What it's all about...

I'm a 39 year old wife, mom, daughter, sister, aunt & friend. That should tell you who I'll be writing about most of the time.







Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Vacation Recap - Part 1

I have been home for a week and a half and this is the first post I am making since. And I am going to recap my vacation and events since in more than one post. Because if I don't, it will be a crazy long post. And because it's my blog and I can do what I want.
We started out as planned early Thursday morning, June 12. My mom came over about 3:30am so we could get her car loaded up. I was pretty happy that I got to bed around 11, which was earlier then I had feared might happen. We headed out at exactly 4:00 and about 15 minutes later my boy realized that he forgot his retainer at home. I couldn't exactly buy a new one, so we turned around and went back for it. It set us back about 45 minutes, but all in all it could have been worse. The rest of the drive went as planned and the kids did great! My boy listened to the new Madonna CD almost the entire way and my girl listened to the Alvin & the Chipmunks movie soundtrack. They did some crafts that my mom brought for them and they slept. It went very smoothly. I drove the whole way there. We stopped once for breakfast in Grand Junction (about 4 hours into the drive) and the other times we stopped were for gas and we used these for bathroom breaks and snacks. It took longer then I had hoped; we didn't get to my sister's until after 9 that night, making the total time about 17 hours. But we did get there, with no car troubles, arguments or meltdowns. I think it was a success.
1.)The kids in the backseat 2.)Somewhere in Utah 3.)My boy - traveling is exhausting!

By the time we got there, we were tired and hot and so happy to be out of the car. We unloaded everything, put our jammies on and visited shortly before going to bed. I think we all slept very good that night. We spent Friday just hanging out. It was the last day of school for my nieces, so they got out early. All the kids went swimming that evening.
1.)Kisses! MONephew & MONiece 2.)What a big girl! 3.)All the big kids- swimming wore them out!

Saturday was pretty much more of the same except that early that morning we all went and had pictures taken by a friend of my sister. Considering the heat and the restless kids, they turned out pretty good. The kids went swimming again and then we baked sugar cookies and frosted them. It was a lot of fun, and kept them busy for a while. They spent a lot of time on the Wii also. What fun times they had with that! We played Scrabble that night. I had never played before, so it was a little difficult getting the hang of it. Then we played Scattergories which I LOVE! The kids all took turns playing with us, which led to some pretty funny answers.
1.)All of us 2.)Me with my kids 3.)With my mom & sisters

1.)CANiece2 and my boy on the Wii 2.)CANiece1 & MONephew frosting cookies

Sunday was Father's Day and after we all talked to my dad, we headed to my brother-in-law's parents house to grill carne asada and chicken. They have a pool and the kids were in it for hours. They had such a great time. The food was wonderful and we watched Tiger Woods play in the US Open. We went to high school with Tiger, so we really enjoy watching him do so well.
1.)All the kids in the pool 2.)My kids in the pool

The next day we headed to Orange County, and that's where I will pick up the next installment. As I've been planning these posts, I've been trying to figure out how to refer to my family members. I feel strongly about not putting the kids names on here, and I think I'm going to make that consistent with my sisters too. So I think I've decided what to do with them without it being too cryptic and confusing.
CASis - my sister who lives in California
CANiece1 - my 13 year old niece; oldest daughter of CASis
CANiece2 - my 10 year old niece; youngest daughter of CASis
MOSis - my sister who lives in Missouri; also the older twin of CASis
MONephew - my 13 year old nephew; son of MOSis
MONiece - my 1 year old niece; daughter of MOSis

2 comments:

Denise said...

Sounds like so much fun. Love the pics. Oh and weren't you going to fly at first? Where are the picks of Shell? Did she go?

This Mom said...

Denise,
Shell didn't go. She went to visit her mom in March. We had separate vacations this year. We had planned to drive out and then I flew back home. More to come as soon as I get the pictures uploaded. Thanks for reading!