that it was an uncommon thing and two factors contributed to it: it was only Nicole's second time on the new jet ski and we pushed it from a tide perspective, going out later than we probably should have. None of this mattered though, she was not about to get on a jet ski. Hopefully, next year when we come to visit she'll remember how much she loves them and won't focus on the ten minutes that she very much hated that scared her.
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