Road Trips

On Saturday, most of my family (my brother couldn't make it) met up together at the Scottish festival, in Alma, Michigan, which is a couple hours away. I rode with my sister, Heather, and her three kids. It was nice to catch up with Heather and of course, I love spending time with nieces and nephews. Plus, my youngest niece, Samantha, is in the most adorable phase where she says "me" instead of "I." This conversation really took place, as all three kids were claiming they "didn't do it," though I can't recall now what the "it" in question was:

Paige: "I didn't do it!"
Ethan" I didn't do it!"
Samantha: "Me no did it!"

Melts my heart every time.

Anyway, the ride up was overall uneventful, with nice conversation and the normal kid antics in the back seats. When we got to Alma and met up with everyone, my mom asked me, "So how was the ride up?" I replied, "Oh, it was fun. Ethan and Samantha got on each other's nerves, and Ethan asked 'are we there yet' about 50 times. Oh, and Paige threw up." In the retelling of the ride, I realized it hadn't been as relaxed as I'd thought. But really, it hadn't been bad. With a van full of kids, that stuff comes with the territory.

In thinking of this, I've been reminiscing about road trips I went on with my family when I was a kid. We went on at least one per summer, but usually more - a lot of them were to northern Michigan, camping in a borrowed camper trailer, or staying in a hotel or cottages. We drove to the upper peninsula to visit my uncle and his family, then to Ohio to visit them when they moved, then to Maine to visit them when they moved again! We went to South Carolina, and all the states in between. We basically drove all over this side of the country.

We always had a mini-van, but not the fancy kind with a DVD player, thank goodness. (I don't know why I say "thank goodness" except that for some reason I feel a DVD player would have taken away from the experience. I could be wrong though.) Instead we were loaded up with books, walkmen, blankets, flashlights, and snacks. We sang together, argued (probably) and pretty much had the time of our lives.

I drew a picture of us at Niagara Falls - in the cave you can go into to be behind the falls - but then later I was able to find some actual pictures from that trip for your viewing pleasure. (Though for the record, I think the drawing captures the experience pretty well on its own.)

I didn't realize we had our hoods up and weren't totally in a cave, but other than that,
my drawing was dead on. Please do not go back to my
drawing to find inconsistencies. Just trust me.

Pretty sure my fly is down in this picture, but I was too busy with
my lollipop to notice. Also, were my suspenders awesome,
or what!?

I loved family vacations, and have very fond memories of them. Every place we visited was so full of possibilities and my parents did a great job of taking us to fun and interesting spots.

As an adult, I'm still a fan of the road trip. What's more fun than stuffing a trunk full of as many suitcases and sleeping bags as possible then hitting the road? That reminds me of a picture I took last summer on a road trip with Katherine, Amy, and Brian (see below). Oh, and the road trip I went out to Moab with Emily last summer? Such a blast. Road trips are just unique in what they have to offer.

I hope I didn't have to put the car in reverse at all...

I think it was on road trips when my brother and sisters and I really bonded. Did we get on each others nerves? Heck yeah, I'm sure we did. But we also started inside jokes (like the time the ducks ate Katherine's bracelet), we told stories, we helped each other out, and we met vacation friends together. And not to be totally cheeseball, but we also formed lasting memories that we still talk about. 

What are some of your family vacation memories? Do you like road trips?

Post script: The first year my brother and I decided not to go on a family vacation was a bit of an adventure too actually, since my brother took the opportunity to allow a couple of traveling artisans to live in our patio for the week before they moved on to their next Renaissance Festival. They burned a hole in the grass in our backyard with the kiln they used to make their ocarinas. My brother and I tried to replant the grass the best we could but the hole was glaringly obvious. The memory still makes me laugh.

Wednesday Thoughts

You know what really puts a damper on your summer vacation? The possibility of finding a body in the water. On Friday night, a plane crashed just a few miles off the shore of the beach on Lake Michigan where we do the majority of our swimming. With the exception of one passenger, the rest have still not been recovered from the lake.

It's very tragic, and I don't mean to make light of it. But it's definitely made swimming a tiny bit creepier. When you can see huge coast guard boats not too far off the shore, it sort of changes the tone of the water frolicking, if you catch my drift.

But other than that, we've been having a great trip. Being around the family inevitably leads to hilarity. My 13 year old cousin said she's never laughed harder in her life than she has on this trip. I'm grateful I have a family I get along with so well. Here's a funny exchange between my 13 year old cousin, Katie, and my nephew James, who's 11:

Katie: "They said if I ask one more stupid question, they're going to throw me off the boat."
James: "If I were you, I'd stop talking."

Tonight a bunch of us went on a guided tour through some smaller inland lakes. We'd stop along the way and the DNR guide would tell us about the area, and answer questions. Usually I love that kind of thing, but these questions were becoming increasingly tedious. At one point, my nephew turned around on the canoe and whispered to me, "as soon as these questions are done, we are out of here. This is getting ridiculous." It only got good when at the end someone raised their hand and asked, "Has anyone ever seen Bigfoot here?" The guide didn't seem to think it was funny, which made it that much funnier.

Ok, I have to wrap this up now. I have a game of Sorry to get back to. I hope you had a good Wednesday!

Quick Update

Hey guys! Have you missed me? I've missed you. I'm on vacation on Lake Michigan.

It's been a fun trip so far. This picture is of my nephew responding to something my sister Katherine was saying. He had probably just gotten done accusing me of cheating at Battleship. If I cheated, how come I lost!?

