Vida. Risa. Amor.

It's been awhile since I'd blogged.  School has ended, family vacation has come and gone, we've been t-p'd already, and summer has officially arrived with it's first 107 degree heat.  The kids & I are back in our gym routine, and it's been interesting since we now have 2 gyms we go to...(I just couldn't pass up $20 for 3 months at a gym where my "preschool-mom" crowd are all going this summer).  My kids prefer Lifetime Fitness, where there's an indoor playground of all playgrounds and a pool with waterslides to play in after.  But I like the other gym for the classes, since it's easier to endure thigh burning lunges, 5 minute ab ripping planks, and combat kicks with friends you can laugh & suffer through with together.  There's also something about going back to a gym that made me realize I wasn't in that great of shape I thought I was in....and so, I will be a "gym-rat-junkie" until I can master a 5 minute plank.  I just will.

Vacation was wonderful:  7 days in a row of the the beach and pool.  We also came home "rich" in sand dollars, and I have to admit I was getting a little greedy for them.  I have even hid them from my kids until I figure out a crafty way to display them.  They are "my precioussssssss"....

I do need to backtrack and mention that getting to our vacation destination...wasn't exactly pleasant.  I have a recurring nightmare actually, (not kidding), and it usually involves me at an airplane ticket counter searching and searching for my family's passports and they are no where to be found, and so we are somehow doomed to be stuck in an airport forever.  I never realized this was a prophecy of a similar reality someday to come.  It takes me a couple of days to pack for vacation, (I still pack for 4 out of 6 of us: me and the 3 dudes), and so I like to think through all that needs to be taken:  medicines, underwear, waterbottles, tweezers, foods for breakfast/ lunch/& dinners/snacks, and all the other obvious things to bring to a beach.  And so, when I asked the night before to my lovely husband if he could get his passport papers ready, I assumed he actually heard me.  (He did grunt some sort of reply).

After two hours into our trip to Mexico, the exit just as you enter Gila Bend, was when my husband and I actually had the conversation if his passport was packed or not.  He said he didn't.  I said are you kidding.  He said no.  I said no really, are you kidding.  He said no.  And I said awesome.  (No actually I said a lot more than that).  And so we turned around and headed back to the house to get the man's passport.  I had to explain to my crying 5 year old why we couldn't just get his Dad "another credit card", as he thought that's what we were going back for.  Josie's announcement of "it was all a simple misunderstanding", was the understatement of the week.  Year.  (I think she was secretly happy she had a few more hours left on her cell phone before we'd be out of range for a "whole week" once we crossed the border)....which she also drowned later that week in the ocean.  Tragic.

Making an 8 hour trip out of a 4 1/2 hour drive will definately go down in Palacios Family Vacation memories forever.  Oh yeah, and it will definately never happen again.  It's might be a while for us to be able to mention the word passport without thinking of it as a curse word.