My Summer Vacation

One of the best things about being a teacher is the school holidays!  We may not be able to go where we want, when we want, but we do have the privilege of nice, big chunks of time with our children when they are not in school!  When my children were young, we spent a lot of our vacation time in parks and public swimming pools and on short trips visiting extended family.  As they got older, I turned into "taxi-mom", shuttling them around to summer camps and summer jobs, spending more time with them in the car than anywhere else!  Now that they are grown, we are back to going on outings together, but now they do the driving!  What a treat!

This summer the men in my family have been very busy with their jobs, so I got to spend quite a bit of time with my daughter and other special women in my life.  I joined a summer book club with some ladies from my church.  I went to a concert with my daughter, my aunt and my sister-in-law.  I spent a weekend with a cousin who has been like a sister-friend since we were little girls, keeping in touch over the miles as pen-pals.  I went on a cross-border shopping trip with a van load of spunky ladies.  But, best of all, my daughter and I went on a tropical vacation, just the two of us, to Turks and Caicos.

For a whole week we stayed on an island that is a virtual tropical paradise, doing nothing but soak up the rays, float in the ocean and gaze on the beauty our surroundings.  Our one big adventure was riding in a semi-submarine to view the amazing sea creatures that are active along the coral reefs.  But even from our beach chairs we were able to enjoy the antics of several amusing passers-by, whether they be people, birds or sand crabs!

Sometimes we get so busy organizing things and the people around us that we forget how truly wonderful things are, just as God made them.  To me, that's the value of a truly relaxing vacation in a beautiful place.  There's nothing like shedding the responsibilities of our normal, hectic lives and sliding into the zone where you are nothing more than a quiet, peaceful observer of all that is wonderful and awesome!  It puts things back into perspective and restores something to your soul.

Thank-you, my sweet girl, for taking me to one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life!  My heart is filled with lovely memories and a new concept of peace that I hope to tap into when the challenges of life kick back in.