Signs of a good vacation

We're back from our week at the cottage. It was great! Not perfect (especially having to sleep in the same small room as Ryan and the overabundance of daddy long legs), but it doesn't have to be perfect to be a great vacation, does it?

In fact, when I look back on the week, it's the small things that stand out. And so, instead of a blow-by-blow  report of our week (which is better kept for the cottage diary anyway), here's a list of the many small things that made last week great.

The daily flag raising and lowering ritual, bunny sightings, biking to the camp store for ice cream, sunsets, getting through almost two books (neither of which I'd recommend), fish fry over the open fire, gliding through the water on our kayak, cottage crafts (remember god's eyes and friendship pins?), crazy bubble snakes, several peaceful hours one evening sharing a bottle of wine with a friend, swimming, swimming and more swimming, flip flop tan, reading Harry Potter to Ella, discovering a cool new splash pad in town, a delicious new lemon pasta recipe, making a welcome sign for our weekend guests, seeing Ryan's reaction to feeding a llama, getting rid of the old pullout couch, working on a puzzle.

And the clearest sign that it was a great vacation? The fact that it feels like we've been gone for much longer than a week. It was hard to come home, but we're already looking forward to our next week up north in August.