I have laughed a couple of times while we’ve been traveling when people ask me how I’m enjoying our vacation, because I would not define this trip as a vacation. This experience would fall into the category of an adventure. The word “vacation” usually implies rest and relaxation. I can’t say that I’ve done much of either in the last 2 days.
For starters, I’m by myself with 3 kids under the age of 8 staying in a tiny hotel room. Something about hotel rooms brings out the monkey in them. They want to race down the hallways, jump on the beds, and scream at the top of their lungs, so I’ve been conducting an ongoing class on hotel etiquette! This morning we had a complimentary breakfast in the hotel. It was barely edible. Even my kids weren’t fans. I don’t know how you can mess up breakfast food, but apparently it’s possible.
After breakfast, we headed to the local mall to find a wedding gift, and to buy shoes for my daughter and some jewelry/ accessories for me. I dragged the kids around to find the best deals, and they weren’t happy about that. They were pretty obnoxious in one of the stores as I looked at jewelry. They were making noise while dangling the necklaces and dropped some pieces on the floor. One of the customers looked at them with a judgmental look and then gave me the evil eye as if to say, “Why aren’t you controlling your children?” And you know for brief moment, I really didn’t care that they were acting in a wild fashion. What I wanted to do was to tell this lady in a not so nice way that I was exhausted and to mind her own business, but I didn’t because truthfully, she was right. They were acting like monkeys, and I wasn’t doing anything about it. Eventually, I stepped in with the discipline, but likely a bit late:) So anyway, we had smoothies on the ride back to the hotel and then swam for the afternoon. The wild people needed to jump and scream for a bit.
I thought I had left enough time for us to shower and get ready for the rehearsal dinner, but I guessed wrong. Our delay started with the boys tackling themselves in the bathroom where I was applying mascara. One of them ran into me which caused the mascara brush to fall onto my dress, so I had a huge black line going down the front of the dress. I spent several minutes trying to remove the mascara. Next came my youngest in with a bloody nose. Again, the brotherly wrestling, so I spent several more minutes trying to get his blood to clot in his nose and then clean off the blood from his clothes. At that point, my fuse was a bit short, so I made all 3 of them sit in separate areas on the beds until I could finish getting us ready and finally out the door. We were late to the dinner, of course.
The pig roasting was great fun as we spent time with sweet family members. It was wonderful to watch the happy couple and to hear the toasts. Great memories for them. I also realized how old I was! I could have been the mother to the bride and all of her attendants! Oh, well. Life goes on.
Of course, my oldest son fell out of the hammock and hit his back on the metal framework, and then he shot the youngest son in the eye with a nerf dart. Granted it was not on purpose, but still!
My husband and oldest son are back home gathering camping supplies for their upcoming trip and watching manly movies as my preteen would say. There’s no telling what they’re into, but it must be more restful than what I’m dealing with.
It’s midnight, and the kids are snoring, thank goodness!! I need some sleep. My youngest, who slept with me last night, is a kicker so my quality of sleep is lacking.
Look at this wall sign below that is located beside the hotel pool. I’m assuming the word “availabe” should be spelled “available”, yes? Wonder how long that’s been there..