In Which She Tells Embarrassing Stories from Vacation

Well a week off never seems to be enough time to do what you would like to do. Thankfully we headed to ND with little agenda in mind. That really helped when we were so wiped we could barely get off the couch! :O)

Big A and I had a good time traveling with the parents. 17-18 hours together is a long time for anyone but in a car all bets are off. Thankfully we travelled well both coming and going - and I only got really grumpy once… maybe twice? ... Ok maybe three times.

There was fog - lots and lots of fog. There was construction - mile after mile of it.

Mainly we laughed a whole lot (when we weren’t sleeping). One giggling incident at 3 am after getting a little turned around in nowhere, SD stands out. Hey, I get giddy at 3 am.

As for the actual vacation in ND with the family there aren’t enough words. LBB (Little Big Brother) suggested that I do a t-shirt of our favorite vacation sayings. The only problem is that only 6 of us would “get” them.

One thing that marks my family is laughter. Thankfully we can usually only argue until one of us says something funny and then it’s all over. So here are some of my favorite vacation moments. We’ll get to the spiritual highlights later. These are the other memorable ones.


Allie Rose (on seeing a little boy fall off his bike under the bleachers) “Hey buddy… are you ok? HEY… BUDDY… are you ok? I found out later she knew the little boy when he came up to us and said “my name is Mason… remember… Mason.”

Allie Rose as a bride - she has the whole getup. She needed an announcer and we decided that only daddy could announce her wedding. Upon Jeff’s pronouncement of “Let’s get ready to MARRYYYYYYY,” she announced to us all that it was time to leave on her honeymoon - to Texas

Jeremiah decided on the last day that he wasn’t ready for us to leave prompting him to walk into rooms where I was and say things like “I’m going to miss you for my WHOLE life.”

Jonathan is a hoot. You know how parents always wish you will have a child just like yourself? Well my brother has spawned a clone of himself. It is really a challenge to not crack up while listening to him.

T-ball is priceless entertainment. The pictures do not do justice to the duos of kids on each base playing in the dirt, talking and holding hands (these are the opposing teams). Allie skips to each base or runs on tip-toe.

We also got to see Jonathan and Jeremiah get hits and score runs in the pee-wee games. The younger kids were fun to watch (no sitting on the base and playing in the dirt for them.

When running downstairs to proclaim her innocence, a good lesson for my niece to learn will be to not start out like this “Whatever it is he says that I did, I didn’t do it” Every adult in the room had their hands over their faces trying not to die laughing as she proceeded to tell exactly what Jeremiah was going to say she did and recount again that she did not do it. Kinda hard to buy the story, but funny!


Finally no words can describe the sweetness of having almost all of the people I love under one roof finally. We got to hold the kids a lot, which always makes me mindful that they will not always want to sit in Aunt Gina’s lap and just cuddle. How time flies!?!