• Nov. 28, 2007
WHAT?? You mean Thanksgiving was LAST WEEK??? I'm better now, back to your regularly scheduled programming!
Ok, I'll admit it. My internal calendar is really messed up! I'm in total and complete denial that Thanksgiving has already gone by (even though I did fully participate in it!) It was so warm here at the beginning of October, we were still running around in shorts and stuff. I'm thinking extended summer here. So, now that it's the end of November (say it isn't so!!) I'm totally messed up. It is just not possible that Christmas is less than a month away. Really, truly, it's just not!! Ok, so now that I've cleared the air here, I'll tell you about our Thanksgiving (which I do realize actually occurred almost a week ago.)
We spent Thanksgiving with my Granny and Aunt Linda. They live about 4 hours away from me (if you don't have to stop along the way--like THAT ever happens anymore!) It was my mom's side of the family. My gang, my brother and his wife and daughter, my parents and my grandmother and aunt. We had a great time. I had convinced my mom that caravanning with us is not an adventure that she and dad really needed to add to the day. Our gang got up and got on the road at 9:30 Thanksgiving morning. I was shooting for 9, so we actually did pretty well, considering that I didn't even begin packing until about 8am. We had to take the dogs too because we didn't have anyone to come over and let them out. I was quite tempted to just leave them out the whole time and hope that they would search out a new home, but alas, I caved and took them with us. We went to McD's for breakfast (have you seen my post about a burger and a side of pandemonium? breakfast works the same way) We got on the highway at 10:30.
Anyone who knows traffic around the Washington, D.C. area knows that it is some of the worst in the country. It really doesn't matter what day or time it is. There's bound to be a backup somewhere. As we were leaving Maryland across the American Legion Bridge, I saw tons of smoke coming from UNDER the bridge. My heart skipped a beat as I imagined what might have happened. The traffic on the other side was totally backed-up. I didn't see any breaks in the side of the bridge (I was fearing that a car had gone over the side of the bridge and was burning--long, LONG way down--this would be a horrific accident) and I turned on a local news station, only to find out that there was a brush fire under the bridge and that's why they had blocked off all but 1 lane of traffic. I thought, "Phew! How lucky we're going the other way!" Well, you know how things like that, even if they aren't spoken outloud can come back to haunt you? It did. We'd no sooner get going highway speed than everyone would put on the brakes. I think they all did it just for the fun of it myself. I wasn't really having all that much fun though.
I drove most of the way there and back, so to occupy my mind as I was driving, I came up with this little ditty (to the tune of Over the River and Through the Woods.)
Over the highway and through the tolls,
To Granny's house we go.
Our mom knows the way, we've been driving all day,
Through traffic that goes so slow!
Over the highway and through the tolls,
Oh, how we sing our woes!
"This is taking forever!" and "I've gotta go potty!"
as Over the highway we go!
Naturally, I've got at least two in the back of the van shouting, "I've gotta go!!!" And of course, it was on a stretch of road where there was just no place to stop. Had it been only the boys, we'd have stopped and let them go au naturale behind a tree, but you just can't do that so easily with the little girls. We found a little Mom & Pop gas station that looked like it fell straight out of the '50's or something, complete with Jed and Jethro Clampett, in hunter's garb to boot! Oh, lucky day! Well, besides running into Jed and Jethro, imagine our sheer delight when we discovered that it was a 1-potty store. Not one girls toilet and one boys toilet, but just one toilet period. Well, when you've got a crew of 9, stopping in a 1-potty shop can take a good 30 minutes. And seeing as Jed and Jethro came complete with shotguns, I was thinking that sending the boys behind the building to save time wouldn't be such a good idea. What can you do?
So, we got back on the road after fighting off all the begging and pleading for this and that candy and soda. (And people wonder why God made me so strong-willed?) We made it to Granny's and were, of course, the last ones to arrive. Just not fair, considering I brought the most people, more dogs, left the earliest, and traveled the farthest! We had a great afternoon and a fabulous dinner. Mom had suggested that we do something educational on the trip (which, of course, made the trip even more interesting.) Since Granny lives so close to Jamestown, we decided to stay overnight in a hotel and visit Jamestown the day after Thanksgiving. We proceeded to head over to the hotel around 8pm.
Checking into the hotel seemed to go smoothly enough until we actually got to the rooms. It is a total riot when my 7 kids go through a hotel carrying all the stuff that we had to bring into the hotel rooms. We left the dogs in the car over-night, but the kids were tempted to try to smuggle them into one of the rooms in an overnight bag. (They learned that trick from their mother) Mom and Dad went to their room. We went to the first of our two rooms. Well, the TV was completely possessed. The boys turned it on, but there was no sound. No problem. Hand me the remote. I clicked the volume button about 3 times and thought I was absolutely going to lose my hearing. I'm sure they could hear that TV about 3 floors down. I pushed the button violently to quiet the beast. Now, we have no sound at all again. Ok, is this some sort of joke? Well, you KNOW that we have to try that again just to see if it was a fluke the first time. It wasn't. And you also KNOW that anyone in the room that saw what happened just HAD to try it themselves to see if everyone else just happened to be total electronic idiots who didn't have any concept of how a remote control works! AND, OF COURSE, my DAD walked in about that time!! How deeply can you furrow your eyebrows? Probably not as deeply as my dad!! How loudly can you say, "SHHHHHHHH!!!" (Can you say "oxymoron"?) Probably not as loud as my dad!!
About that time I decide it's in my best interest to check out the second of our two rooms than to stay in the room with my dad. On the surface, everything in this room seems fine. This TV is effectively programmed to do what it's supposed to do. However, in this room, the AC/heating unit was on vacation. Indefinitely. It never even bothered to show up. Danny called the front desk to ask if there were any tricks to get it to work. The guy told him to "give it a couple of minutes." I guess it just needed a little bit of time to get acquainted or something. And apparently, it wasn't interested in getting to know us. That ended up with Danny calling the front desk again to ask for not one, but TWO new rooms, *together*!
Amazingly, the hotel had 2 more rooms that were next-door to each other, and were even on the same floor across the hall from Mom and Dad's room, but were king suites instead of doubles. Hmm, that means a number of someones will have to sleep on a pull-out couch in each room. Not ideal. There was no other room in the inn. (Where have we heard that before?) So, we decided to go ahead and take those rooms, but to shift EVERYONE (including my mom and dad.) Now, my mom has spent enough time with us over the years to realize that this is pretty standard for us. We've come to call these little episodes, "adventures." Dad, on the other hand, was a little challenged to jump into the festivities of our adventure so easily. We ended up having to uproot him from his room (in which every single thing worked perfectly well.) But, in the end, I think it worked out okay because Danny and I and Mom and Dad both have king beds at home. So, it was nice to be able to have a king bed in the hotel too. We put Rachel, Tara and Megan in the double room. Darcy stayed with Mom and Dad. Lily was in her little porta-crib with me and Danny. The boys were on the pull-out couch in my suite. They had their own TV and the volume worked perfectly on it as well! It took a little creativity to get it all sorted out, but in the end no one had to sleep in a manger!!
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• Nov. 28, 2007
Untitled Comment
Posted by Shelbelle7
Sorry about the funky margins. I've gone back to edit this about 15 times and this is the best I seem to be able to get it!! UGH!
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• Nov. 28, 2007
<i>Untitled Comment</i>
Posted by Arby
I've missed you. Just when I think that my life is wild, I read one of your blogs and feel...average. It's so cool!
Don't worry, I was only marginally annoyed by the formatting.
Edited by Arby on Nov. 28, 2007 at 8:31 PM
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• Nov. 29, 2007
Untitled Comment
Posted by debbiecorley
Your life is quite an adventure! Did you get my email?
~Deb
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