I really did survive the back-to-back family reunions, no matter how it appears. I'm not, however, recovered from the debilitating fatigue from way, way WAY too much family time. My dad's family reunion is always every year, and always the same weekend every year; the first weekend after Father's Day. This isn't too bad, as you always know when to ask for time off. However, depending where we have it, it is either hot and dry (Utah), hot and humid (Oklahoma), or hot and hypoxic (Colorado. At least for those of us used to living at sea level). My dad's oldest sister is getting on a bit (she's older that my mom's dad), and so lately we try to keep it close to her home, which means Utah. The only thing worse than Utah in June is Utah in July and August, so I am grateful for small favors. The boys and I flew to Salt Lake and then rented a car to drive the 2 hours north to Logan. The plan was to return the car to the airport the next day, jump in my parents' SUV and travel down to Bryce Canyon and Zion. Yippee. Locked in a car with my kids and my parents who have already spent 5 days together in close quarters. Whoohoo. The only thing that would make this better is staying in the same motel rooms..oh, wait.
After dropping the dogs off at the kennel, we got to the airport in plenty of time to stand in an incredibly long line to get through security. I had the kids' passports with me, as well as their dad's death certificate, because I'm positive some day, someone will ask for their photo ids or proof that I have permission to drag my children hither and yon. It hasn't happened yet, but I'll be prepared if it ever does! It looked as though I was in line for the naked body scanner, but it was taking so long to evaluate what was being seen, that the line was growing exponentially with each passing minute and we were hurried through the regular metal detector. In an aside here, wouldn't that be a sucky job; looking at the naked body scanner images all day long? I know it's not supposed to show graphic images, but I've seen pictures of the images it does show, and I think that is nightmare inducing enough. I've had enough 400 lb patients to know they exist, and, while I'm used to having those naked images burned into my retina, can you imagine being a poor TSA agent sitting there all unsuspecting when, WHAMMO! Image of a giant pannus and no way to escape it? Argh.
The flight was uneventful, and after SoS had to go to the bathroom six times from the gate to the rental desk, we finally got in the car and were off. We got to my aunt's about a half hour before dinner, dodged what felt like 8500 Dachshunds (okay 5), ate a little, talked a little and then headed back to the motel for some swimming time. FB is like a giant great Dane puppy right now. At 12 he's close to 5'8, about 170lbs and his appendages are moving through time and space without any real control on his part, not to mention he is in a hormonal stupor that leaves him oblivious to pretty much anything. My aunt's house has one step at the door. You step down from the house to the step and the step to the driveway. Apparently, this was a little too much terrain to navigate for FB. He walked out of the house to to get something from the car and had barely cleared the doorway before he was on his hands and knees. "Dude, did you trip?" "No." "Twist your ankle?" "No." "Step on your shoelace?" "No." The only other explanation is a temporary astral projection being brought on by a rip in the space-time continuum. Then next morning, I was trying to get SoS out of the back seat so we could go in to breakfast, when I experienced a mini earthquake and heard a large grunt. It seems FB got tangled up in the strap to his book bag and fell out of the car. The car that was about six inches off the ground. I'm such a bad mother, I almost couldn't ask if he was okay because I was bent over trying not to pee from laughing about it.
Here's a side note about being a grown ass woman and sharing a motel room with your parents and your children: try to avoid it. No one wants to subject themselves to their father's baggy, peek-a-boo boxers, the need to be considerate and curb one's night owl tendencies, and don't get me started on the dual teeth flossing concerto. How I wished my children and I could have been spared! The horror, the horror! I couldn't get my own room because I know my parents would give me all kinds of flack about it being ridiculous to spend money for two rooms when we could stay in one, yadda, yadda, yadda. Here's one problem with this. The first night when I was about to shower I realized I had forgotten my pajamas. Not a huge problem since I had my House of Blues Las Vegas t-shirt that only came in 2XL and comes to just north of my knees. It could double as pajamas. The next problem I noticed was that I had one pair of boyshort undies and the rest were all thongs. Thongs pack really small and are a good choice when you are trying to keep three people's worth of clothing down to one bag. Not a good choice when you are sharing a room with your children and your parents and you have no pajama pants. So, while I was safe on the first night, the next three were spent putting my shorts back on after my shower then trying to shimmy out of them and into bed without exposing too much of myself to my parents or my children. Not to mention that SoS slept with me, he's a snuggler, and I spent three nights unsticking his sweaty little body from my ass.
If one stays on I-15 you can get through the state of Utah, north to south, in about 5 hours. Salt Lake is north, Bryce and Zion are south. I decided I wanted to take the kids to a dinosaur museum in Price, which was more east than south and would add about 3 hours on to our trip, but what an experience to see, right? Raptor bones so far found only in Utah, how cool is that? It would have been really cool, had I remembered what state I was in and that there is nothing, but nothing, that would allow a museum to be open in central Utah on a Sunday. Really wished that we would have remembered what day it was before we started this trek off the beaten path. We ended up staying in a motel in Panguitch, Utah, which is exactly as small as it sounds. Said motel was not picked by my mom and I, who wanted the cute little individual units that looked like separate little Victorian houses, but by my dad for the sole reason there was a '32 Ford parked at one of the units with some really cool rims he wanted to get for his 55 Chevy. If you only know the number of decisions in my life that have revolved around my dad's need for bitchin' car parts.
