Amy Giampetroni is a happily married woman, a full-time stay-at-home mom to a preschool boy and a part-time stepmom to an adolescent girl, living in Wisconsin. You can read more about Amy here and at her blog, Average Everyday Super Woman. Click here to check out Amy’s other posts on This Mommy Gig.

Late Sunday afternoon I returned from a week of vacation up in northern Wisconsin with my entire family and all I can say is, “Oy vey!”

For starters, many of you have heard - or experienced - the severe flooding that ravaged much of southern Wisconsin earlier this month. Unfortunately, it was the source of major headaches for me and many other travelers heading west or north on Friday, June 13th (yes, I’m aware of the superstitious nature of that date, believe me!). Case in point: What is typically no more than a six hour drive took me over eight hours to complete.

I was supposed to meet my mother north of Madison in the mid-afternoon and caravan up north with her, but I simply couldn’t get through to Madison, no matter how hard or what route I tried. I was rerouted no fewer than four times just between Milwaukee and Madison, at which point I gave up trying to head west and simply chose to head north. Unfortunately, my efforts to travel north to reconnect with Hwy. 51 proved completely fruitless, and I ended up being rerouted (no fewer than five times) so infuriatingly far east that I realized I’d have been entirely better off if I’d just left from MIlwaukee heading north in the first place!

To make matters worse, while completely lost somewhere in Fond du Lac county, I unintentionally exceeded the speed limit on my way through a small town in the middle of nowhere while trying to find a highway sign I might recognize from my last map-checking stop that would get me heading NORTH. I was so frustrated and exhausted that I almost burst into tears (that’s so cliche, isn’t it?), but I simply didn’t have the energy at that point.

I tried calmly explaining to the officer the ridiculous, endlessly frustrating, and heavily rerouted journey I’d already been on and the fact that I was still hours away from my destination and had no idea how to get there from where we sat on the side of the road. The officer just nodded his head and asked me about my driving record; I said it was perfect (which it was). I presumed that he’d asked the question so he could decide whether to ticket me or warn me, and I prayed he’d show mercy and just let me off with a warning (which I’d most certainly have heeded). Unfortunately, he happened to be a hard-nosed guy who seemed to take an excessive amount of joy in giving me my first speeding ticket, worth FOUR points on my record. Grrrr… I left with a bitter taste in my mouth (and many curse words curled up a little deeper down) and some patronizingly given directions which the officer said “should” get me back to Highway 51 (never mind that I’d already heard that word more times than I cared to count that day).

Another four hours later, I finally reached my destination. We rolled up to the lake house after 10pm… We should’ve been there by 7pm. My younger brother had a cold beer waiting for me, God bless him.

Here’s the good part: I love my family. I love spending time with my parents, my brothers and my sister, and their families. We have SO much fun together, laugh so hard, play games of Cranium and Texas Hold ‘Em, and just enjoy our week together more than I can possibly say. Within an hour, my brother had me laughing so hard my sides hurt, and all my silly woes of the day melted away.

Unfortunately, the flooded and impassible roads weren’t the only things foiling all of our best-laid plans: Mother Nature had more surprises in store. Last year’s vacation was my definition of perfect in terms of weather, with 75-80 degree temperatures and plenty of sunshine every single day. This year? Not so much. We got lucky two days when the temperature went above 70 degrees, but we could only swim on one of those days because the other came with winds so chilly that the mere thought of coming out of cold water into colder wind sent chills down our collective spines.

On the plus side, where the weather was so gorgeous last year that we spent all our time in the water, this year we actually spent a bit more time in town, shopping and go-carting, which is always a big hit with my family, from my 5-year-old son and nephew right up to my fifty-something parents!

I always hate when the fun comes to an end, and it always comes too soon with some of my siblings, who have to leave early due to work or other plans. My sister and nephew left on Wednesday afternoon because my sister - a nurse practitioner in the Eau Claire area - had to work Thursday and Friday, and my brother and sister-in-law left Thursday afternoon because my brother had to attend his best friend’s rehearsal dinner and wedding Friday night and Saturday back in the Madison area. While it was lovely to spend a few days alone with my parents, I hate seeing my sibs leave early, not to mention that it was hard for my son not to have his nephew to play with.

This was a bittersweet trip to the lake house, as the owners of the house informed me a month ago that they may sell the house this year. It needs a LOT of work and they haven’t got the time or resources to keep up with it anymore, not to mention that the husband has MS and simply isn’t physically able to do the work himself these days. My parents considered making an offer, but I’m really not kidding when I say the house needs a TON of work - as in, it’s probably best to look at razing it and rebuilding. And at the price my friend and her husband were tossing around, that just wouldn’t be feasible for my parents. Which means that we will have to find another place to rent before next June to continue the family fun. That’s fine and all, and I’m sure we’ll have fun wherever we go. But it’ll be hard not to return to the same place our children and we have come to love over the past four years.

Oh well. Here’s to another fun week with my family, and to many, many more, wherever we may be!

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Tags: family, vacation