Arhg!

First the rains came, then the lands became inundated with flocks and evil swarms of bloodthirsty zombie spawn-- so freaking many that I've taken to dressing in head to toe coverings, like a FLDS-slash-headscarf wearing muslim in my attempts to keep them from biting me, some 100+ at a time.
When I was picking strawberries this afternoon, I could run my hand along my headscarf and crush whole hand fulls of them at a time, while dozens dive bombed for my eyeballs. Ewwwwwwww!
It's not bad enough that the strawberries, instead of the golf ball sized ones I had last year, are now quarter sized and smaller due to the flooding-- but I'm being eaten alive and left itching in my attempts to get them off the plants and into the freezer. Boo.
So far, I have 2 large ziploc bags, with probably a couple more to go before they're done. And while they're sad little strawberries, only a shadow of their former selves, they'll taste just fine in their next lives as strawberry margaritas and strawberry rhubarb pies... and I honestly should be grateful that the plants didn't just up and die having been under water for the better part of a couple weeks.
Sigh! I also got about 2 large bags of chopped rhubarb in the freezer, also not happy that it was temporarily an aquatic plant for a spell...

So I'm trying to plan a vacation for a chunk of time I've had reserved for over a month-- and I have absolutely NO idea what to do. None. Nada. Zilch. We're going to Chicago to see Cirque Du Soleil over the 4th of July weekend, but there's no holiday festivities going on (go figure...), and other than wandering around in Grant Park, Millennium Park, etc, I have no clue what to do in the Windy City. I'd like to check out Old Town/Greek Town, maybe China Town and a Japanese grocery (the kids love Japanese candy a la Woodmans), and maaaaaaaayybe take the kids to see Blue Man Group. But then after we return home, what to do for the remaining 5+ days?

I was thinking about going the tourist route and heading to the Wisconsin Dells-- we've never been there during the summer and might like the Mt Olympus theme park, Wisconsin Ducks, Wizard Quest, etc, and oogle the "waaaaaaay worse than dinky strawberries" outcome of the flooding in the area... do that for a couple days, hike at Devil's Lake/Parfrey's Glen for a few hours and then head back home to rescue the chickens. After that, we can do a day trip to Milwaukee (art museum, ride bikes by the lake, drool over the mansions of the rich and fabulous, take a class at Whole Foods, etc and etc), ride the Glacial Drumlin Trail and then wind up the week with a big nerd-a-lee trip to the Renaissance Faire, childhood workplace of old (and thus a nemesis-- I kindof reached my saturation point for that place years and years ago... but the kids like it).

I'm also trying to plan a trip to Peninsula State Park for the end of August-- love their bike trails, and both kids know how to sail so maybe we can rent a sailboat for the day, etc....
There's so little time available to take actual vacations, thus it's just so much easier to travel to familiar places vs head to parts unknown. That, and the kids aren't exactly gung ho travellers, making it hard to navigate uncharted waters with two boat anchors in tow, if ya know what I mean (one heavy object being a teenager who is horrified she can't get a signal to text her friends or find an outlet to plug in her straightener, and the other would rather be home playing on his computer) Sheesh! Kids these days...:-)

I'm hoping to head to the Craftacular that's happening this Saturday up in Madison, wheeeeeee! If anyone is up for a roadtrip, lemme know-- fun times and good food await us in Madison: