Vacation, Day 7: Panda and the Pool

And so ended our vacation. Day 7 was pretty much back to normal - up early for first service and then home. Another spectacular sunny day, blue skies all around. Worked on stuff around the house and did some cleaning. Panda Express for lunch as a final hurrah. And now back to the dieting and strict financial controls of normal life. We talked at lunch about how the week went and Monday seemed to be the best day for all of us, followed by Friday and then Thursday, marred mostly by the Carl's Jr. experience. Wednesday didn't really count and Tuesday, which was supposed to be the day most directly planned for the children, especially Ben, turned out to be the low point of the week. (We can only hope for a renovated - but not remodeled - Children's Museum in Seattle since the one in Tacoma moved and opted for the open floor plan last year.)

Is Panda talking about our anniversary trip next month?

After lunch (and a sensible wait) we took to the water of the backyard pools. The children had a fun time splashing and splashing each other, even playing together in the same pool for awhile (we have two). Usually Ben will be too rambunctious and so Rachel will keep changing pools until Ben follows her to the new pool.

Because of the missed events and meals (and reduced travel), we probably also came in a bit under budget for the vacation which is good as well.

I am grateful to my wife who planned this and researched the events and found the interesting restaurants and planned ahead by buying Groupons over a course of months to help us to keep costs down. And my wonderful children who were mostly well behaved, mostly cheerful and mostly on board with what we tried to do. It was a nice time over too quickly.

Any factual errors in the posts of the last few days are due to my faulty recollection - these recaps were written 8/16-18.

Next up, school resumes, Lori and I have a brief Anniversary trip sans children and then Lori's birthday and before we know it, we're deep into holiday territory.