Vacation journal

When Wife and I went on our honeymoon, she bought a blank writing journal that featured an old-fashioned map on its cover. The intention of the book was to chronicle our trip, and we wrote in that journal (and a subsequent volume two, same style of cover) over several vacations. Gradually, our enthusiasm in filling the vacation journal waned. Our big problem was we were having too much fun on vacation -- at the end of the day, we were too tired to write, especially by hand. We would try to catch up days later, but never quite got the day reviewed as thoroughly as we could on the day of. Eventually, once we had kids, the vacation journal slipped into history. We still have it (and as I type this, I want to find it and reminisce), but we gave up on updating it.

With this post, I'm going to try to kick-start the vacation journal. Doing so might be even more important now because we only have a finite number of vacations with the boys. Besides enjoying every one of these vacations, I want to remember as much as I can from them. My family took two big vacations when I was young (both to Florida), and I wish I had kept a journal of those trips for a more complete recollection of those trips rather than the various bits and pieces I remember now.

So this was the first day of vacation:

-- We flew out this morning from Salt Lake City. We have mastered getting kids through security, and once again, it was a breeze. Wife bought bagels for breakfast before our flight.

-- The flight to Chicago was smooth. Littlest watches part of "Cars" and played Peggle on my phone, while Eldest watched "Kitten Party" and played "Plants and Zombies" on my phone. We got to the skies over Chicago and circled around the city to get the airport, which I always appreciate. My house growing up was situated between two landing paths (about a half-mile apart), and I used to sit in my backyard and watch planes go by on each side. This landing, I was on the wrong side of the plane to see my old house, but I still like seeing my hometown from above.

-- The weather in Chicago was hot and muggy. Very hot and very muggy. As a result, we weren't too active today after we arrived. We came to my dad's house, had lunch, and let the boys play ... inside. Wife and I went to Target and got our rental car. We got Thai for dinner. The boys and their grandfather walked the dog.

-- Wife, the boys, my dad, his dog and I walked to get ice cream in the heat. Littlest was a somewhat messy with his melting, quickly eaten chocolate cone. Eldest got mint chocolate chip and I got yummy peanut butter cookie dough. We walked home, and the boys got out of their messy shirts and into pajamas. I took them outside for a few minutes for them to try catching lightning bugs (we only got one) to finish off our night.

I am finishing off a Newcastle beer as I conclude this post. Until tomorrow ...

Click here for Day 2.

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