Our trip comprised primarily of…

Swimming and Uno.

Oh where do I begin?

First let me say that I am pooled and uno’d out. Done. Praising the good, sweet Lord that for at least the next two weeks I don’t have to play uno or get in a pool. Please don’t get me wrong, I love both activities…

In moderation.

Moderation, people, is not something that my children understand.

At all.

I’m a firm believer that I could’ve taken them 20 minutes down the road to a hotel with a pool and they would’ve been just as happy as our jaunt to Mississippi in which we were able to see the Mississippi River, amazing fireworks and concerts, Vicksburg, Atlanta, and the various other activities that we did while logging 2400 miles.

All I heard was “when are we going to the pool?” All. Week. Long.

Of the 10 days that we were here in Mississippi, we were at the pool eight of them. Our schedules revolved around time at the pool. We determined when we needed to leave Vicksburg based on how much time we would have at the pool. And we shut the pool down many nights, swimming until there was absolutely no more light in which to swim by and even then, we stayed a little longer.

The two nights we didn’t go to the pool? Well, we picked blackberries (post coming soon about that!) one night and the other it was chilly and kinda raining. In all honesty, we could’ve gone to the pool, but it was enough that I could justify not going. I’m not used to being outside of the home that much… it was weird.

Eating was not important, not a priority. At. All.

With the smaller meals and all the time in the pool, I’m sure that they lost some weight. Notice I said they. I didn’t. Because I brought snacks to sit by the pool as I watched them. There was no lack of eating or additional exercise for me.

And when we got home from the pool? We would make our dinner, normally comprised of hotdogs, spaghetti, sandwhiches or a drive thru of some sort and play Uno. FOREVER.

And this is what we did for 10 days straight. Pool until we ran out of daylight and Uno until I could no longer keep my eyes open. Again, it was all about me. They would stay up much later playing until they began to fight, I would wake up, shuffle into the living room and send them to bed.

To further put this into prospective, we’ve been anxiously awaiting the release of the latest Guitar Hero… we got it. We’ve really not played it. At. All.

(How excited am I that the PS2 was not dropped off at Nana’s and it accompanied me home. Aerosmith and I will become very familiar with one another over the next week.)

Despite the fact that if I have to hear “Mom! Watch me!” or “Uno” I think I’ll scream, we had an awesome time. I was able to help my daughter with her dead man’s float and she learned to do a hand stand. She can now swim on her back and these are all things that I helped her with.

We had lots of laughs over those late night games of Uno and the kids learned to work together, even if it was to conspire to not make me win.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad thing… and while I want to say it was too much of a good thing, it wasn’t. Because I don’t think that I can have too much fun with my kids. I thought that I could prior to this trip, but the things that we’ve done and the time that we’ve spent together has been amazing and I will cherish this pool time and those games of Uno for years to come.

But I can tell you, the next thing I teach my children is going to be to shuffle well… because I seemed to be the person who had to draw eleventy bajillion cards just to find a green or an 8.

Until next time…