I've never had such a stressful vacation in my life, even though there were some good points--it was WAY too much driving for me. We left St Louis at 8am on Saturday 7/29 and checked into a hotel in New Jersey at 4:00 am 7/30. It doesn't take that long to drive to NJ, but if Mike is behind the wheel it does. He didn't make any reservations anywhere, I don't think he even knew exactly where he wanted to stay. We drove around for like 3hrs cuz every hotel room was booked, there was a convention of some sort there. We got a room FINALLY with one bed, which Mike, Melissa, Nathan and I all slept in. Stephen had to sleep on the floor. I got 4 hrs of sleep, then we got up to head to NYC. It was nice, if you can stomach the subway and the guy with the gun 5 ft away from us at Ground Zero. I would like to return someday without the kids. On Monday we went to Six Flags in NJ with a lovely family and we had lots of fun, even though it was pretty hot. I wish this family lived closer to us--they were so great!!! I joked around with the lovely mom and said "maybe we'll get to our hotel tonight before 4 am!!!". I should have kept my mouth shut--we left NJ Six Flags at like 8 pm and didn't check in the hotel in DC until 2 am. It was a SCARY hotel also, so we left there and went to the lovely Holiday Inn in Virginia--we paid a lot more, but it was SOOOO nice. Plus the restaurant had kids eat free, so it was well worth it. We stayed in Zanesville, Ohio on Wednesday night, and it was the nicest place we stayed the whole time. We swam in the indoor pool and the kids had fun--next year they want to go to Ohio for vacation.

Back to my stress--we went to DC on Tuesday, and we missed getting into the Capitol Bldg just barely--they had just given out the last passes. That's a bunch of crap--I pay so much in taxes, I should have my own room in the Capitol Bldg. We couldn't get into the Washington Monument either--same damn problem. They need to change a lot of things in DC. It was like 150 degrees outside and the kids all had red faces and Nathan had another heat rash, but at least I got to see the Hope Diamond!!!

OK, I'm done complaining for now. At least I got a week away from work. Now I'm back with deadlines and stress and worrying about the kids starting school next week and all the other crap. Aren't you glad you read this?