And Then We Crashed Grandpa's House

So when I left off oversharing  boring you to death  telling you about our trip to Minnesota, we were just leaving my mom's and heading to my dad and stepmom's place. They only live about 40 minutes apart which is pretty darn convenient for us.

Wednesday

The first thing that happened when we got to my dad's was that their dog went ballistic. I could not even describe her level of enthusiasm when in through the door walked 8 new butts to sniff.

She immediately knocked the baby flat on his back in her haste to get to us, in case you were wondering who wins when a 1-year-old German Shepherd weighing 80 pounds goes up against a 25-pound 1-year-old human.

Since the last time we visited, they bulldozed the old community pool and built a pretty awesome water park in its place. It had a lazy river, a kiddie pool, a regular pool with diving boards, two waterslides, and a rock climbing wall and zipline over the water.

To paraphrase Dana Carvey, when I was your age we only had one run-down pool and that's the way it was and we LIKED it.

My 3-year-old was like a fish in the water but I didn't realize how much of it he was swallowing until he needed to pee twice before we left and again every 5 minutes for the next half-hour after we got home.

Thursday

Phillip and I were excited to leave the kids with my dad and stepmom for a belated anniversary getaway, but first we decided to take the kids shoe shopping because we apparently hate ourselves.

Shoe shopping is the worst.

Nevertheless, everyone who needed new shoes got them, and then Phillip and I were out of there!

Outside our hotel. Please look away from the mammoth cold sore that had STILL not healed.

We stayed in Minneapolis right near the University of Minnesota campus. It was the prettiest area to walk around. Can you beat this view?

After dinner, we walked to the grocery store and bought a quart of ice cream with different toppings for the two nights we'd be there.

Maybe it was just because I didn't have to share, but I thought it tasted extra-good.

Friday

Sleeping in, barely making it to breakfast in the lobby before they closed, then getting back in bed to watch a movie on TV might not sound like the most exciting thing ever, but it totally was. I'm still riding the high of watching Genius uninterrupted at 10:30 AM.

After the movie we remembered how sloths start to grow algae after a while, and since we weren't sure if that kind of thing also happens to people or not, we decided to play it safe and get up and walk to lunch at a great Turkish street food place.

The large plate at the forefront looks like a salad, but it's actually a plate of fries drenched in Turkish goodness. If you're looking for your will to live, it's probably in this bowl.

Then we walked and walked and walked to the Weisman Art Museum, which is a modern art museum in case you couldn't tell from the outside of the building:

In all, we walked a billion miles (okay, four, but it was hot and sunny and felt like a lot) and I was completely worn out by the time we got back to the hotel.

But I did see a lady pushing her dog in a specially-made dog stroller, so from a comedic standpoint the long walk was totally worth it.

Saturday

Today was the last day of our trip-within-a-trip, and it had been sorely needed. I actually have no idea what the kids did with my dad and stepmom for 3 days; I was having too good a time to even wonder about it.

We had tickets for a matinee play of Sunday in the Park with George, so we ate brunch across the street from the theater (well, Phillip ordered an omelette which is appropriate brunch food but I was starving so I had an organic Moroccan lamb burger, which wasn't as expensive as it sounds.)

Reading this over, we sound so fancy. We're not that fancy. I had to look up how to spell 'omelette.'

Sunday

Back with the kids again, we went to church on Sunday morning. The cool thing about being Mormon is that church is the same everywhere in the world; we use the meetinghouse locator to find a congregation wherever we are and it feels like home.

Mostly, anyway. The congregation in my dad's town is so teeny our family made up ⅓ of it, so that was a little interesting.

After church, we all took a walk and went by my old high school. I'd heard they were doing some major construction on the building.

Between the new high school and the new waterpark, I started thinking about how seeing your hometown keep changing after you've left is kind of weird.

That's exactly why my high school boyfriends stayed 16 forever and definitely did not turn into grown men with lives and jobs and kids. Wouldn't it be so strange if they did?

Monday

On a walk along the dam in town, the older kids wanted to hop from rock to rock to cross the water. I don't even have any pictures because I didn't want to stick around and have to fish them out of the river (that's what dads and grandpas are for.)

I've basically reached the stage of mothering where instead of "be careful!" you're more likely to hear me shouting to the kids "fine, but if you fall in I'm not taking you home to change!" They had fun and everyone stayed dry, so I guess it turned out alright in the end.

That afternoon, the kids had fun in the inflatable pool in my dad's and splashed out almost all of the water.

Their 5-year-old cousin, a mild-mannered only child, was slightly horrified at the way the 9-year-old bellowed and launched himself into the pool from halfway across the yard. But after a few minutes, she got into it and decided to start being a little crazy, too.

But maybe not quite as crazy as the 9-year-old.

Tuesday

The heat index was so high we were warned by the weatherman not to go outside, so of course that's when the kids wanted to ride bikes in the driveway. I guess that's what popsicles are for.

We went back to the waterpark, and for dinner that night all went out to a Chinese buffet for dinner.

I can definitively say this restaurant wins the award for strangest fortunes in a fortune cookie. My brother's was "Ignorance on fire is better than knowledge on ice," which sounds like the kind of thing you say to sound smart at parties but nobody actually knows what it means.

Mine said "If the cake is bad, what good is the frosting?" which I guess means I can relax about cleaning the house as long as we're mostly good people inside.

And my dad's fortune offered this bizarre mediation:

Umm... what?

Well, it's something to think about if you're up in the middle of the night, I guess.

Wednesday

As Phillip and I packed for our return trip home, the kids took turns getting motorcycle rides from Grandpa. It was still hot so my 5-year-old appreciated the fan effect of the wind.

We said goodbye and drove to the airport, where the 1-year-old kept stealing the 3-year-old's Spiderman carryon and rolling it around while the 3-year-old sobbed about it.

That was almost kind of funny because on our last flight two years ago, I recall our now 5-year-old crying because that same child was stealing her carryon and doing the same thing.

Sorry, 3-year-old. This is called 'karma.'

And despite the fact that it was sort of an ill-fated flight, we all made it home safely and the kids even got an invitation from the pilot to see the cockpit.

We're home now and have thrown ourselves into enjoying the next 5 weeks of summer before school starts up again. Time flies when your house is a loud, swirling mass of chaos. 

(Make sure to read about Week 1 of our vacation if you haven't already!)


Click to Share: