Our Crazy Vacation

 

I admit that I have done some dumb stuff in my life…almost crashed my first boyfriend’s car, attended a local Easter egg hunt, let my girlfriend talk me into driving her car before I got a license (oh, wait, I haven’t told you that story yet)…but today I think I managed to top them all. My sweetie and I packed the van full of stuff this morning, loaded in all the kids we have under the age of 18, and the two grandkids, and headed off to Idaho. At first we called it a vacation, but now we call it INSANITY! It seemed like a good idea in theory, take the grandkids with us so Bossy didn’t have to worry about babysitters while we were gone, but we didn’t anticipate how it would feel to have all these little ones hyped up on sugar after being cooped up all day in the van…

Let’s start at the beginning…we finally headed out of town around 11:00 this morning. (My sweetie was shooting for 9:00.) We drove about an hour and a half to Tremonton and stopped for lunch. It took us 20 minutes to find a park and then all we did was swallow a sandwich and get back in the van. The natives were restless, but the playground looked hot and my sweetie was anxious. 

We arrived in Pocatello about an hour later. After some debate, we finally got off the freeway. We stopped for gas and it took us nearly a half an hour just to get everybody through the bathroom and away from the cheap plastic overpriced toys. We drove around Pocatello, hoping to find some fun free activity, but the museum would have cost us thirty bucks. My sweetie took a vote and the kids (all but one) voted for the Potato Museum in Blackfoot. So we headed back to the freeway. 

I immediately drifted off and woke up when we turned into the parking lot of the museum. I’d like to say the kids were excited to learn about the life of the potato, but the only one interested in reading the signs was my sweetie. Princess kept pestering me to buy her a potato sack dress and the Dog Walker was thrilled with the Eagle Scout project where a kid from Blackfoot got people to donate their potato mashers and then he put them all in a display case. Sport liked the Mr. Potato Head display…We left the museum with several boxes of dehydrated hashbrowns and some postcards. 

We arrived in Idaho Falls around 5:30 and got all checked in at our hotel. Then we walked across the parking lot to the Dennys. The kids were bouncing off the walls! Thank goodness it was pretty quiet. I’m not sure how it happened, but all the little kids ended up at one end of the table. At some point they nearly tipped the table over… Curly was so hungry he ate two packets of jam with a spoon while he was waiting for his food. Scout had to go to the bathroom twice and then once again to wash her hands when we were finished. Prima Donna ordered pancakes, but when she couldn’t finish them she handed them to Crafty and Sport and they devoured them like a couple of vultures. You would have never known they had already finished their own food! 

We left the restaurant and drove to the Idaho Falls LDS temple grounds. After seeing all the waterfalls (from the car only!) we stopped at the visitor’s center. I’m sure we drove those poor missionaries crazy, but they were very patient with all the little ones running all over. The kids loved the statue of Christ and the fun interactive computer games. We left right before they closed and then headed back to the hotel for a late night swim. We finally drug all the little ones back to the room about 10:30 and convinced them it was time for bed. 

My sweetie is now back in his “boy” room with all the little boys and I am working on my post in the “girl” room. When I’m done I think I’ll get back on Hotwire and see if I can find a vacation spot for my sweetie and I so we can recover from our family vacation when this is all over. That’s assuming we manage to survive the trip!