National Lampoon's "Laguna Vacation"

This year my parents, my brother and his family flew out to vacation with us here in Southern Cal. Visions of National Lampoon's 'Christmas Vacation' come to mind, it's really funny when three families join together under one roof for 8 days. Six adults, 3 teenagers, a four year old and a large Labrador retriever made up our party of eleven.

Since we all wanted a change of scenery we headed down and rented a lovely beach house in south Orange County, Laguna Beach to be exact. Grocery shopping was the first item on the list to be done; everyone has those certain items they want so my husband David (Clark), my brother Jeff and I loaded up and off we went. Now, there was a grocery store less than two blocks from our rental, but my husband David, wanted to show Jeff the area, so we went south and went south and went south…then came upon the most expensive grocery store on earth! Things were beautiful, just gorgeous, but….we dearly paid for each item (3 times over) and well that was just the beginning of the trials and tribulations and fun! And of course checking out of the grocery store, retail stores and restaurants always ended in the checker or whoever was on the other side of the counter, asking us where we were from. Comments such as, "I just love your accent" or "you sound so cute" or "you sound more southern than Missouri" or "get rid of that accent"….I could go on and on, but you get the picture right? Californians do not realize that they too have an accent. Or maybe I should say it's their LACK of an accent. Its just a non-accent, if you will.

A few days into our family vacation I came down with stomach flu and ended up in the emergency room of the Southcoast Medical Center. It didn't take long before my husband David came down with it as well. In here lies another resemblance to the movie 'Family Vacation'! The only good thing I can think of to say about my illness was that it was wonderful having my Mom there in the ER taking care of me!

Another interesting aspect of our vacation was the waking hours we all keep. My family stays up late and sleeps late versus my brother Jeff's family are early to bed early to rise. Somewhere in-between are my parents. So I guess its fair to say that someone was up around the clock! The old saying that you have to go back to work to get rest fits here for everyone involved.

After 8 days of the family vacation everyone returned home. I feel sure we all had a great time, will have some funny stories to tell on each other or maybe to retell our grandchildren someday. One thing is for sure, it was a real trip, if you know what I mean.