at least

On Friday we were excitedly packing for a trip to the mountains. We had such wonderful expectations for our last little hoo-rah before school starts. Our main goal was to attend a family reunion on Sunday. However, since it is a three hour trip from here, we thought we'd venture up on Friday night and enjoy the surroundings. Perhaps it would be cooler than it is here. Perhaps we'd enjoy meandering through the quaint little downtown, poking our heads into the neat little shops. Maybe we'd be able to dip our toes in a mountain brook under the shade of the dense forest canopy. If we played our cards right, the little ones would nap long enough for us to splurge on a nice family dinner somewhere. These were our expectations.

Here was the reality:
The cooler temps we were hoping for... well, let's just say that upper 90's and extreme humidity weren't what we had in mind.
We did meander through downtown.... in the car.
Poking our heads into neat little shops turned into me running through a thrift store while King waited in the air-conditioned car with the kids.
Splashing in a cool mountain brook was not realized, though we were teased by watching the river run through the protected land of Pearson's Falls.
The nice family dinner ended up being burgers at Wendy's after an hour of riding around trying to find a restaurant whose wait time for being seated was less than 45 minutes.

Expectations. Kathy from Lessons from the Laundry writes about them this week too. She so eloquently paints the image: "When a day doesn’t live up to the pretty little picture we’ve painted then we feel like a kid the day we found out our mom throws our art in the trash." So true. So true.

But, I refuse to let the reality of it all to get to me. We did have some fun moments. Like when the kids were all sitting on a boulder, watching the massive amount of water tumble down . Perhaps the picture we took can become the photo we send at Christmas. King and I got to go down to the lobby both Friday and Saturday night after the kids went to bed and have a glass or two of wine. We got to unwind with the one of the owners of the inn. And we had a great time visiting with relatives we don't get to spend as much time with as we'd like to.

I choose to see it as "that trip to the mountains" where nothing seemed to go right, but at least we never gave up trying to make it as great as it could possibly be.