How You Know It's Serious

Each summer my sons and I head to my old stomping grounds for a few weeks. This year I've had a hard time making plans--lots of things to work around and well, my brain is tired.

But I finally started figuring it out. Got the last room in a rural hotel (to be fair, they only have twelve rooms), started looking at routes and trying to wrap my head around the miles and miles to drive. 

My father has started his list of random things I need to bring up, barbecue and specialties supplies he can't find up there. I'm sure my mom will have her own list soon.

My niece and I have started a little conversation about when we go to the zoo. Like she has on every other trip we've taken there, she's already planning to have strawberry ice cream.


But how do we know it's serious? I started making a stack of books for my kids to read on the trip.
(My own insane stack will wait a couple of weeks.)

Clothes and such? Eh. That will wait until the day before we leave. If I forget something, we know where the thrift shops are.