Today is the last day of classes before the girls kick off two weeks of spring break. They could definitely get spoiled to this extra time. Once we return to the states, they'll be back to just a single week of fun.
The youngest daughter is flying unaccompanied to Texas to spend a week with the grandparents and cousins. We've known all along the teen would be going to northern Greece on a Young Life service trip, so we had to figure out what to do with the first week of the break. As always, the younger one wants to go to Texas. It's irrelevant that we've lived in England for over a year and she has visited much of Europe. Given the opportunity to voice an opinion, she always spouts off TEXAS as her go-to answer when we ask where she would like to spend her next holiday.
I asked her if she wanted to go skiing for winter break - maybe France or Switzerland. Sure enough, she was interested in skiing... at the cousin's ski condo in Red River, NM. Don't get me wrong - it's a very nice place. That wasn't really what I had in mind, but it made perfect sense to her. She sure is one flag waving American. In the meantime, the teen is begging for exotic locales like Africa (to pet and have her pic taken with the meerkats), China (to pet and have her pic taken with the pandas), Morocco (to pet and have her pic taken with the monkeys)... a bit of a running theme with her.
So anyhoo, I was fine with the younger one flying to Texas and I offered to go with her but she was all, nah, I'll be fine and I'm not scared. Well alrighty then, because I can throw the money for my ticket at our Danube river cruise in July. I booked her ticket and was surprised that I had to pay $99 each way on top of the cost of airfare for the folks at the airlines to kinda keep some sort of eye on her. Hello - it's not like you've gotta change her nappy or warm up a bottle for her. That sounds like pretty pricey babysitting to me. And I'm the one who has the pleasure of sitting with her at the gate at Heathrow until her plane gets off the ground. Doesn't that sound like fun - just hanging out at one of the busiest airports on the planet for a couple hours entertaining her without the payoff of going somewhere new and exciting. I'll try not to shed a tear as I wave goodbye... and say hello to a week of FREE-DOM! I guess it's too late to arrange for the dog to fly with her because then I would have been completely footloose and fancy free.
Oh well - my consolation prize is that I shuffle the teen off to Greece the next day and have no kid responsibilities for a week. The dog and I will hold down the fort until the husband returns from his two week trip. I can clean house and not worry about some kid coming along right behind me to mess it up. I can grocery shop without having to purchase the requisite kid stuff I definitely don't need to be eating. I may see if I can go all week without turning on the cooktop burners or oven, he-he-he. Once all of the chicks return to the nest next weekend, we'll be prom dress shopping in London before heading to Belgium for a short visit. Happy Spring Break to me and Happy Easter to the rest of y'all!
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