Happy Friday!! Who’s ready for the weekend? :raises hand: We’re apparently going to see Godzilla tonight and I have a graduation to go tomorrow morning so we’ve got some things to do but we’re not too busy this weekend, which is nice.

So, first and foremost, as you can tell from the title, I am putting a pause on Casual Friday, likely until the fall. Being an educator and being on summer break…my whole life, for now, is basically Casual Friday, so I don’t really need an outlet for my angst/anger over a lack of Casual Friday like I do during the school year. That being said, I’m going to change it up a little for the summer, so I’m not fully doing away with a Friday post; I might make it a weekend sales post, not sure yet. Whatever I do decide will “premiere” next Friday!

Switching gears:

We leave for vacation two weeks from today, which we are both very excited about.

While my school year is over, Devon is still in school for almost another week and a half. The students last day is next Friday and then faculty have to report the Monday and Tuesday after to do final professional development and close out their rooms and whatnot.

Basically, he’s been cursing my life for a hot minute now because he’s still dealing with end of the year angst and…I’m not. I can’t tell you how many times a day he’s texting me with, “listen to what just happened”, which is hilarious, ya know, to me. So, he’s very ready for vacation because, despite my warnings, he didn’t realize high school juniors could be so taxing on the sanity.

I tried to warn him…junior year is evil. I don’t know why, it just is. Every year.

For those not keeping up, we are going to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. We did have another vacation in planning stages when a friend gifted us with a wintery tour of a couple of the vineyards out there for our anniversary; so we decided to change course and make that our actual anniversary trip and visit as many of the 20+ vineyards there are in that area.

We’re going to be gone from Friday until Wednesday, so it’s just enough time to hang out, relax, see the gorgeousness that is the Shenandoah Valley (and not visit Luray Caverns because we promised Devon’s grandmother we’d stay above ground – apparently the Caverns freak her out) and recharge a bit.

I realized how quickly our trip was coming a couple of days ago and realized that I haven’t really done any preparations for it, whatsoever, which is kind of uncharacteristic of me. But I think after our two week overseas trip last year that I stressed out about for so long and that went off without a hitch, I’m probably just pretty ambivalent about planning for a trip that’s a two hour drive away from home.

That being said, I did finally sit down last night and write out a basic packing list because I’m notorious for forgetting the most basic stuff when I travel like a hairbrush or my earplugs (which are very necessary because Devon snores), so a list is the only way I remember everything.

Devon and I were talking about packing last night and he mentioned that he’s bringing his PlayStation with him.

I’m like…

Bro…it’s five days…you lived without it for two weeks last year!

He very quickly pointed out that it was for like Netflix and Hulu and the like, not for “gaming”.

MMKAY!

Typically, when we go on vacation, we usually pack our stuff together in the same suitcase. It’s honestly just easier to have everything together. All of his stuff is on the side; mine is on the other. Even when we flew, we still did it that way so we could check the bags and not have to deal with them.

We’re still using our amazing luggage set that Devon’s mom gave us for our wedding last year.

Considering how most airlines handle luggage, I was expecting it to have a ton of scratches and scuffs from our trip last year, but it surprisingly only has one or two so it held up really well.

This set is actually still available on Macy’s site. Like I said when I talked about this set last year; it’s a little pricey (we got it as a wedding gift from Devon’s Mom). It is currently 30% off, which helps a little. But, like I said, it’s holding up really well and we’re really happy with it, so it’s worth the investment if you need a good luggage set or do a lot of traveling and need something that won’t break mid-trip on you.

Me being me, I’ll probably start packing next week because I like to make sure I have everything I need, this way if I do need to go out and buy/replace something I have time to do it before we leave.

Devon also thinks I’m weird for packing so early.

I think he’s weird for bringing a PlayStation.

Maybe people bring weirder things, I don’t know. Do you all bring anything “weird” on vacation with you? Make me feel better about the Playstation coming….(I honestly don’t care that it’s coming, it just seems like a weird thing to travel with).