The rain, rain, rain
Came down, down, down
In rushing, rising riv’lets
‘Til the river crept out of its bed
And crept right into piglet’s

To say that this past Memorial Day weekend’s vacation with the kids (a longed-for trip after a year of layoff woe and contract work sans PTO benefits, among other laments) was…less of a lovely time and more of a lemon is an understatement.

Imagine, if you will, a family.  They are nice, mild-mannered, a bit boring really (despite our tattoos, long hair, and crunchy granola vibes).  They decided to stay in a yurt in the mountains with their two darling children for the weekend, and look forward to the quiet, the little canoe in the pond, the friendly farm horses, flying kites, picnicking, romping about as one does when one has a meadow and hills at one’s disposal, and two small children itching for adventure.

Imagine, then, that the stomach flu hits.  It is mean, nasty, and out for vengeance.

And then it rained.

And rained.

And rained some more.

While we were staying in a yurt (which is, for the uninitiated, a big round one-room tent-house, although THANK GOODNESS it had a full working bathroom, ahem ahem).  With two children under four.

Which might not have been so bad, if one adult wasn’t knocked over by the stomach flu, rendering them both (frankly) useless and in need of quiet, while children are trapped with them in a little one-room tent because of the rain.  And this was no ordinary rain, rest assured. We’re talking BUCKETS of rain, endlessly pelting our cozy little yurt.

Did I mention we were also “adopted” by a little black barn cat our first day who followed us around, literally crossing our paths at every opportunity?  (My spouse is allergic, naturally.) Talk about luck…

Then there were the two restaurants who both seemed to lose our orders, the cancelled trail rides (both the original AND the rescheduled rain date) due to muddy trails, and the bedtime shenanigans of two children who are restless, cabin feverish, and cranky due to all of the above.

Look.  It could have broken us.  At some point — maybe when my husband was vomiting by the side of the road re: stomach flu — we could have said, this is the Worst Vacation Ever.  And we did! We did say this! We could and did, oh boy. But as soon as the words left my mouth, I couldn’t help but think: well, this certainly blows our old “bad vacation” anecdotes out of the water.  And from there, that was it: everything was Bad Vacation Story To Laugh At Later fodder. Because it turns out that the one thing you can absolutely take away from a lemon vacation is that: the badge of honor stories of how you survived it.

When I finally got to uploading all my photos to make our yearly Vacation Album, there was only one thing to do: call it The Lemonade Album, of course.  

Because sometimes you really do have to take those lemons and turn them into lemonade. I will FOR SURE be in the running for Best Worst Vacation Story for at least a while…until the next one, I expect!

So go forth, take your lemons, and squeeze those suckers into the best dang lemonade you can.  (Is that a funny thing to say to breastfeeding mamas? Welp, I’m saying it! Laugh all you want…if you can find the good even in the difficult and rotten and disappointing parts of life (not just vacation), I think you’re gonna rock this motherhood thing.