It was the best time ever; for me, nothing beats family. Even in hot weather, when we're all rather hot and sweaty, but smiling. Virginia was wonderful. We had a 7-Day Bounce Ticket and spent two full days at Bush Gardens, one at Water Country USA, and one at Colonial Williamsburg. We also did the Jamestown Settlement and spent a day at Virginia Beach. Loved the history end, the kids loved the amusement park end. A very fun time - even after the 15 hour drive straight through yesterday. We left VA at 8:00 AM and were home to IL by 11:00 PM (there was an hour time change, and horrible rain sorms in KY and IN).

I was very good about tracking the spending daily (please note, not the same as budgeting - we scrimped and saved and cut back on normal fun to have more funds for vacation fun). Here are the amounts spent:

$691.75 hotels for 7 nites on priceline.
$751.75 entertainment (bounce tickets, Jamestown, WV Cavern, ghost tour, huge bounce slide)
$298.36 souvenirs and gifts (each child had $40 to spend, plus we got a bevy of salt water taffy and the standard mugs for inlaws, etc)
$405.30 for gas (2200 miles logged on odometer from start to finish)
$147.98 on groceries for the picnic there, snacks in the car and the hotel, breakfast food in the hotel room
$414.07 for dining out (we did some costly snacks, mostly Wendy's and a pizza, an expensive breakfast, a buffet at Golden Corral for $54 and then a dinner at a local VA Beach bar called Harpoon Larry's for $100).

All spent: $2,709.21

Now back to the reality of BTS supply and school shoe shopping, tons of our volunteer commitments are coming up, not to mention one son's party and other things). I had 157 emails in my box in only one week!

Definite good outcome from the vacation: unanimous conscent on the implementation of monthly family times out!

Next vacation to start saving for: California, June 2012 to visit my grandmother!