Vacay

It feels like my little family goes months and months without seeing our relatives, or without hearing much beyond the occasional friendly phone call or emailed pics. Suddenly, July comes, and we attempt to squeeze in a certain amount of vacation time together, all at once. Most of us have kids in school, and some of the rest of us are schoolteachers. That's why the hurry before summer vacation ends.

Next week is a family reunion on my husband's side, at Lake Tahoe. Four adult siblings and their families. We rent the same cabin every year. It's an unglamourous, sprawling place - cheap but huge - more like a cult compound than a vacation spot. For a week it will be filled with teenagers and drop-in guests and marathon Monopoly games (oy) and family movies and sand and sunscreen bottles and grown-ups who know how to mix the perfect martini. I can't wait.

The week after that, I'm less confident about. My side of the family is more spread out across the country. That means we don't see each other as regularly as my husband's folks do. So my daughter's and my oft-postponed "trip back East" will consist of a few days in West Virginia and a few near St. Louis, MO, and I'm fairly sure the people we're there to visit will try and cram a month's worth of tourism into the space of a few short days. I've already warned my girl that we St. Guliks believe sleep is for wussies.

That's my next two weeks in a nutshell. And I almost mean that literally.