In believing that the journey is just as important as the destination, especially when it comes to family road trips, I put on my big girl pants and tried to make the most of our stops on both our way to and from Breckenridge during our little vacay last week.
Meaning, we played a lot of red light, green light each time we stopped in an effort to get the bigs to stretch their legs as much as they could in as little time possible to keep the our wheels moving down the road (sometimes also referred to as the submarine {suburban} or our new monster truck race car by the kids. I think the latter makes sense, depending on whose driving.)
When we decided to leave a day earlier than we had planned and split up the drive to Breck, we didn't see the plague about to hit our house. Or Hand Foot and Mouth disease, to be exact.
Nelle contracted it from who knows where and had it on the 4th of July, Henry got it a few days later, and Andrew was miserable as we headed west towards the mountains. He wasn't allowed to touch anyone or anything, so I packed us, loaded us, he drove, and when we stopped for breaks, all three of the kids and I packed into a tiny gas station stall and somehow didn't pick up other diseases as they touched everyyyyyything, and I simultaneously held June, hoisted Nelle onto the toilet, buttoned buttons, etc.
And why yes! This WAS as easy as you are imagining.
So, here we were waiting on dinner, and the kids could have spent hours throwing rocks into these puddles because to them, they had found a pond, and there may have been fish in them, they weren't actually throwing rocks at all, but feeding the fish, just as we weren't behind Subway in Goodland at all either, but rather in exactly the right place they needed to burn off their energy and pretend and be able to answer yes when they asked, "are we on vacation now?" just as they did immediately as we backed out of our driveway.
Yes, yes.
Even a deserted lot in Goodland, Kansas is part of vacation if you let it be.
More to come...
If there are awards given out at the end of t-ball seasons, Henry miiiight not win MVP (although Andrew would give it to him because...sons),
but he'd be probably win the most-likely-to-stand-in-front-of-his-teammates-
so-he-can-get-the-ball because in classic Henry form,
he wants to be where the action is. Every time.
He'd also be a contender for the most-likely-to-draw-his-own-line-in-the-dirt-award after his coach drew one for him to show him where to stand.
I suppose this is better than winning the most-likely-to-play-in-the-dirt-award?
Bathroom break.
As with most things in our life right now, t-ball season has been a family affair, and the girls have enjoyed it seemingly as much as Henry did. So, I feel it's only fair to hand out awards to them too.
Nelle easily takes home most-bathroom-breaks-in-a-port-a-potty and most-likely-to-be-photographed. Because look at her.
Thankfully she didn't win at jersey chasing.
June Bug easily takes most-likely-to-spill-her-water...all over herself, all over the blanket, all over the chairs, all over us. And most improved player('s sister) for the impressive way she can now stand unassisted. No one else did that this season.
She knew she had it in the bag.
Henry's team always started the games by throwing their arms in the air and yelling, "we're going to have fun!".
And I think they did.
Between the herding technique of chasing after the ball when it rolled into the outfield, other times screaming in unison as they charged towards it after it barely left the swinging bat, and snacks. Snacks! Of course they had fun.
We all did.
We went back to Hiawatha for the weekend to soak up some good family time.
Gosh, it was so nice to be around my brother and sister-in-law and their family, Andrew's cousins, brothers and parents. We didn't have much on the agenda, and that's kind of been our theme for the summer.
I have been relishing in the slower start to our mornings
without the dash to preschool drop off. We typically get a cool morning walk in after breakfast, and then I get the kids situated with playdough or cartoons and actually get to sit and drink an entire cup of coffee without reheating it five times.
We got over the initial transition of school to no school and had such a breezy start to June, and then the last couple of weeks have been tryyyyyyying.
I really struggle with maintaining the stamina and patience and energy it takes to deal with the combination of extreme will + highly active + orneriness. All. Day. Every. Day. Oh, and the girls! Ha! So anytime there can be extra hands around, I'm all in.
This little fishing adventure was so much fun. Henry literally jumped for joy every time someone hooked a fish, which happened a lot because we caught the fish on a cooperative day. Or a hungry day. Or whatever...we just caught them!
It was a good morning, and we sure needed that.
One of these days, I'm going to figure out the right gear to throw in my parenting tackle box, and we'll get a few of these good mornings and good afternoons turned into an entire good day, and there will be more jumping for joy.
