chicken soup

Home again from our trip to the Sunshine Coast. A highly eventful long weekend. I am exhausted. Lucky me, I came down with some horrible sore throat and ear ache thing Thursday, the day we left. But since I am Mom, I sucked it up, took drugs, and carried on as usual. Oh, and I drank quite a lot. Alcohol I mean. Completely medicinal of course. I really get why people bring nannies on holidays with them. My kids aren't even that little, but still young enough that I found myself constantly keeping them organized, finding socks, prepping food, cleaning up. I discovered after arriving at our cottage that 2 of them were missing toques and gloves, although both had assured me they were packed several times before we left. Realized one of them had not packed any long pants - this was while waiting for the ferry and she complained she was cold, and I did a double take and yes, there she was in capri leggings that came just to her knees. I was totally confounded, as I was so sure she had cozy pants on, and then finally figured out that she had CHANGED her clothes just before we left, without my knowledge and of course I didn't see her standing up out of the car until we arrived at the ferry terminal. It's only November, on the open ocean. Might get chilly. Ah well. We arrived in time for a nice evening and a fire on the beach in front of our cottage. And a hot tub, ahhhh. The next day we drove an hour up the coast, then hiked an hour in thru old growth rainforest to the Skookumchuk Narrows, something my hubby really wanted to see. It was pretty cool, a sea lion playing below us in the water, but the dog was going crazy for some reason. Moments later we found out why, when a terrible storm struck. Hail, thunder, lightning, trees falling across our path, the hour hike out pretty much sucked. My kids actually thought they were going to die for about an hour. They may never go back in the woods again. But the cottage awaited and after a subdued hour in the car trying to get warm again we make it back and again, the hot tub was waiting. The following day we ventured out briefly for a walk on a nearby beach, about as far as we could convince the kids to go after their adventure the previous day. We got rained on pretty hard once again, so declared the rest of the day a - yes, you guessed it - a hot tub day. By this time I was a believer - hot tubs make everything better. Me and my chicks enjoying the hot steamy water, soaking our cares away. Leaning back, listening to the wind high above in the trees, the waves on the beach. And then it was over. Almost. We all got up early the next morning and had one more hot tub for the road, then went through the ordeal of packing and cleaning and heading out. Spent the day working our way back down the coast, stopping in at an excellent craft fair, and late lunching at Molly's Reach in Gibsons, very nostalgic of my childhood with all the Beachcombers memorabilia. Managed to get on the 4:30 ferry home. We were all DONE by the time we pulled into our driveway. Unloaded the car, put a few things away, got into our jammies, made a snack for dinner, and then we were all at loose ends. Kate was starting to lose it, as was I, and in that moment I knew, if we just had a hot tub, everything would be okay. There's nothing a good hot tub won't cure. And if you have a cold like me, then chicken soup AND a hot tub.