I love facials and have one on the calendar for Dec 22nd, which is my first day off for Winter Break. Also getting my hair cut/colored, which hasn't been done since August.

In discussing camp last night with our daughter, she convinced us to spend a week with her as a staycation. Definitely a whose in charge here moment. I was so thrilled she's spending three weeks at the camp with a bus from the metro station that picks up at 8 and drops off at 5 (so no before/after care) and gives her a hot lunch (with choices) that I suppose she saw an opportunity.

That is great to have the summer camp settled. Cool to now be where I get to go off on trips and the kids have to take care of stuff while I am gone. And they drive me to the airport and pick me up.

I am up and finishing packing! I think DH left his Surface power supply at my sister's house or something, so decision to make on which other computer to bring. Vacation still means 6 electronic devices. 2 computers, 2 cellphones, iPad, and Nook. Maybe next time I will do one of those no power no internet vacations.

I started thinking about summer for the kids more than a month ago, but I haven't done anything about it yet (signups are usually in Feb-April here). This year Casper is 13, so too old for all the 5-12 camps. There are not very many teen camps, and she doesn't like children, so doesn't want a mother's helper gig. I think our best bet is going to be the zoo's teen volunteer program, but it's competitive.

If Casper's over 12, can't you leave her to her own devices? Give her a list of chores and boundaries of where she can and can't go when they're done? I guess there may be more laws and whatnot than when I was a kid, but that worked out all right for me.

Well, we have three weeks of camp settled, anyway, and another three on Jan 5th will need to happen. But a $400 discount is too good to pass up even if I don't want to be thinking about it now. I guess we also have our week at the beach with Sox settled, too, and a week of family vacation, so I'll have eight of eleven done.

What I really need to do is have my daughter get out of the house so I can wrap presents. Go away, kiddo!

We did some weeks of that last summer for Casper. It's just, 9 hours a day of your own devices turns into bingewatching CSI, apparently. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but a little structure and contact with other humans is nice too. Doing that for 11 weeks straight would be not that healthy.

That makes sense. Are there any summer school enrichment things available? Or library ones? Or a summer project Casper might get excited enough about to outweigh the lure of CSI?

Yeah, I remember my day camps at that age were pretty far afield, but interesting!

Oh god, camp. I think we're sending both kids to sleepaway camp for 2 weeks, and other than that I got NUTHIN'.

I love facials, but I'm sure it depends on the person doing them whether they're relaxing or just torture.

Timelies all!

We've got a few years before we have to worry about camp for Mr. S.

I've had one facial, and my skin didn't react well to it. Ah, well, not like there aren't other things I like at a day spa.