{The Real} Vacation Recap

     I posted our vacation highlights the other day. I could leave it at that and let everyone think we had the perfect little holiday with our perfect little family in a beautiful place where we saw lots of nice stuff and took a bunch of pretty pictures, but that wouldn't be completely honest. And if there's anything I want this blog to be, it's honest and real. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all allow us to only share the best little snippets of our lives and let everyone think that everything's great all the time, but I don't want this blog to turn into that. So, having said that, here's "the real" vacation recap.

     
     Our flight departed at 7:55am. I should have known when I booked it that a flight that early in the day was a recipe for disaster, and while it wasn't actually a disaster, it did get our trip off to a rocky start. By the time we got to the airport, parked, shuttled to the terminal, checked in, got me a coffee, argued a bit, and got through security, we were being paged to our gate because our flight had already boarded. Yep, we were those people...the ones who come huffing and puffing onto the plane last...the ones the flight attendants have apologized to the rest of the passengers for. We sat down, buckled up, got a quick run-through of the instructions for flying with a baby and literally minutes later we were taking off. In a way, this worked out well, because we didn't have to sit through pre-boarding and regular boarding while trying to keep Tessa entertained, but it made for a very stressful start to our trip and set the tone for the next couple of days.

Awkward family photo? I set the timer and didn't quite get into position in time! I thought it suited this post.

     Once we arrived, we weren't able to check in to our hotel right away (which is the only thing we really wanted to do because we all needed naps!) so we were forced to kill some time. We wandered through downtown and a park, and tried to enjoy being in this beautiful place, but there was a thick tension in the air between me and my husband. I was frustrated by what I felt was poor communication during our trip and he wasn't sure what he had done wrong and was feeling like he was walking on eggshells. We finally found a quiet park bench out of the way, sat down and tried to smooth things over. We realized that we were both being overly sensitive, largely due to our exhaustion and the stress of traveling with our daughter for the first time and we were taking that out on each other (or at least I was taking mine out on him).

     The next day wasn't a whole lot better. Tessa had had a rough first night in the hotel (which means everyone had a rough first night) and getting her down for her morning nap was an hour-long struggle with her wailing the whole time and us switching off trying to settle her. I even cried along with her for a bit because I was so tired and frustrated and had no idea what else to do for her. Cam was finally able to get her to sleep and we sat down, looked at each other and asked each other why we had even bothered coming. The whole trip was starting to feel like it had been a bad idea.

Everyone was very tired and grumpy the first few days...

   
     The worst moment came a day later. We were driving back to the hotel after a morning of sightseeing and were planning to take a bit of a break before meeting up with friends for the afternoon. I made some snarky, unnecessary comment, which led to another argument. We parked the car in the hotel parkade and just sat there in silence. There we were, in a beautiful place, during what should have been a relaxing, fun, memorable first family holiday, and we were miserable and mad at each other. One of us finally said something like "this sucks" or "this isn't working". I looked at Cam and asked "what do we do?" My wise, patient husband said the one word that we I had been forgetting..."We need to have a little grace".
   
     He was absolutely right. Grace was needed, and badly. Grace for each other during stressful, exhausting, frustrating moments. Grace for our daughter when she struggled to sleep in a new place, a different time zone, and through teething. And grace for ourselves when we mess it all up. We both apologized and committed to being more patient and grace-full with one another, and the rest of the trip was much better. I'm sorry that the first half of our trip was mostly unpleasant, but I'm thankful that we were able to salvage the last few days and that even in the midst of those rough first days, there were still some great moments.

     I came across this wheelbarrow of tools while wandering through Butchart Gardens. I wasn't intending on it turning into a life lesson when I took the picture, I just thought it was interesting. There it sat, right in the middle of a gorgeous place, full of its dirty tools and dead flowers and weeds. And the entire time we were at the gardens, we saw workers weeding, watering and pruning. It reminded me that beautiful things don't just magically happen - they take a lot of work. And even though the gardens look beautiful and complete, they're always a work in progress - the ugliness needs to be removed to make the beauty even more beautiful. Kind of like me.