And…since I haven’t been very good about updating my blog lately, that needs to be explained. We spent this past week as a family on our annual trek to Jellystone Park….and this trip…surely…will go down in the family legend as one of the most memorable yet…for…many reasons. It’s probably best if I start at the beginning.
We planned to leave Tuesday morning, but I didn’t manage to get everything packed and organized early enough. We were all tired and since Andrew had an 11 am appointment to get his braces off, we decided to just take our time. For some reason, all of our trips to Warrens seem to go like this, but that’s ok. There’s no sense in rushing around and really … leaving late seems to be part of our family tradition. We were also, as usual, trying to pack too much into the day. There was Alex’s championship soccer game (which we ended up missing anyway), the cats and dog to drop off at the ’spa’ and on top of that, we were hoping to drop by the passport office and apply for the kid’s passports on our way out of town. LOL What WERE we thinking?
I got everything packed and loaded and all of the kids into the car and then went inside to find out what was keeping Thomas. It turns out, that although he registered for his Internal Medicine boards early and even took his recertification exam for Infectious Disease two years earlier than he had to … just in case, you know … because he likes to dot his i’s and cross his t’s…the good dawkter forgot to actually book our vacation. Forget is perhaps too strong of a word. It isn’t that he forgot. He was hoping to get a good deal and had been following the prices for the last couple of weeks and then just conveniently … how can I say this? … he realized once the van was packed and the kids were seat-belted in … that after all of that price-checking, he hadn’t actually BOOKED a cabin.
While I sat on the sofa and tried to keep my head from twisting off my neck while I levitated towards the ceiling in a fit of rage, Thomas picked up the phone and called the park. There was limited availability. They could only accommodate us until Friday morning at 11am, which meant two days of swimming for the kids.
It might sound impossible to believe, but I didn’t actually get angry. By that point, I figured that what was done was done. Irritated? yes. But I just didn’t have it in me to get upset about it. I think it scared him more that I didn’t react. He tried to come up with several alternate plans and I agreed that something would work out….which is also about the time that I realized that my digital camera was missing.
So…just to recap….the kids were sitting in the van watching a movie in our drive-way at nearly 5pm while my husband paced the floors trying to come up with an alternate vacation and I raced through the house trying to find the camera. I had just had it the night before and had yelled at Amanda to stop playing with it. Amanda, put my camera down! I had yelled as I recognized the beep, beep, beep as she scrolled through the pictures that I had just taken.
The camera was nowhere to be found.
As a peace offering, Thomas offered to get a new one. “It’s about time for a new one anyway. Let’s just stop by Best Buy on our way out of town.” And we did…. I walked away with a new $399 Nikon (which is more money than I have ever spent on a camera before in my entire life!) and my focus shifted back to vacation. As we got onto I-94, the kids were occupied by their movie, Thomas was playing on his iPhone and I cranked up the music. Our vacation, it seemed, would all come together after all!
We checked into the park later that night, set up the beds, watched Free Willy on the tv that I had brought with us, and then all headed off to bed.
I was the first person up in the morning and I used my time to go for a long walk through the park. I started walking a few months ago and now I find that I feel unhappy if I miss that part of my day. It has been a good outlet for me to deal with all of the stress that we have been dealing with this summer. In truth, while I walked through Jellystone, I realized how sad I’ve been feeling about many things this summer. Even though we were just hours from the house, the distance allowed me to reflect on this past year with the kids and everything that we have been dealing with from schools to eating disorders, autism spectrums and the everyday chaos that seems to be part and parcel of juggling the lives of 6 other people…and…then there is me…my needs…which I definitely have, but seem to not be good about meeting.
I decided that instead of trying to put off my feelings, think about something positive, or distract myself by planning my school schedule for the fall that I was just going to *be with myself* for my walks and let myself feel however I …. felt. It probably doesn’t sound like a very novel idea, but I tend to make myself too busy to listen to … me.
It was a really nice gift to give myself permission to think about how I feel without brushing it off or feeling like I had to explain it. By the end of the second day, I was in full vacation mode and felt better than I have felt in a year or more! Actually, we all seemed to settle down pretty quickly and it became striking apparent that we are in need of a lot more vacation time!
Zoe got busy right off of the bat finding a little boy to play with! She wasn’t really excited about the idea of sharing, but fortunately, this little boy was firm about keeping his own toys!

She seemed to have more fun outside of the water watching it at first…

But Aidan just jumped right in!



This is the first year that we were able to let the older kids go off a little on their own to go down the water slide, play mini-golf or ride the paddle boats. We had regular check-ins with them, and periodically looked for them to make sure they were ok. What we discovered is that they all teamed up and did things together. Andrew took Aidan and Alex mini-golfing on several occasions. At other times, Alex and Andrew went skate-boarding/rip-stiking and Amanda took Aidan to the park. That left me to watch Zoe and gave Thomas some time to read.

Thomas and I marveled at how well things were going. Now … in retrospect, I realize that this was our first mistake. We should have never let our guard down, but we were having such an incredibly relaxing time. It turns out that there was space available in the villas and even though they were more expensive, on Friday we moved from the trailer that we usually rent

to the villa…complete with central vac, 2 televisions, a washer/dryer and well…a private bedroom for the grown-ups!

