We had an accidental visitor on Saturday morning... Someone pulled down our driveway with a lot of big machinery by mistake and had trouble getting out. In the process of trying they tore up our yard a bit.
They finally made it out and felt terrible so they insisted on compensating us despite our protests since it isn't even our property. Our feathered friends, on the other hand, are THRILLED with the new dirt patches in the yard.
 |
| Hen party spa day! They've been taking non-stop dust baths ever since. |
The first half of today was filled with play group fun and the second half was playing, housework and more playing. I am officially all caught up on everything I got behind on during our staycation thanks to Ayden's awesome mood and independence level today. Since I don't really have anything more exciting to report I thought I'd reflect on our staycation and the pros and cons.
First of all, we had gone back and forth about going on a vacation this year. We have a "vacation ownership" in Myrtle Beach which is like a time share. We have it every other year and this year was an on year. We really wanted to go because we thought Ayden would be the perfect age to start enjoying all of the amenities at the resort. We also thought he'd have a blast at the beach. We wanted one last hoorah as The Three Muskateers. There were a lot of reasons to go. On the other hand, we also had a lot of reasons not to go. David only gets 3 weeks of vacation per year. In addition to vacation, that time is to be used for personal days, sick days, etc. When we decided not to take a vacation, he was planning on taking one full week off for the house and one full week off after Logan's arrival, which would just leave one week for the rest of the year to use for emergency/personal/sick days. We didn't want to use that up with a vacation and leave him in the negative if he needed more time off. Also with Logan's rapidly approaching arrival, we both felt anxious about David taking that much time off of the house since we would really love to have it dried in before he comes. I also wasn't sure that a 9 hour car ride would have been good for me to take this late in the game. After going back and forth for a long time we decided not to go so we rolled this year's vacation "options" as they call them into our vacation for 2016 and decided to have a staycation instead. It was the best of both worlds and the best choice for us. That doesn't necessarily mean it would always be the best choice though!
Pros for a staycation:
- CHEAP (in comparrison). Ours could have been even cheaper had we eaten at home more but that wouldn't have been much of a vacation for me since I do A LOT of cooking and kitchen cleanup in my day to day life. Even with all of our dining out, it was still much cheaper than Myrtle Beach for a week would have been!
-Appointments: This is a pro and a con so I'll discuss the pros now and will also list it as a con later. I was able to keep my chiropractor appointment which was important to me. This far into pregnancy with relaxin kicking in and such, the longer you go between adjustments, the farther out of alignment you end up being.
- No prep: Part of me wishes I had prepped a little more (like doing all of the laundry for instance) but it really wasn't a big deal. There was no packing, no big planning sessions, no road trip prepping for the car, nothing out of the ordinary.
- Flexibility: David was able to sneak off to the house during nap times or in the evenings when we got back early from our activities. We would have had that same kind of down time in Myrtle Beach but wouldn't have been close enough to maximize on that time.
- Local attractions: There are a ton of really cool places to see right in our own backyard! We don't usually take the time to enjoy what our part of the state has to offer. It was fun to take some time to do that.
- No Traveling: If we had timed it right and Ayden had taken a nice, long nap on the car ride, there still would have been about 7 hours worth of driving time where we would have had to keep him entertained. That is exhausting and I am not sorry we skipped that! Also, I'm not a fan of long car rides when I'm not pregnant, I can only imagine how uncomfortable I would have been this time around.
- Pet Care: We didn't have to book Mav and Polly into the kennel or find someone to tend the chickens twice a day.
Cons for a staycation:
- Mess: It was hard for me to completely relax and "vacate" because when I did, things piled up around the house. That doesn't bother me as badly in a hotel room but it bothered me a lot here at home. I forced myself to do it but it was not complete relaxation. David did jump in and do kitchen clean up a couple of times and vacuumed once (Maverick is shedding like a crazy man for the SECOND time this Summer) in an effort to give me a break and peace of mind and that was wonderful.
-Appointments: It was hard to truly treat this as a vacation. For instance, I had classes to teach at the dance studio and felt bad saying, "We will still be home but are technically on vacation so you'll have to find a sub or reschedule my classes for me..." It just didn't feel right so off to work I went. We also had a few other things creep in on our time together that we would have easily been able to turn down had we actually been out of town.
- Off Schedule: I feel like kids are pretty resilient when they are off schedule in a new place. Everything is new and exciting and they seem to do better with going with the flow. Being off schedule at home took a toll on Ayden. He bounced back quickly but the last couple of days were a little tough for him.
I can't really think of anything else to add and after looking at that list it seems we definitely made the right decision for us at this time. I am really looking forward to having double options to use for a vacation in two years! Maybe that will give us enough to venture somewhere even more fun than Myrtle Beach! We had lots of quality Three Musketeer time and it only took me one day to get caught up rather than the two or three it usually takes me after traveling. Bonus! I think David and I both went into our work days today feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. Mission accomplished!
What do you prefer? Staycation or vacation?
~Sarah
Flashback! Here's what we were up to one year ago today: "Farmstead Field Trip"
And two years ago today: "Night And Day"
Thank you for stopping by Life With the Ladniers!
Please take a second to:
Subscribe via email, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter so you'll know as soon as a new post is up!
Miss seeing what Ayden is up to everyday? Follow us on Instagram!
You can find all of the links in the sidebar.
No comments:
Post a Comment