Off we go....

Road trip tomorrow.

I'm ready.

Part of Abby's 14th birthday present was a week long trip to her best friends house in Nashville. So we're heading south.

I'll leave in the morning with the 3 kids and hopefully be in Nashville Sunday, Monday the boys and I are off to Alabama where they'll enjoy "Camp Grandparents" for a while.

Then ... next Wednesday I fly to Germany to meet Jeff for a week in the Alps.

Jeff's been in India for a week and has to return their the first of August. Then he spends the month of September in Seattle preparing for his new gig.

We're in desperate need of some quiet time together.

I struggle with what to do with the few days we have together - it's been a pattern for our entire married life. If you have one weeken in 6 weeks - what do you do with it?

I guess everyone would handle it differently. For me when the guilt train roars thru with how we should be taking the family on a family vacation instead of just him and me and a bunch of mountains and chocolate - I come back to the hard choice of priorities.

I find "priorities" to be a hard discussion with moms - especially stay at home moms. Not necessarily the concept or ordering of priorities -but the willingness to walk it out. We become so focused on the kids that everything gets out of kilter.

The hard truth today is that this mom is running on empty; mom and dad are strangers they've been a part so much recently - and that's not really a great way to have a "family" holiday.

In lieu of that - mom gets a quiet 9 hour flight across the pond to decompress and a week with just Jeff - we're going to leisurely tour some of our favorite spots in Germany, Austrai and a few new ones in Switzerland and check the Ward foundation for cracks.

The kids will definetly win in this deal.

Talk to you when we return.