We took a little trip over the weekend.

Now, I know that all of you are very travel-savvy, oh-let’s-pack-up-the-two-year-old-and-jaunt-off-to-Paris types, but we are not. Mainly for logistical reasons. (Four children and a pregnant woman in a car? Do you even know how often we have to stop to pee? Also: pregnant woman in a car for any length of time? Have you no fear of vomit? Seriously?)

But this weekend, we packed three days’ worth of food, six days’ worth of clothes (yes we were only gone three days), all four kids, and drove for a couple of hours out into the mountains.

We were visiting relatives. Who live in houses. You didn’t for a minute think we were camping, did you? Ohhhhh no. Sleeping in a house. With beds. And clean flush toilets. Remember the pregnant woman and four children? Yes. Okay then.

Anyhow, we had a great time. The kids went fishing. (“It’s like Halloween for fish!” said Abigail. “We’re feeding them and scaring them, all at the same time!”) And then they threw the fish back into the pond.

Dane and I cooked meals. Real ones. The kind you eat on plates. And we cooked them together, with both of us in the kitchen at the same time, because there were other adults around who could entertain our kids. And we washed no dishes, because there were other adults around who didn’t cook the meals.

“This is awesome!” I said. “At our house we never clean up, and then it gets to be midnight and we’re like, ‘aw, man.’” (Yes I talk like that.)

My grandmother laughed and said, “Now, I know that’s not true!” Except really? It really is. Totally true. We are terrible at the housekeeping. Maybe because there are no other adults around to entertain our kids while we do it.

So yes, I’m all impressed that we managed to hang out somewhere other than our house for the weekend. And I’d like to say that, in retrospect, traveling wasn’t a big deal—except, you know what? It was a big deal. The planning and packing took a ton of effort, the drive was not super awesome, there were some we’re-not-at-home difficulties, and now we’re crazy-exhausted. But it was worth it. We had fun, we came home sort of relaxed, and I didn’t throw up on the side of the road at any point.

I understand that nobody else is impressed, and that plenty of your everyday lives involve more adventure than my whole weekend. But then, my daily life might seem adventurous, too, to someone who doesn’t live it. Adventure, courage, impressiveness: they’re all relative.

So tell me: what are you proud of this week? What took courage, even if everybody else will think it’s an everyday sort of thing?

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And hey, on an entirely unrelated note, did I mention: Literary Mama?