Thursday: Picked up the boys from school, and, after a quick stop at home, began the long journey south for vacation.
For the first time in a long time we were hopeful that Christopher had achieved mastery of his spelling words this week, and were looking forward to the sheet coming home to see how he did. Yea for Christopher, he spelled every word correctly. But....he has to write two sentences, and still, unlike other times, he remembered capital letters and punctuation marks. Yea for Christopher!
He just forgot a word....his sentence was "Did dash to the finish?" instead of "Did she dash....". 16/17. Sigh.....almost had it.
Drive was uneventful....stopped for the night about 45 minutes south of Indianapolis. Boys swam, Dad did some work poolside, everyone went to bed at 10:30 and we were on the road the next morning by 8 am.
Friday: Complete the long and arduous journey to stop #1, a visit with Aunt Melanie in Alpharetta. Nothing exciting to report on the drive from Indiana to metro-Atlanta....boys behaving very well...
Arrived a little after 4 pm. Weather is nice, and the boys are happy to get out and run around the back yard.
That's the look!
Showering attention on Sweetie....
All I need is a stick and a ball (being thrown by Melanie, off stage to the right).
Boys play for a while; Jen comes home, and after printing out some serious Chuck E Cheese coupons, off we go for dinner. Dinner is good; boys are token-playing machines, Melanie is an Arctic-Thunder LOSER, and the tokens are exhausted and it's time to go home.
Get back to Aunt Melanie's, and well, that's where the entire trip came off the rails....hasn't quite been the same since. As Melanie said, it's about 45 seconds after this that it all goes downhill.
I'm off with my computer copying Melanie's music to my hard drive and vice versa; the boys are in the main room, and Christopher is lavishing attention on Bettis. Matthew, off stage to the back right, is asking to have his chance with Bettis and I'm walking out into the room as this picture is taken. Picture's over, Christopher's getting up, and Matthew darts over towards Bettis.
Growl, bark, chomp, Christopher is crying and screaming and the "other pets won't treat you like our pets lesson" sinks home.
For a lesson, it certainly could have much worse....another inch up his face and we would have been at the ER with a pretty serious eye injury. But, he'll live, (it's just a flesh wound, as Monty Python would say) and, it's possible the wound won't show up that much on the rest of the vacation pictures (doubtful right now, but, possible). Rest of the night is fairly subdued, except for a visit by Christopher and Matthew to Jen's squad car that, while not reported as extremely exciting at the time, was gushed and raved about as we prepared for blast off Saturday morning.
Saturday: We leave la casa de la sangre derramada after a fabulous breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and strawberries. It's rainy most of the way through Georgia, but, the trip reaches one high point at about 9:29 am. I had called Suzanne around 8:30 to say hello, she reports that she was shocked to find 3" of snow on the ground; hadn't seen that in the forecast, and she'll have to navigate that to get Wiley to the kennel. So, the next call is from Suzanne "I'm in the ditch. Had to avoid someone who slid right through a stop sign, can you call USAA for roadside assistance?". So, I pull over, call USAA, and get the dispatch in the works.
Nothing good happens when I'm not around; Wiley looks sad...
Suzanne describes the car at fault as a 'beater' driven by a college student who was profoundly sorry, but, she drove off and Suzanne and Kevin and Wiley were stranded for about an hour. One highlight was Suzanne's tale of Wiley growling as the college student came over to make sure everyone was ok....Wiley never, never, ever growls in anger. But he knew she was a bad person!
Boys behavior on Saturday definitely wasn't what it was on Friday....they were playing with a ball and it ended up getting thrown up to the driver-front which resulted in another rapid pull-over and, yet again, a discussion we've had before, no throwing balls in the car, and, arguing over toys at Burger King they spilled my coke all over me. After lunch, things were noticeably better, but, they certainly could have been improved before then.
About an hour in to Florida the gray skies went away and we drove in bright brilliant sunshine to the hotel. The car said it was 83 degrees, so, I knew we were going to unpack and go straight to the pool.
They look good in the shirts, but ditched them very quickly
We get to the pool just in time for the last news of the day to begin; Suzanne calls to tell me the flight's oversold; should she volunteer to be bumped? Of course she should volunteer to be bumped!!!! And yes, 30 minutes later, the text message comes through, Kevin and her have been bumped and instead of arriving at 10:30 pm on Saturday will arrive at 10:30 am on Sunday. They'll received $400 each for this inconvenience; Kevin, I understand, is not very happy at all about this delay and Suzanne had to really sit down and explain why this is a great thing; I wish I could make $400 for 12 hours work; 8 of which I'll be asleep for!
Boys have had a great time at the hotel; again, makes me glad we have this timeshare, the room/suite is huge, the pool is great, the mini golf is free, there's all kinds of kid activities. Last time we were here I remember being worried about Matthew coming down the water slide; this time I'm fairly comfortable with letting the kids roam around and do mini golf and the playground on their own. In fact, while I've been typing this, they've been out, and should have been back by now. I went out to find them and they were playing in an organized activity; no wonder they hadn't come back. All was well, and I'm glad they were playing nicely.