This is the way vacation is supposed to be, I thought, as I relaxed BY MYSELF in the hot tub for a half an hour. Thomas was watching Zoe swim in the kiddy pool and Andrew, Alex, Aidan and Amanda were building sand castles.
I believe that moment was the defining turning point in our vacation. Complacency breeds failure, as the saying goes, and I believe that Thomas and I were happy to see the kids playing together and we felt so relaxed that we let some things slide.
“I found $50″ on the playground, Amanda said. I raised my eyebrows. Really? Where?
“Right in the sand.”
I debated out loud whether or not we should report finding lost money but was shot down. Something about the story seemed fishy though and that night while we were wishing on shooting stars before the outdoor movie theater started, Alex said something that stuck with me. “I wished for $100. If it comes true, I’m going to buy myself a trick bike.” Amazingly, the next day, Alex found a $100 bill…and then the playground story unraveled. A much larger sum of money had been found at the park…and not in the sand…but…in a wallet that had been lost there.
We were sitting at Dairy Queen while Thomas took the money out of Amanda’s wallet and confiscated the $100 from Alex.
After I picked my jaw up off of the table, accused my children of being thieves, and tossed my ice cream into the garbage bin, I shuttled everyone into the van and ranted the entire way back to camp.
When you find a wallet, you TURN IT IN. You do NOT take the cash and leave the wallet. I yelled this to no one in particular in the car…and to all of them. There was no movement, no talking…this was big and they knew it.
I pulled up to the camp, opened up the back door and got Amanda and then marched her into the office. It was packed with people checking in for the weekend and was standing room only when I got to the main desk.
Have you had a report of a wallet that was missing in the last 24 hours? I asked.
“Let me go and look and see if someone has turned on in”… the clerk had misunderstood.
No. My daughter FOUND a wallet..
“We can take it for you…”
She doesn’t have it. She took the money from the wallet and then left it lying there.
You could have heard a pin drop. The place was dead quiet and Amanda’s face turned beet red… As did mine. The clerk looked at me, unclear of what it was that I wanted from her.
My daughter found a wallet, removed the money and left the wallet. I want to know if someone reported a missing wallet or having lost some cash. It needs to be returned to the rightful owner.
Some people started laughing…I couldn’t figure out if they were laughing at me trying to turn in a large quantity of cash, me bringing my daughter in to embarrass her or … at my daughter who looked like she was going to melt into a puddle of teenage humiliation right then and there.
I filled out a form with my address and the details and omitted the amount and some other details and we walked out of the office and back to the van. I wanted to make this a teachable moment, but it felt like it fell flat. All I could think about was the fact that someone had lost a lot of money and my daughter had not had the sense to turn in a wallet that she had found.
We don’t get a lot of vacation days and I was determined not to let this ruin the vacation. Teachable moment? Yes. End of our trip? I decided, finally…no….and so we moved on with this in the back of our minds.
There was plenty of fun left to be had:

Alex and Zoe riding the train

Amanda and Aidan riding the train

Andrew and Alex golfing

Thomas and Alex doing the “Macarena” dance

Amanda and Zoe exploring in the woods

Aidan swimming

Thomas and Aidan swimming

Thomas and Zoe swimming

Andrew and Alex chasing each other on the beach

Burying Andrew in the sand


Riding in the paddle boats

Zoe’s first haircut
and…
More relaxing on the beach…

Zoe

Alex and Aidan

Thomas trying desperately to get some sort of iPhone signal. We are truly junkies!
And… Me…

Our last day was probably the best of the entire trip. As we packed up from the beach to leave, I noticed that Alex had left his root beer bottle.
Pick up your bottle, Alex, I said as I helped the little ones get their shoes on to walk back to the villa. After about 5 minutes of walking I realized that my side was soaking wet. I grabbed the bag that I had over my shoulders and noticed that something was leaking out of the bottom. Instinctively, I grabbed for my iPhone. It was vibrating. My new camera? Soaking wet.
The culprit?
Alex’s bottle of root beer. He had picked it up with the cap only partially closed and had tossed it into my bag.
The iPhone? We never were able to get it to work….and replacing it…seems unlikely right now. We are mailing it back to iphone….and once they determine that we wrecked it (which won’t be hard because it smells like a root beer factory!) they will sell us a new one for $199.
The camera? It showed minimal signs of life but gasped, shuddered and then died as we tried in vain to dry it out!
You are probably thinking right now that this sounds like a horrible vacation…but it wasn’t. For the most part, we had a great time. We were able to rescue the pictures and even though my heart is broken up over my iPhone (no REALLY) and camera, they are just things. With medication and months of therapy, I’m sure to get over it! LOL I have my sim card and hopefully I will be able to retrieve all of my contact information/programs and photos from there…
And…OK….someone DID leave the refrigerator door open here at home and when we finally walked through the door we were hit with the overpowering smell of rotten potatoes. But…the fridge at least got a good cleaning!
As for me, I’m busy planning the trip to Wyoming next week…..more updates are sure to follow!