"Waaah!"

Back to work this morning.  I've got tons to do to finish prepping for the weekend, but if I'm honest, I'm already thinking about what I'd like to do next time we get away.  

When I was a kid (maybe when you were, too) when we went back to school in the Fall, we'd go around the class and everyone would talk about what they did on their summer vacation. While that's interesting and all - especially if we got to hear about yours - I think the older I get, and the more stuff I've done in life, the better take-away from my vacation is what I learned, not so much what I did.  

Here's a few things I learned, how I learned them, and what I'm doing with that new knowledge:

1. Summer vacations are great and I think everyone should get at least three of them a year (if not more).  I learned that because we haven't had a vacation in a couple of years.  I think a week off between Christmas and the New Year is calling me.
2. It takes a minimum of four days and three nights just to decompress.  Accordingly summer vacation should be a minimum of nine days and seven nights.  I learned this because our vacation time (away from home) was four days and three nights.  At the exact moment I began to fully decompress, it was time to load up and head home.  No more mini-vacations for me.  I'm going for the full vacation experience next time.
3. If you take your vacation at a cabin somewhere, someone still has to do dishes and laundry.  I learned this because about the third day, I observed Leslie doing laundry. When I mentioned how cool it was to have a fully equipped cabin, she said, "Yes, it is, except I've been doing dishes and laundry since we got here.  You know...like when we're not on vacation."  I'm going to fix that before our next vacation.   
4. "Stay-cation", you know...staying at home while you're on vacation, is to actual vacation, like time in the penalty box is to playing hockey. I learned this because at the moment the decompression was wiped out by the ride down I-65, I began to think about all the tasks with which I would fill the remainder of my time off. And though - as I tweeted yesterday - my wife thinks yard-work is sexy (at least when I'm doing it), I'm not doing yard-work on my next vacation.  I wonder - now that I'm doubled over like a 90 year-old man after my losing battle with the electric hedge trimmer - if she still thinks I'm sexy?  Woot!
5. Church planting is tough on your kids.  I learned this not on vacation, but in the two years since our last one. And I can tell you this: the biggest vacation take-away for both Leslie and I is the time we got to spend with our three youngest (all teens).  I believe that we would take any kind of vacation, for any length of time, with yard-work at the front or back, and laundry and dishes - to see the kids enjoy quality time to communicate with us and each other like they did!  It was brief, but it was beautiful.

Okay, that's enough about us.  Later, I'll talk about you, as I post some thoughts on the remarkable thing that happened at Crossroads while we were gone.  Don't forget Sunday morning at Crossroads.  We're talking about SEX that SIZZLES.  And Sunday from 4PM-6PM, it's ROADIES 101.

Peace.