Is it Fall already?!

Sheesh! This summer thing really messes with my schedule! Not only do my kids not have to go to bed at 8:30 p.m. as usual, they think they get to stay up until 10:00 - "It's not bedtime, Mom. It's not even dark!" - which is all well and good for them! But I have to get up in the morning - and I still need my "me" time once they're asleep, which puts me falling asleep around 11:30 -12.  This doesn't work for me - I need at least 8 hours of good sleep and what with kids and cats and dogs- means that my "good sleep" wake up time is about 10:00 a.m.! Obviously, that ain't happening. In addition to the extended hours, I am suffering from the "nonexistence of measurable time" - you know, the phenomenon of hours running into days and days running into weeks when no one else in the house needs to pay attention to what day it is or what time it is.  It is so easy to get sucked into that "now what day is it? Ahhh, it doesn't matter!" state of mind. Especially if, like me, you're the only one in the house running on "real-life" time.
Today, I realized that it is July 20. The 20th of July! Where did the summer go??  This summer, we were going to take the kids camping for the first time. We were going to take a trip to Chicago.  We were going to take a trip to Kansas City to visit my niece. We were going to take a trip to St. Louis to visit relatives and friends... What have we done?? NONE OF IT! We haven't even gotten the kayaks out, when I could go, once this summer!  Do you see a pattern here? I do, and it stinks.
Another summer has passed me by and (due primarily to poor planning on my part, but I am going to blame it on the weather) I have missed it.  Sure, I've taken the kids to the pool about a million times, but that's not the same as REAL SUMMER FUN! Real summer fun takes preparation, it takes commitment and planning - in other words, Energy!  Energy is something that I seem to be lacking these days.  Maybe because it is so crazy hot; maybe because when I get home I know the kids are going to jump all over me and act all crazy because they've been cooped up all day. I get exhausted just thinking about it! Not that I don't love it.
Anyway, I am trying to break this habit we have of not pre-planning by attempting to arrange our FIRST BIG FAMILY VACATION.  For our fifteenth wedding anniversary, we have decided to take the kids on a Disney cruise to the Bahamas.  We decided this about 8 months ago and our 15th isn't until 2013, so I've got plenty of time, right? WRONG.
First, we made the mistake of telling the kids.  They are so excited that they think it's tomorrow! Two years is WAY too long to wait. Then, there's weather.  Did you know that "hurricane season" is really like 7 months long? So you can't go from May through December unless you trust the ship to "go around" the hurricane (as if!).  Then school.  You should really avoid taking the kids out of school, so there's January thorough May gone... what's left? Christmas vacation. That would NOT go over well with the families.
So, we've made an executive decision to take the kids out of school if we have to, and it looks like January is the month to do it.  If anyone has any advice, any at all about planning this vacation PLEASE help me out.