off the grid ...

First of all ... Happy New Year!

In case no one noticed, I've been completely and totally (and blissfully) offline line for the last 9 days ... what Manbug likes to call "off the grid". Why the absence?

Yup, those are real photos - photos that I took myself just a few days ago. In Aruba. Off the grid to be sure. I'll try to explain: when my widowed mother remarried 10 years ago at age 55, she married a man who had in his back pocket a 3-bedroom week-52 timeshare in Aruba. A man who, like her, also had 2 adult children. So the newlyweds quickly hatched a plan where they would go to the timeshare every year, and their adult children (and subsequent grandchildren) were invited to join them on a rotating every-other-year basis (her kids with them one year, and his kids the next). Um, yes please! Here's a running group of family photos from each trip - we call this the "obligatory sunset photo" - we try to recreate it each time we go b/c it's fun to look at them together and see how much we've changed over 10 years ...

Because there's a 2-year leap between each of these photos ('00 thru '10) it's pretty fun to see them all together ... that's a lot of time passing by!

Looking back on these 'Aruba year' photos, it sure looks like bliss, doesn't it? Indeed they were all blissful trips - well, mostly. Truth be told, there's a reason I don't 'talk it up' about Aruba ahead of time ... for whatever reason, each trip seems to go hand in hand with some sort of melodrama (my personal theory is the timing of week 52 is somewhat ill-fated, I think the stress of Christmas makes for a rocky starting point). How bad could it be you ask? Well, in that first photo with just the 3 of us, do you notice how my ladybug's face is sheet white? She was about to get sick - very sick - on the flight home to Boston the next day. Of course, she threw up all over herself and us for most of the flight - and did I mention the five-hour flight delay? We finally got home around midnight, after 12 hours of traveling, the stench of vomit had been on us all day and I was so traumatized I vowed we'd never travel that far with a baby again (non-stop to Aruba is just short of a 5 hour flight from Boston - not for the faint of heart). But as you can see, we rallied and stuck with the every-other-year Aruba plan that had been set into place. And I'm thankful to report that our karma has never sunk quite as low as that first year back in 2000!

I don't mean to sound ungrateful or whiny, I'm just trying to convey the humorous dysfunctional reality that seems to lead up to each of those sun-kissed family photos that paint such a seemingly perfect picture of each trip. It's uncanny, but there's always something that creates undue stress with each 'Aruba year' ... we've pulled all-nighters just to pack, been delayed by snowstorms, hampered by illness, sidelined by airline delays - and it's always a fine line between whether we laugh about it or cry! Fortunately, this year's drama was comparatively mild - first, we did have some illness drama on our plate in the days before the trip, but it was manageable and fairly short-lived thank goodness (always makes me hold my breath and say an extra prayer after the trauma of 2000, however!) ... and, second, this year the timing of week 52 collided with Christmas, it started on Christmas Eve ... so we decided to celebrate our traditional Christmas at home a few days early, fly down on the 24th, and bring our stockings to Aruba for a small celebration on the 25th. It wasn't ideal, but there was no way around it. Anyway, in spite of each Aruba year dishing out something to overcome, we keep finding our way back - wouldn't you?!

In any event, those low points are just a small part of the reality behind our family vacation photos - behind anyone's family photos really. Drama or not, we are lucky as ladybugs to have this travel opportunity when it knocks every 2 years! Not only is it a little slice of paradise with every sunset, but what an incredible place for the girls to connect with their grandparents ... we take beach walks, collect shells, body surf the waves, play pool games, eat out, stay up late, sleep in ... we feel fortunate beyond measure. So fortunate that now that I'm home, it all seems like a dream and these photos barely seem real! I've spent the better part of today enduring a harsh reality check: re-stocking the fridge, trudging through 5 loads of laundry, packing the shorts, sandals and swimsuits back up in their bins, and accepting the reality that tomorrow brings with it the dreaded routine of alarm clocks, lunchboxes, and homework ... *sigh* ... so long, Aruba ... so long, vacation ...