Vocare

At 4pm last friday, the afternoon we were to leave on our trip to Vernon I sat down to have my first bite to eat since 9am that day. I'd arrived at work at 9:30am for my last class of the term expecting to leave a few hours later. Instead I stumpled out of the building at 3pm, delirious from not having eaten and totally frustrated. Due to a a stupid mistake entering final grades made by skimming and rushing I had created a whole lot of extra paper work for myself. Finally I left determining it could wait until we returned and took The Exploder into Crappy Tire for an oil change. This is when I arrived at "The Cup" and read my weekly horoscope in The Pique.


Now there was some advice that was worth following. I'dbeen thinking of our jaunt to Vernon as a trip and a visit with Paul's side of the family but it hadn't occured to me that it might be a vacation. Vacation, from the Latin "vocare" - to empty - or in English to vacate, was actually what it was - a vacation from our lives and an emptying of any building tension. Paul had also been extremely busy dealing with footage, editing and all kinds of things and was staying up late nights to get it done. If you'd asked me if I was stressed I'd have said I was busy and felt a bit burned out, but not stressed. HOWEVER, I was waking up with a headache everyday and my teeth actually hurt from clenching them so bad in my sleep! I actually bought a mouth-guard but thanks to our little vacation, I haven't had to use it yet. The clenching problem went away as soon as we got to Vernon and there was nothing, NOTHING that had to get done! Ahhh, sweet relaxation...


We arrived a little after 2am on Saturday snuck into Edie and Howard's new downstairs suite and resettled the little ones. Poor Halle was at the end of her rope being in her carseat. Anneka was up at 6 wanting to see Grandma and Halle was awake then too. We kept her busy until 7, then Halle, Paul and I slept in until almost 11. That day, the girls slept a lot (Anneka took a three hour nap) and we rested. Overall we caught up on sleep and rest, ate delicious food prepared by Edie, Howard and Kim, went to the lake and got to hang out with Graham for the first time in three years. It was a very fun visit - what a great and talented family! Here our some pictures from our Vernon Vacation.

I am looking forward to devoting the rest of the summer to summery things and spending even more time with Halle and Anneka. It surprised me how much even teach two classes divided my time.