"Stay-cations"....

This year, Puppy Guts and I resolved to do a "vacation" during the summer when the collective kids were away on their own vacations with our respective ex spouses. The kids would be having a great time and we decided, why not take the time to have some fun ourselves doing some of the things we knew we wouldn't be able to do with the kids.
We knew damn well that our finances would be tight at best so we opted for a "stay-cation" . What is a stay-cation? Well, we wanted to be available for friends and family should they need us, our financial status would have prevented us from going anywhere anyway, so we stayed local. Within our own state (for the most part). In short, we were never really more than 60 miles away from "home". We planned out a few things that we thought we might want to do that we wouldn't have been able to do on a "rabble rouse" kind of day (when we have a rare weekend when neither of us has our kids AND Lucky's not working), which included things like staying a night away in a hotel and sneaking the dog in without getting caught, partying with friends, hanging out with people we hadn't seen in a while, meeting people we had yet to meet "in real life", going in to NYC, fishing, zip lining, chilling out and relaxing, cooking together, spending quality time together, making love whenever we felt like it and having the time of our lives with each other. A couple of the things having been done with each other before, sure, but not straight through for days on end.
THIS was no doubt, bar none, the MOST relaxing and fun vacation I think I had ever had. No stress, no schedules, no nothing. Sure, we had general ideas as to what we were going to do the next day, but whatever. And the way everything worked out despite a few "schedule changes" (as we did plan to go fishing one morning, but the boat didn't sail and we went zip lining instead) and it turned out to be better that we had to change stuff around! The weather worked in our favor, we made some new friends, we laughed, bonded, loved, shared, and had an amazing time. It was an extended "Rabble Rouse version 2.0"... We hopped around from place to place bringing the good time with us wherever we went. We stayed in various locations in hotels and "home" and had the time of our lives! I can't even remember a time I was away on a vacation and NOT stressing about something... Come to think of it, I don't think I ever have. This was BAR NONE the greatest time EVER!
We want to plan out a "family rabble rouse" for us and all six kids for something similar to this experience. We would LOVE for them to have this kind of stress free vacation, flying by the seat of our pants, non-scheduled, cross off a list of stuff we'd like to do adventure... So we are starting the plot and plan process.... THIS is going to be a hoot!  :D
Stay tuned for more "vacation adventures"!