We got to Bryce the next day and spent time looking at the hoodoos. I oohed and aahed, and listened to my parents gasping at 9100 ft above sea level praying the whole time that I wasn't going to have to code them. Put a damper on the vacation, that's for sure. The kids and I decided we would hike down a trail that descended about 520 feet into the canyon; all slickrock switchbacks. Did I mention that it felt like the surface of the sun? Ninety degrees in the desert, hiking down rocks with no visible vegetation. Basically it was hot. But gorgeous. And yes, I left the parents in the relative cool of the shade at Sunset Point Lookout, otherwise I would have to employ some life saving skills and I was just not feeling it.
After dropping the dogs off at the kennel, we got to the airport in plenty of time to stand in an incredibly long line to get through security. I had the kids' passports with me, as well as their dad's death certificate, because I'm positive some day, someone will ask for their photo ids or proof that I have permission to drag my children hither and yon. It hasn't happened yet, but I'll be prepared if it ever does! It looked as though I was in line for the naked body scanner, but it was taking so long to evaluate what was being seen, that the line was growing exponentially with each passing minute and we were hurried through the regular metal detector. In an aside here, wouldn't that be a sucky job; looking at the naked body scanner images all day long? I know it's not supposed to show graphic images, but I've seen pictures of the images it does show, and I think that is nightmare inducing enough. I've had enough 400 lb patients to know they exist, and, while I'm used to having those naked images burned into my retina, can you imagine being a poor TSA agent sitting there all unsuspecting when, WHAMMO! Image of a giant pannus and no way to escape it? Argh.
The flight was uneventful, and after SoS had to go to the bathroom six times from the gate to the rental desk, we finally got in the car and were off. We got to my aunt's about a half hour before dinner, dodged what felt like 8500 Dachshunds (okay 5), ate a little, talked a little and then headed back to the motel for some swimming time. FB is like a giant great Dane puppy right now. At 12 he's close to 5'8, about 170lbs and his appendages are moving through time and space without any real control on his part, not to mention he is in a hormonal stupor that leaves him oblivious to pretty much anything. My aunt's house has one step at the door. You step down from the house to the step and the step to the driveway. Apparently, this was a little too much terrain to navigate for FB. He walked out of the house to to get something from the car and had barely cleared the doorway before he was on his hands and knees. "Dude, did you trip?" "No." "Twist your ankle?" "No." "Step on your shoelace?" "No." The only other explanation is a temporary astral projection being brought on by a rip in the space-time continuum. Then next morning, I was trying to get SoS out of the back seat so we could go in to breakfast, when I experienced a mini earthquake and heard a large grunt. It seems FB got tangled up in the strap to his book bag and fell out of the car. The car that was about six inches off the ground. I'm such a bad mother, I almost couldn't ask if he was okay because I was bent over trying not to pee from laughing about it.
Here's a side note about being a grown ass woman and sharing a motel room with your parents and your children: try to avoid it. No one wants to subject themselves to their father's baggy, peek-a-boo boxers, the need to be considerate and curb one's night owl tendencies, and don't get me started on the dual teeth flossing concerto. How I wished my children and I could have been spared! The horror, the horror! I couldn't get my own room because I know my parents would give me all kinds of flack about it being ridiculous to spend money for two rooms when we could stay in one, yadda, yadda, yadda. Here's one problem with this. The first night when I was about to shower I realized I had forgotten my pajamas. Not a huge problem since I had my House of Blues Las Vegas t-shirt that only came in 2XL and comes to just north of my knees. It could double as pajamas. The next problem I noticed was that I had one pair of boyshort undies and the rest were all thongs. Thongs pack really small and are a good choice when you are trying to keep three people's worth of clothing down to one bag. Not a good choice when you are sharing a room with your children and your parents and you have no pajama pants. So, while I was safe on the first night, the next three were spent putting my shorts back on after my shower then trying to shimmy out of them and into bed without exposing too much of myself to my parents or my children. Not to mention that SoS slept with me, he's a snuggler, and I spent three nights unsticking his sweaty little body from my ass.
If one stays on I-15 you can get through the state of Utah, north to south, in about 5 hours. Salt Lake is north, Bryce and Zion are south. I decided I wanted to take the kids to a dinosaur museum in Price, which was more east than south and would add about 3 hours on to our trip, but what an experience to see, right? Raptor bones so far found only in Utah, how cool is that? It would have been really cool, had I remembered what state I was in and that there is nothing, but nothing, that would allow a museum to be open in central Utah on a Sunday. Really wished that we would have remembered what day it was before we started this trek off the beaten path. We ended up staying in a motel in Panguitch, Utah, which is exactly as small as it sounds. Said motel was not picked by my mom and I, who wanted the cute little individual units that looked like separate little Victorian houses, but by my dad for the sole reason there was a '32 Ford parked at one of the units with some really cool rims he wanted to get for his 55 Chevy. If you only know the number of decisions in my life that have revolved around my dad's need for bitchin' car parts.
We got to Bryce the next day and spent time looking at the hoodoos. I oohed and aahed, and listened to my parents gasping at 9100 ft above sea level praying the whole time that I wasn't going to have to code them. Put a damper on the vacation, that's for sure. The kids and I decided we would hike down a trail that descended about 520 feet into the canyon; all slickrock switchbacks. Did I mention that it felt like the surface of the sun? Ninety degrees in the desert, hiking down rocks with no visible vegetation. Basically it was hot. But gorgeous. And yes, I left the parents in the relative cool of the shade at Sunset Point Lookout, otherwise I would have to employ some life saving skills and I was just not feeling it.
HHAwesome view, yes?
Howzabout this?
Meanwhile, this is what the offspring were involved in:
More to follow, but I should probably do something besides blog today.
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