Vacation with Stepson Cont'

After deciding we were going to take vacation anyway, I had the brilliant idea that we should take my stepson with us up north to his paternal grandparents' house since my stepdaughter was already scheduled to go to band camp. A wicked stepmom would not have done that (but the ex hates me anyway:)

First we had the visit with my side of the family and both my stepkids were there for a few hours that day. They had their first ever boat ride in a speed boat with my brother and had fun. We got my stepson to karaoke to 'Fergilicious' at my sister's and it was hilarious. My other sister had her baby that morning we were driving up so I took the girls with me to visit my new niece (my stepdaughter was the first one to raise her hand and say she wanted to go with me:) Then they went back to their mother's house (we were picking up my stepson the next morning to take him north with us for the rest of our vacation).

When we went to pick him up from his mother's house, I stayed in the car with our four-year-old in her car seat and the other kids and hubby got out of the car (they stay outside during exchange...hubby doesn't go in her house). My stepdaughter came outside too and came up to my car window to hug me in front of parasite, I mean her mother. Wonder how that went over? When they all got back into the car and we were on our way, hubby said quietly, "That was uncomfortable." He doesn't enjoy seeing her either.

Off we go on our trip. The ride up is pretty unremarkable. While there, my stepson shows us why he is overweight - that boy put away practically a whole pizza by himself! At breakfast, he ate half the package of bacon by himself. For dinner, he ate a cheeseburger, hot dog, then another cheeseburger. He used to be slim but solid muscle growing up, was on the swim team during his summer with us a few years ago and won ribbons and a trophy for it. We play volleyball and soccer in our backyard...his mother doesn't seem to do stuff like that with them. Sports never seemed to be encouraged over there so he does nothing now...and it shows. He's embarrassed even to swim without his shirt off. If he wants to eat like THAT (and a lot of teenaged boys do), he really needs to be doing a decent amount of physical activity, if not school-sponsored then some form of exercise outside of school. Too many kids today don't get enough physical activity. It's sad because he is unhappy with how he looks...ashamed of it.

It went ok while we were up north. We did a lot of joking and laughing. My stepson was laughing and said, "We sure are a raunchy family." I was glad to hear the "we" out of his mouth including him with us as a family. I was on his team during a game and we won. I betcha he didn't realize his ole stepmom had a brain. I believe I saw a look on his face that he was impressed, lol. We took him tubing for the first time. He had fun and I got it on video when he fell in.

To take my stepson home, we had to add a couple extra hours of drive time onto our long drive home so it took about eight hours to get home instead of the 5-1/2 that it usually takes. We met his mother close to where she works for the exchange in a parking lot. Yeah us. It was quick, no extra chatting or anything like that. That requires a mature, rational, emotionally healthy individual who wanted to stop 14 years of the same ole, same old...that's not her.

It seemed like the entire vacation was run, run, run and we didn't have any time to ourselves but when we got home, we had a couple days to reconnect.