Should I stay or should I go now?

It's day 1 of our vacation. We are driving from Seattle, WA to Redding, CA (615 miles).

Here's the lead up.
Tuesday night - 6 haircuts.
Wednesday morning - chiropractor appt for me. Shopping for the road with my 4 kids and 1 of their friends (it was super quick). Some play time for the kids while I finish laundry and wonder how we will finish a gallon of milk and loaf of bread by morning. I pack one suitcase for 4 kids. 1 suitcase for me (with room for nubby to pack himself. I have 4 kids, that's enough to account for). I managed to squeeze in a trip to the nail salon for a manicure/pedicure. It's been 2 years and it was wonderful. Miss R came in with me and got her nails polished pink (so cute). We go home and finish running through the list of what to pack for 6 for 10 days.

Wednesday night - hubby gets home. I give him the rundown. I realize the hamster drank almost all his (her) water in 3 days. Crap. We have a pet and we are leaving town. I call a neighbor kid and offer $5 to come feed and water Zippy 3 times, but don't hold him - he bites. Now that we are under control, it's time for me to go to bookclub. (never a dull moment cor me). I pick up my friend and head to our friends house. Lots of great food and wine later (have you ever had Pimm's liquor and 7up? Yummy). We discuss "Edgar Sawtelle" (terribly long and leaves so may, whats! I drop off my friend and get home at 11pm (we plan on leaving at 5am).

Later Wednesday night - I got home and see my neighbors garage doors open. Their bedroom light is on and I go ring the doorbell. A bunch of cars were broken into on Monday (including mine - nothing was missing from the Mom minivan with a million "Dora or Max and Ruby DVDs). So, we chat for a few minutes about the other neighbor who had his house broken into at 3pm through the front window and I wonder if I'll ever sleep tonight. I go back home and 2 minutes later, the police car I saw down the road is driving down our street with his flashlight on looking in the yards of our street. He then parks at the entrance to our street with his flashers on. What the he'll? First we have car break INS (granted I left my car unlocked) then I find out the neighbor was broken into and we are leaving for a 10 day vacation...in 5 hours. I have to be up at 4:30am. Marc and I chat until 1am and I finally calm down enough to fall asleep. If someone does break in while we are gone, they will find nothing great to take. We brought our laptops and there's not much else. Hopefully the neighbors will keep an eye out.

Thursday morning - should I stay or should I go now? It's 4:30am. We slept for 3ish hours and we have a 12 hour drive ahead of us. I hate waking up early, but I love getting to Redding early enough for the kids to run off all their pent up energy. We opt to leave. Showers, bags in car, kids in car, all windows shut tight, and we bit the local Starbuck for a triple shot mocha finally get on the freeway at 5:40am.

Woo Hoo for vacation Woo Hoo for road trips I love that the kids can handle a 600 mile drive with minimal fighting 2 hours down and

from the mouths of babes...

My kids are on summer vacation. I would say we are not busy, so they are bored...but we are busy and maybe that's why we have all the fighting. We've been camping over 2 weekends, three of the kids had daily swim lessons for 2 weeks and now the older two (ages 10, 8) have 4 days of tennis lessons from 9-12. I've been able to entertain the little two (ages 4, 5) because there is a jogging track across the road with a fitness playground and an elementary school across the baseball field. We have been out and playing hard.

I guess I pressed my luck by making a stop at Home Depot (after McDonalds as their bribe lunch). They acted like they were still in the park. We had a long discussions about "park" behavior and "store" behavior. None of this lecture sunk in because they acted the same way at the grocery store. We had another threat discussion that if they made a whiny, yelling peep while at the chiropractor - they all 4 would be grounded. I don't care who started it. I don't care why you are yelling or hitting, just no peeps!!


They made it through. Alive. And quiet. We made it home. Alive. And quiet. I've managed to not open that bottle of wine and am able to relax before I go back outside to start painting the front steps railings (I've spent two afternoons scrubbing the wood). The younger two have managed to listen to my "no video games or TV today" rule and are playing nicely in the backyard. Older two are playing a card game and keeping the peace (for the most part). When suddenly, Mr C needed to use the restroom. Here's the exchange of words:


Mr C: You steal any of my cards and I will destroy you!!
Miss M: Wow. That sounds ominous.

I guess the "park" behavior is simmering under their skin and I need to sneak out front to sit in my favorite chair and finish my book club book before they erupt again.

And the winner is...

I know I've been AWOL. It's summer break and the sun actually came out to play. I guess 4th of July really is the beginning of summer here. After years of living with LOTS of sun, it's hard for me to adjust that the sun doesn't come out in May or even June. We actually wore our winter jackets to the fireworks display, but it was warmer than in years past and we only needed our hooded sweatshirts.

So, we went camping last weekend (wish I could find my card reader to download my photos) and we are going camping again this weekend. Talk about opposite ends of weather. Last weekend was freezing!! I shook most of the night wishing we had brought extra blankets. This weekend it's going to be 95-99F and I'm sure I will only want a thin sheet (I'll bring a blanket just in case). We are camping near a lake, so we'll see if I dive in to regulate my body temperature. I'm not going to complain though because the sun is out and I very dearly miss the sun for the other 10 months of the year.


Now back to the blog title....


I was hosting a $40 CSN gift certificate giveaway. I linked to a fellow blogger who was doing a $50 gift certificate to help increase the chances that you could win one. That $50 was awarded by "life as I see it" on Friday, July 2nd. Now it's my turn!


I'm not quite savvy enough to show you the random.org results, but I had 5 comments, so I plugged in 1 to 5 and was awarded the magic number 3.

Magic number 3 is Carmen!!

Carmen, if you are out there, I've sent you an email via your blog link. I'm forwarding your information to Jessica at CSN stores. Congratulations!!

 

CSN giveaway

Well, well. I wasn't sure about doing a giveaway, but thought I would give it a try. So far, nothing. So a simple comment, a little ditty about your plans this summer (or next summer) posted in the comments would be great. It's pretty easy and a $40 gift certificate from CSN stores will be yours.

I'm ending my giveaway on Wednesday, July 8. See my post about the giveaway here.

And if this doesn't entice you enough, go here to read more on "The Lunatic Cafe"s blog or like "Life as I see it" to enter to win a $50 gift certificate to CSN stores.

So, add some comments and maybe win a total of $90 in gift certificates. Go on, add a comment.

Thank You!!