Vacation - all I never wanted

I'm trying not to get labeled for our family vacations, and yet I'm not sure that we aren't already well past that point with those who keep up with ours. You know how you have "accident prone" friends or acquaintances? We're becoming one of those in the vacation category.

A brief history...

About five years ago, Westin ran into a pointing out corner, split his head open, and had to get five stitches in the middle of his forehead on the first night we were at my sister's house in Alabama.

Last summer we had a great time at Guadalupe River State Park until we noticed Daniel, our youngest, not feeling so well. When we got home the doctor said he had pneumonia.

This spring break we took the pop-up to Rusk State Park to ride on the Texas State Railroad and spend the week. At the end of the first full 24 hours I had the flu and ran a high fever for the next five days.

This summer, we made plans to go to Port Aransas with one of my wife's college roommates and her family. But then we moved that week, so we decided to do something low impact. We went to her parents' cabin arriving late Monday night. Before noon on Tuesday, our dog, Argon had gotten bitten by a copperhead, and we were racing to the vet. He's fine, but later that afternoon when we saw a snake swimming in the pond while we were swimming, we sure didn't feel safe going back in there for the lazy days of floating and relaxing we had planned.

This list is depressing. For sometime I've been planning a newsletter article about how vacation helps me be better at my first ministry to my family and helps me keep in perspective that God is God and I'm just the pastor of the church. I don't know that that will get written.

Maybe it can be traced to getting the dog. I think the first vacation with significant problems was the one where he ran under the mobile home that was being loaned to us and pulling the phone wires out from it. Was it that same trip when the steering cables broke on the boat being loaned to us by the same person?

Vacation - all I never wanted. And yet, I keep looking forward to them.

Oh, all of this summer's vacation wasn't a complete bust. Fortunately we found Lake Tejas (http://www.esc5.net/laketejas/), and it was great, but we finally just decided just to come on home, do some unpacking, maybe squeeze in some dissertation work, read Harry Potter, catch a movie. We're also planning some day trips - Moody Gardens, Houston Museum of Natural Science, etc. to finish out the time. Pray for us.