Distractions.

We realized something on this trip. We realized that we cannot get enough time with our dear friends who live way too far away from us (they had to leave a couple of days early). We realized that we never run out of things to talk about with each other. And we realized that we can have a good time for about 5 days at the most before missing our kids turns into a slight desperation of missing our kids. So we spent the last couple of days of our trip ramping up the distractions to keep our minds occupied amidst the "I wonder what they're doing right now. I wonder if someone put an extra pillow under Evie's little head for her cough at night. I wonder what Parker's favorite part of school was today..."

We arrived home tonight to squeals of glee (them and us) and spent the next four hours before bedtime chatting and catching up. Parker taught us new math games he learned at school, Everly reenacted answering the door for trick or treaters and we all poured over the photos we took to show them the time we had and the spots we scouted out to revisit as a family. And then we kissed and hugged and snuggled them in their beds way past their bedtime and talked to them until their eyes finally closed. And then we stayed just a little bit longer. It feels so good to be home.

Here's how we enjoyed distracting ourselves...

 We found every delicious bakery we could and enjoyed many a treat at each one.

 

We also found multiple delicious cafes to drink coffee at and eventually wandered into a bookstore and treated ourselves to a book to enjoy over said coffee.

 We went kyaking on smooth and pristine waters.

 

 We went hiking to Englishman Falls. This is a photo of the aftermath of the falls that was right behind me, but the falls were literally so HUGE that I couldn't get a photo of them with my wide-angle lens. It was like a mini version of Niagara Falls and then all that water that water disappeared into a rock cavern and shot out the other side. It was unbelievable.

 We rode a lifeboat in the pouring rain out to a tiny island where we enjoyed lunch at a floating pub.

 And Jeremy noted this combines a few of his loves in life - docks, saltwater, pubs and beer.

 And then we drove up to a gigantic bridge over a river and went ziplining. Very fun. Very distracting.

 It was also pouring down rain during that excursion, but we are not fair-weather people.

 It was good to find out that no matter how much we could pack in or look forward to this vacation, we miss our kids. And sometimes it feels really good to miss them. And good to get home.