YOU GUYS! For a very long time, we’ve been planning a seriously epic vacation, and it’s FINALLY HERE!!! I’m writing this from 35,000 feet over somewhere in the Midwest, on my way to New York with The Hubs and The Kids. We’ll be spending a couple days in NYC, then boarding Cunard Line’s Queen Mary 2 to sail to England. We’re blowing a chunk of my 401K (because I’m technically retired now, so I might as well spend it, amiright? And if I end up being some miracle breakthrough of cancer science, well, I guess I’ll go back to work!) and sailing in a Queens Grill Suite. This comes with butler service. BUTLER SERVICE!!! Our butler will arrange cocktail parties for us, unpack for us, shine our shoes, serve us dinner course by course in our suite…basically, make sure we have everything we could possibly need.

The suite is called a Queen’s Grill Suite because this is a British ship, so we upper crusters don’t dine with the lesser people. No, we have our own special dining room, called the Queen’s Grill. (There is also a Princess Grill, for the not quite as fancy suites, but if you’re gonna blow part of your 401K, I mean, you might as well do it all the way.) We also have our own bar just for suite passengers, so we don’t have to drink with the hoi poloi. In addition, the suite itself has a bar, because of course it does.

The kids are looking forward to going swimming, seeing a show in the ship’s planetarium, and spending time at the kids’ club, which is staffed by child care workers who have been certified by the British government. I’m looking forward to going swimming, drinking Scotch, and dancing in the ballroom in my brand new gown on formal nights. The Hubs is looking forward to drinking Long Island Iced Teas and sleeping.

Our ship will land in Southampton on August 16, and then we’ll be taking a quick tour of Stonehenge before heading to London. Our former nanny, who’s just finished her master’s degree, asked if she could come with us (she’s paying her own way, you guys!!! Seriously, best nanny ever) and we were like “OMG SERIOUSLY YES!!!” So she’ll be meeting us at the ship in Southampton. We’ll spend a couple days in London, then take the Caledonian Sleeper to Inverness. We’ll be staying near Loch Ness for a few days, then our nanny heads home and we head to Oban for a few days (we’re staying near the whiskey distillery, because of course we are) and then finish our trip in Edinburgh, where their big festivals will be happening. And then we fly home.

I know y’all are like “OMG how can I follow along with this epic trip?” I’m glad you asked! I’ll be tweeting as much as possible, using the hashtag #EpicCaldwellVacay, and those tweets will also feed to my blog’s Facebook page. Expect lots of pictures of castles and whiskey, but I’ll also share any epic meltdowns, mine or The Kids’, because I’m keeping it real, y’all.  As time and Internet access allows, I’ll also blog about it.

YOU GUYS I AM SO STOKED!!! Oh it’s on. It’s on like Donkey Kong. #EpicCaldwellVacay has begun!