3 days, 2 nights.

That's exactly the amount of time I have been away from my family since giving birth to Riley over 7 years ago. The only reason I was even away from Riley was because I went apartment hunting with my sister-in-law, Courtney, in San Diego -- over 5 years ago.

And, I have never been away from Ronan for even one night. I know I've had a couple opportunities to go on scrapbooking weekends, but at that time in Ronan's life, there was no way I was going to be able to leave him for more than a few hours (you moms should know what I'm referring to!)

So, when Ryan and I started pondering about taking a vacation, don't think for one second that I didn't try and figure something out that would involve the kids. I know, what a chance to get away from the kids and be at some exotic island location. Nope, not me...all I could think about was how I couldn't leave them because of the possible bad things that could happen to us that would leave our children orphans. Totally morbid. I know.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Ryan and I really need this time with each other. We never had a real honeymoon. We went on a 3-night stay at a bed and breakfast an hour away from Pittsburgh. In March. It was cold. I wore sweats. So not romantic.

Beyond all that, I knew that Ryan's new job would require a lot more time away from home...so I wanted to take advantage of some quality time we'd have now before reporting in at his new unit. So here we are, we've come to decide we're taking a vacay and now, the Type A in me is coming out and the planning has begun.

Key West, here we come.

Easy right? No, not so much. We pretty much have decided on lodging, but it's figuring out the fun things I want to do that make it so much more difficult. I don't want to have this wonderful week and not take advantage of the great things Key West has to offer, but the more I read about the excursions, the morbid thoughts jump into my mind. Do I want to snorkel? Sure! But I can't swim. Think that would be a problem? Scuba dive? Sounds like fun. But I watched this story on the Today Show about this couple who were on their honeymoon and went scuba diving and somehow, the bride turned up dead. Take a plane ride to the Dry Tortugas? Absolutely friggin' not. Small planes make me nervous and I won't even go into the things that could go wrong.

I know, I totally sound like a Negative Nelly. I'm not trying to. It's my nature to think about the danger possibilities, now that I have kids. I will say, though, that I am going to work on getting over some fears and I will definitely try things that I probably wouldn't have...I owe it to myself and to Ryan to have a great time during this week...and I can't wait!

If you've been to Key West, what should we do? What shouldn't we miss out on?