Summer Vacation

Ben and I have been married for almost 14 years, Charlie is 13 and Dylan will be 11 in June. We have *never* been on a vacation. Ben and I didn't have a honeymoon. For his entire Navy career (14 years) his 30 day leaves have been spent driving "home", dividing up time between families, spending 3 nights here, 2 nights there, trying to fit a year's worth of family time into 10 days or so, then driving back to VA. ("Home" is WI, approx 1200 miles one way). Oh, it also involves finding people that are both reliable and close-to-free to watch the dogs and stock... Although we love our family, and visits are part of living across the country, it is nothing short of exhausting. THIS year we are being "selfish" and we ARE taking a family vacation. During Ben's 30 days I'm taking my 7 days and we're going camping and ATVing in the mountains of West Virginia. We're so serious about this that I skipped a breeding I'd liked to have done because it would have highly complicated the having someone care for the animals, part of the planning. Check out http://www.trailsheaven.com/ I haven't looked at it much yet, this was Ben's brain-child, but it looks like a really great way to spend the week. We'll need to buy a 15' trailer that loads from the side (Lowe's for $1500) to put 3 of the 4 wheelers and the 4th will load in the back of my pick up. I think we'll opt for the most rustic cabin type thing rather than tenting, unless it's way too expensive. I'm anxious to look thru it and see if you can do things like canoeing etc. I'm sure that's there to do. We're all pretty excited. We need to firm up a week so I can put in for my vacation at work. Work is going great. I'm finally about done playing "catch up" in my 2 new departments and have started to get some stuff done. I put in some long hours last week before "company" and about lost my mind on Thursday night. Company came Friday morning and my 2 depts. were good. In fact I guess we (I say we, because my over-night stocker is GREAT, she is big part of holding dept. 13 (chemicals) together) have the best "air care" section in the district. (that's based on number of outs, on-hands correct, filled to the latest modular change, if there are outs, they're "dotted" and ordered, etc). After an exasperating day on Thursday (7am-7pm, followed by 4:30am on Fri) Kevin (store manager) and Darrell (co-manager) made it all worth it by really being encouraging. Kevin told me "I know good when I see it and I told you a long time ago, whatever you want to do in this store, you can do"- followed by him saying he doesn't just say that to people- and I know he doesn't- most people I've talked to have never heard him say that kind of thing to them. And Darrell told me "we have several stars in this store- and you're one of 'em". I can't even tell ya how great their timing was!! It's so good to know that giving a damn and doing all you can do (along with "getting it") is noticed. I know I'm lucky to work for people like Kevin and Darrell. I know being an assistant is the next move. The money is WAY better, however it's hard to stay in the same store and my cake-walk m-f 7-4 will be out the window. Although I certainly work my share of OT, even during these NO OT months! The last 4 weeks I have averaged almost 50 hours/week.

Well, Ben is home with the pool chemicals, so I'm gonna go out there with him. I'm going to put $50 a pay check aside so I have trial money for the summer trial at Breezy Hill with all 4 dogs for both days.