By the way, for those of you who were interested, I did end up getting an iPhone. I feel really clunky using it - like Stanley in the Office when he was trying to get used to his new phone. My thumbs seem too big for this thing (and my thumbs are not big)! But I'm getting used to it. The guy at the store said that Apple offers classes on how to use it. I feel like if you need to take a class to figure out how to use your phone, it might be too complicated. Next thing you know colleges are going to start offering classes on it, then degrees. It's too much. But I bought it anyway. And so far I'm really liking it. Thanks for feedback and ideas you all gave me on my other post.

Anyway, I'll be back with some Wednesday Thoughts tomorrow. Meanwhile, I'll just be here getting more and more freckly and sunburnt by the minute.

Story Time

Last night after a lively 60th birthday party for my mom, I was wiped out. So I decided to lay down on the couch for a bit and rest. To my delight, my niece (5) and nephew (3) hopped on the couch to snuggle up with me. To keep them entertained I decided to tell them a story.

The first story that came to mind was Goldilocks and the 3 bears but they already knew that one and Paige took over telling it about half way through. So I went back in my memory bank and pulled up Hansel and Gretel. It had been awhile since I'd thought about that story and as I was telling it, I found myself increasingly uncomfortable with its contents.

My telling of it went something like this (parts in parenthesis are my thoughts):

Once upon a time there was a boy named Hansel and a girl named Gretel. Their parents were poor and decided to (uh oh, should I say this part?) um... get rid of them because they were too poor to feed them. Well...story goes on...bread crumbs...lost...house made of sweets....it turned out that the house belonged to a witch who wanted to (gulp - is this information going to do any permanant damage?) eat them. (Why does there have to be cannibalism in this story?!)

So, the kids stay there as her slaves...she fattens them up....so on and so forth... but when the witch wasn't paying attention, (oh boy...) they pushed her into the oven and burned her alive. (How is that ok to tell to kids!?)

But neither kid seemed the slightest bit disturbed. In fact, Paige told me that she heard a different version in school and she wanted to tell it to me. In her version, the kids pushed the witch into a cauldron so they could eat her. I said, "I don't think they wanted to eat her, I think they wanted to run to freedom." She just said, "Oh, yeah." At the end of Paige's story, the evil step mother was eaten by crocodiles. Paige seemed very happy with this ending, clearly feeling that justice had been served.

And here I thought my version would scare them. I guess I know nothing about kids. Either that or kids are ok with cannibalism. I guess I'd better watch my back.

*Don't forget, there's still one more day to enter the giveaway below!

Quotes from this weekend

This weekend was a family weekend. On Friday night, we all got together at Chuck E Cheese (the "kid casino" as one friend calls it) for my nephew Ethan's 3rd birthday. On Saturday, we all got together again to have a family book release party for my brother Sean's book. Then on Sunday, we reconvened for Mother's Day. Here are some funny moments from the weekend.

Me to my 4 yr old niece, Paige: "What do you think of my dress?"
Paige: "It's very pretty. But you need some glass slippers."

My grandma to me: "When I have my surgery you have to come visit me to meet this doctor. I'm going to ask him if he's married. And wear that dress."

My 10 yr. old nephew James: "After dinner today, I want to put on a comedy show for everyone."

Later that day at his comedy show: "The kids are going to have to cover their ears for this last one. When you're out of the bathroom, you're American, but when you're in the bathroom what are you? European. Get it?"

My three year old nephew Ethan, after pulling up my pant leg and zerberting my ankle: "Dinosaur kisses!!"

Ethan: "I'm a friendly snake" (while chasing me and hissing).

Ethan, introducing his dad to everyone: "That's my dad. He's my brother."

The BSC

Recently I was reminscing with some friends about one of the best book series ever: The Baby-sitters Club. From the first moment in third grade when I ordered the first book in the series, "Kristy's Big Idea," I was hooked. A few years and many books into the series later, I started noticing that they were a bit formulaic but I didn't hold it against them. How could I? After all I'd been through with them (Stacy's diabetes, Mary Ann's break ups with Logan, Mallory's mono, and Claudia's grandma dying to name a few)! If you read the books as a kid, you'll understand.

But I digress. This week Katherine and I had a baby-sitting adventure of our own. Our "charges," as the BSC would call them, were our neices and nephew: Paige, Ethan, and Samantha. I know I'm biased, but these kids are so cute! Here's the evidence:

This is Samantha. She is such a little cutie. Look at that hair! It's too cute. She's not quite ready to walk on her own, but is almost there. Meanwhile, she's just this adorable little cutie, crawling around and smiling. Did I mention her hair is really fuzzy? I love it.

Here are a couple pictures of Ethan. In the first one, he looks very innocent, reading a book. In the second one, you see his other side. The side that attacked me when he was supposed to be playing "hide and sneak" (as Paige calls it) with Katherine.

Here's Paige hanging out with Katherine, and in the other picture, posing with her sunglasses and Barbie vanity. She's such a little actress.

We had a lot of fun with these kids! It was a day Kristy, Mary Ann, Stacy, and Claudia prepared me for years ago. Too bad I left my "Kid Kit" at home.

Cuteness overload

I saw some really cute babies this week. They were so cute, in fact, I felt compelled to blog about them to share their cuteness with the world. (And by world, I mean the three people who look at my blog.) The first cute baby I have to brag about is my baby niece, Samantha. Katherine put her in a shoebox this week and it was beyond adorable. What, you think I'm exaggerating? I'm so not. To prove it, here's a picture:

The other cute baby I saw is little Ruthie, Justin and Alecia's baby. I haven't seen her in person in several months. I have been keeping up with her on her parent's blog, but she's even cuter in person! Ready to say, "aaaawwww"!? Here's a picture of Janice holding her:

Told you they were cute!