It was a little bittersweet this year not having a warm weather vacation to escape from the frigid temps we've had lately. However, with baby #3 due in just a month, I couldn't really have traveled, nor would I want to with the exhaustion that traveling can bring in general, added with the exhaustion that comes from getting up 4 times a night to go to the bathroom...and insomnia that keeps me up for hours each night.
However, when you have 12 weeks off for maternity leave, it seems only fitting that I would use at least part of that time to take vacation when I don't have to use vacation time :)
So here's what our 2016 is beginning to look like:
March
Have a baby and try to get some rest.April
We haven't planned anything officially yet, but we're starting to talk about going to the Omaha Zoo again with the boys. With both of them able to walk around now, we can ditch the big double stroller (or not) and with me being off work already, we could take an extra day off work and hopefully find it not as busy as it was in early August when we went before. The boys LOVE the animals, and with it being MUCH cooler than when we were there (and me NOT being miserably pregnant at the time), it would be a really fun time, I think! Eating out with the boys might not prove the most fun, however. BUT...the last time we went, they did really awesome, so one can hope, right?May
Wisconsin Dells for a long weekend with the boys. We've booked 3 nights at Meadowbrook Resort, hoping to keep it more low-key than the bigger resorts to steer clear of the crowds with our little men right now. I'm pretty stoked about it, and it looks beautiful there, nestled into the woods :)September
I'm really hoping this is the year that we can sneak away for at least a long weekend for our anniversary. We always have grand hopes to get somewhere tropical, but we're being realistic here and realize that even though this will be our 10 year anniversary, we'll also have a 6 month old baby, and I'll likely be nursing still, so even an overnight will probably have to be as good as it gets.In a nutshell...
I'm sure I'll start getting the itch to get away again as a family at some point the rest of this year, but who knows. We thoroughly enjoyed our trip up to Brainerd two years ago, and it'd be fun to do something like that again, where it's close enough to not be a major trip, but far enough away to feel like a vacation. It's always hard to know how much vacation time we'll have left by the end of October, and how much we should be using up earlier on, but truthfully, we mostly enjoy just spending time together, so I'm actually hoping we can do more things like a Mommy and Me or a Daddy and Me day, where each kid gets their own whole day with Mommy or Daddy while the others are at daycare.Also, our daycare provider tends to take a week-long vacation at some point, so I'm sure we'll try to plan something fun with the kids for that week off.
Our vacation starts over on November 1st, and I'd like to save some time this year so we can take a longer warm-weather vacation in mid-February 2017 or early-March 2017 somewhere with the whole family, so we'll likely try to carry over the maximum 5 days this year.
It's so hard to know how the year will go, though. This past year (2015) we had a few unexpected things that we used our vacation time for, so we were skimping by at some points.
