If you look at the postmark on this column, you’ll see that I’m writing far from our beloved Happy Valley. I am on vacation. And what an interesting vacation it is! We hadn’t had a real get-away vacation for years. So this year we planned a vacation extravaganza! The first leg took my husband and I – sans children – to Montreal. And it took us a good six or seven seconds to figure out how to have fun without the little mammals in tow! And after we wiped the tears of joy from our cheeks we found numerous ways to have fun in Montreal. And the ones I can share with you include:

• Going to Le Casino de Montreal at 2 A.M. to play Les Machines du slots or to simply gape in astonishment at all the people who are still awake at that hour.

• Learning some French. Being able to say "Montrez-moi a la place de marriage de Celine Dion," will guarantee you hours of fascinating, semi-historical sight-seeing and local trivia. Failing that, simply begin reading street signs with a really convincing French-Canadian accent. My personal favorite: "Le Marche Bonsecours." What does it mean? I have no idea. I just like the way it sounds all garbled in the back of my throat.

Week two of our vacation extravaganza finds us reunited with our children and three other families for an exciting week of "Vacation Survivor" in a Rhode Island beach house. We’ve got eight adults, seven kids – five of them still in diapers – in an old mansion on the beach for a week. Our six-bedroom house has only two bathrooms and a dangerous shortage of People magazines and Lysol spray.

The first challenge was to survive the room assignments. We’ve rented a slightly dilapidated, three-story Victorian mansion. It’s old, all wood and for good measure, has a fireplace in each room! And while the view of the ocean gets more spectacular with each ascending floor, the windows get smaller. So early on, those of us sleeping on the third floor of this tinder-box-waiting-to-happen, looked at our matchbox-sized windows, did the math and knew that we were doomed should we face a trial by fire.

Well, it’s now day three of our "Vacation Survivor" adventure and I’m still alive. Will I survive the rainy day with no television challenge? Will I make it through the midnight screaming tantrum of someone else’s kid? How will I fare if, at the end of the week, out of basic supplies, I am forced to drink Bud Light? Tune in to the next edition of Valley Viewpoint to see if I survive. That is if I can claw my way out of this so-called vacation paradise to an internet connection.

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