![\"\"](\"http:\/\/katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/7\/jograss.jpg\" "\\"Evening\\"")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Ah, vacation\u2026 It\u2019s not an easy thing to get a family, especially one with a young child, out of town. There\u2019s so much preparation. There\u2019s the food planning, the grocery shopping, the packing (you have to make sure you have cute yet practical clothes for all weather conditions, the good sunscreen, the sun hat, and for goodness sake don\u2019t forget Baby Chloe and Monkey).<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the drive and the screaming when the girl decides she\u2019s bored and had enough. There\u2019s the running around at the rest stop. There\u2019s the car snacking and the tears when you run out of \u2018ting cheese (string cheese). Then there\u2019s loading everything onto the boat, bribing the child into the life vest, leashing the dog and trying to keep her from pulling you into the water as you walk down the dock. There\u2019s the boat ride where you\u2019re trying to keep the kid awake because you know if she drifts off the real nap will not happen. There\u2019s the unloading of the boat and the loading of another car and the driving to the house.<\/p>\n
Once you get there, there\u2019s putting the girl to bed for her nap and unloading the cooler and the totes full of groceries and removing sheets from furniture and opening blinds. By then it\u2019s pretty much time to start dinner. There\u2019s the cutting, the chopping, the marinating. There\u2019s packing up dinner fixings and the vitamins and the sippy cups of milk and going to the parent\u2019s house. There\u2019s the greeting of the nieces and the combining of chopped items and marinated meats and there\u2019s kids and dogs and more kids everywhere, running, there\u2019s the running, then there\u2019s the crashing and the crying, and the requisite stealing of toys.<\/p>\n
Then, finally, it\u2019s cocktail hour. There\u2019s the pouring of beverages and the consumption of guacamole. There\u2019s the sun as it begins its descent, there are hummingbirds at the feeder, there\u2019s the dying wind and the still water and the one ferry boat passing by the one fishing boat tied to one buoy. There\u2019s a set table and kids around it (or close enough) and dogs sprawled out sleeping in the sun and there\u2019s this family and this gin and tonic and grilled ribs and salad. There\u2019s the sun warming the back of your neck. There\u2019s this perfect moment when everything good and worthy comes together and you sit with your people in the most beautiful place you know and exhale.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
I hope you\u2019re all finding lots of these moments this summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ah, vacation\u2026 It\u2019s not an easy thing to get a family, especially one with a young child, out of town. There\u2019s so much preparation. There\u2019s the food planning, the grocery shopping, the packing (you have to make sure you have cute yet practical clothes for all weather conditions, the good sunscreen, the sun hat, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mom","category-popular","category-the-island"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":691,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions\/691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}