There's No Place Like Home

Looks like the blogging hiatus is over!  We just got back from family vacation 2012, and it was so wonderful!  I was able to spend 9 days with my parents, 2 brothers and their gal pals, my little sister (who is really a teen, but she is still little to me), the kids, Aron, and a partridge in a pear tree!  It may sound a bit crowded, but I like to think of it as the more the merrier (and it was very merry)!  I will have to do a post with all of our fun pictures (so if you are not all about looking at other peoples vacation pictures, then you should probably skip the next few posts).HA!  Hopefully, with the unpacking and cleaning the house, I will find some time to peruse the pics and take out any of the ones that make us look a little nutty (there will be so many of those)!

Down to the nitty gritty of the post.... road trips.  Don't ya just love a road trip with your loved one?  How about loved ones....and two of the four in the car are two and under!  Sweet Jesus!  Yesterday's drive, from the beach to home,14 hours, was no picnic.  There were times when I wanted to cry (but I knew that would not help the situation)!  There were times when I would start to laugh (crazy laugh), and Aron would just look at me like OMG she is going to crack.  Do you have any fun road trip stories?  If so, I would love to hear them!

I am not really sure what happened with Red and the Bear yesterday.  I could tell that things were going to be a bit rocky when we had to say good-bye to the beach, and the dolphins, and the sand, and the sea shells, and the room, and good bye to the lazy river, good bye whales (never saw one, but we did tell them farewell), good bye sharks (once again, no JAWS sightings, but see ya later dorsal finned friends).  So, it starts, 6AM, loading those 2 into their car seats.

Can you see the sadness in his eyes.  Trust me, had I taken my picture, you would have seen my tears!  I hate to leave the beach!  Just pitiful!

We stopped at our faithful pit stop place(McDonalds) and loaded up on breakfast (which I ate nothing), and headed out of town.  Red ate nearly 2.5 pancakes (its a record, she rarely eats breakfast or flap jacks for that matter), then the Bear (o my sweet Bear) he would only eat the greasy ever so delightful hash browns... I know right, so good, ovaly and contained in a wrappers as to keep your fingers clean from all of that grease and the salt (I just adore SALT)!  Well, not even 20 minutes later Red yells, "O MY WUUUURD"!  I turn around to hash vom on the car seat and in the middle of the seat (the seat where I would sit if I had to climb in back to entertain the 2)!  It was horrific!  Such a tiny thing can do such stuff!  I am cleaning the mess, while Aron is driving (yes, going 50 down the road...wha?  we were tryin to make good time, we stop only for pee breaks!)  Did I mention I was leaning over the seat (in a black t-shirt dress (if you have seen me around town as of late it is the black dress that I wear on most days that end with the letter y), well underneath I was sporting the o so attractive granny panty in light pink (they are so old that the color has faded from the fabric making them look almost the color of my skin tone!  Needless to say, the moon was high and it was nearly 7AM!  Sorry, to all of the people leaving Orange Beach yesterday!!  I am sure I was every truckers nightmare!!  Hopefully no one YOUTUBED me!  DYING!

So, the mess was cleaned up, and then started the constant MOMMY yelling!

Mommy, I'm hot

Mommy, I watch princess

Mommy, hi

Mommy, wove you

Mommy, Bubba poops

Mommy, your musics loud

Mommy, I color

Mommy, sticker

Mommy, cookie (here ya go)

Mommy, Cheeto (here is 5)

Mommy!  (Sometimes I think that I would like to change my name to something that my children cannot pronounce, like Mrs. SuperCalaFragalisticExpeAlaDoghShish or Daddy, yes, Daddy, they never yell out his name!  Why is that??

By the time we got to Pine Bluff, I had changed 3 horrible poo diapers, watched Tangled 2 times and the Swan Princess 3.5 times, experienced road rage at its finest (and gave a man the evil eye for trying to take out my ride which was filled with such precious cargo (he gave me the bird, but whatev, I think he was scuured!), taken 1 nap (the Bear had one right when the trip started, it lasted about 8 minutes), dazzled my husband with numerous romantic love songs (some not so in tune and not even the right words and I am not so sure he was dazzled by my vocal stylings (I guess that I do not sound like anyone from the group Wilson Phillips, not even close to Whitney Houston Belinda Carlisle or Celine Dion), cleaned up throw up, coughed so hard and peed on myself (of course we were in a stretch of nothingness and no stop was made to change), missed all of my favorite songs on the radio (one would come on then the static would start... always happens), car danced to Michael Jackson and Bobby Brown's Every Little Step I Take (a classic), and I was informed of the temperature in every town that we drove through (this has now made me realize that my husband is in the wrong line of work and should have been a weather man!)

Here is my Red.  For 2 hours, she rode with all of her toys on top of herself.  She amazes me with her talents!  Just amazes me!

So, the trip was fun to say the least.

Then it happened, Red got car sick, and all of those cheetos that I was feeding her all came up and were everywhere (including my hands.. I tried to catch it...I have tiny hands)  Trust me when I say, we will not be able to eat that snack for awhile!!  After stripping the child in a gas station parking lot and throwing away all of the things that were hit with Cheeto splatter, we were back on the road!

At one point, I even tweeted (do you tweet?) that I thought about throwing myself out of the car, then I realized that the doors are all child proof, so it would have never worked!

It was such a long drive to end such a wonderful super amazing vacation!

I just had to blog about it, because towards the end I realized that all of the things that were happening were kind of humorus, I could so tell that I was being tested (BIG)!  My patience was being tested, my thoughts were being tested, my tongue was being tested (i thought about saying some nutty things, just thought)!  God... he is such a funny guy!  I am glad I was able to keep it together, my children and husband FO SHO did not need to witness a cray cray lady having a break down.  I just had to pray... ALOT!

Please friends, do not think that I was really thinking of throwing myself out of the car (I would have never done that!  I told you we were trying to make good time and Aron woulda probably kept on driving.... remember we only stop for pee breaks!))

Are your road trips like this?  What kind of things do you do to entertain your bunch?  Colors, stickers, movies, songs, what?  I must know!  Maybe I can do some research on that Pinterest!

We made it home last night around 8 (14 hours of fun filled togetherness time).  We stopped and got some dinner (since our cabinets were empty and I would have only been able to make pork n beans and mac n cheese (no butter or milk though;(), and some juice boxes.  We got a pizza and me a salad from a local restaurant (won't say where) but when I dumped my salad onto my plate and ate about 1/2 of the salad, a medium sized bug just walked right out of it.

Thank you and have a nice night!  I just put my fork down, and Aron (without missing a beat) reached over and crushed it with his finger (his bare finger, guess I should not judge seeing as how I just thoughtlessly caught hand fulls of Cheeto-yak hours earlier).  I just sat there wide eyed, and he said, "eat your salad."

I got up and went to take a shower, a 20 minute shower to wash off the remnants of the BIG DRIVE of 2012!

There's No Place Like Home!

FYI, if this post makes no sense it is because I am still a little sleepy from the trip, and I am not proof reading my stuff!!  HA!  Just me and my ramblin!