Presidential Motorcade

Yesterday, the kids and I headed “home” to Olney for a President’s Day visit. For whatever reason, I feel an obligation to do something when Alex has a free day.

Initially, I thought I’d take Alex skiing. I wasn’t much older than him when I learned to ski, and I really want him to become more adventurous. When I shared my big plan with him it was not well received. That is until the night before we were scheduled to leave for plan B, which was Olney. Suddenly, Alex had a burst of courage and decided he could, in fact, handle ski school. With any luck, he’ll save his chutzpah for another day we haven’t already scheduled out of town play dates.

Turns out, the kids had way more fun than they probably would have spending the day with a crazed mom cramming them into boots and bindings. After packing his Leapster®, several movies, his blankets, a pillow, and art supplies (the kid is like a rolling Hobby Lobby); Alex was ready for the trip. Meredith’s two concerns were if I brought enough snacks (plenty) and whether or not she could wear a ballet costume in the car (no).

The first plan of the day was to meet up with our friend Bart. Most of you know Bart, but for those of you who don’t, he’s something of a Renaissance man. He’s an attorney, a land lord, a scrap metal hauler, and a proprietor of a bar. Bart offered to take Alex to the scrap metal yard with him, which I think is a euphemism for the dump, but I was afraid Alex would want to bring half of it home. Instead, we met Bart at his bar. It was 11:00 a.m., so thankfully they were closed, otherwise it would have been a convenient walk to the county jail, which is a block away.

“Mr. Bar,” which is what the kids believe his name to be, let them have free reign of the soda fountain gun, and Meredith fixed herself a 20 ounce Diet Coke. This isn’t something that goes on in our house, so she was on cloud nine. Alex, drank his Diet Coke out of a shot glass, and asked Mr. Bar for multiple refills.

I had to pull them out of there for our lunch. I told them multiple times we needed to leave, that we were meeting everyone for pizza. Meredith yelled, “No! I don’t want to go eat pizza! I want to stay here and drink!” Maybe I should start learning the Serenity Prayer now.

We descended on Pizza Hut for lunch with Jennifer and Caroline, and Michelle, and her girls, Maci and Marni. We thought this would be the easiest and most forgiving option. Between the three moms and five kids, I think we made 27 trips to the buffet. Either it was a slow lunch day, or the other diners left in fear, but either way we pretty much had run of the place; which was good because we were far from a quiet group in the corner booth.

Jennifer was kind enough to let us come back to their house for a play date. The kids had so much fun and it makes me sad we live far enough away that they won’t grow up being every day friends. Aunt Jenn bribed them with chocolate and we tried in earnest to get a good group shot. This is better than some we’ve attempted in the past!
While I had the camera out, I took a couple of belly shots of the camera shy mom-to-be. I don’t want to post everything, because I want to be able to save a few surprises just for Geeg. I couldn’t help but share this one.

We also visited our friend Jamie and her cute family. Jamie and her husband Mike have a beautiful new little boy, Bo. Bo was such a trouper. We were late getting there, which delayed his nap. You wouldn’t have known it. He hung out happily while Meredith chattered at him in a high-pitched voice two inches from his face. What a sweet boy!
We called Aunt Kelly from the road and told her we were going to stop in for a quick “hello,” on our way home. 30 minutes later, we were sitting down to vegetable soup and grilled cheese with the Burgins. It was so nice to see them and to feed the kids something aside from McDonald’s eaten out of a wrapper while whizzing down the interstate.

Our kids haven’t seen each other in a few months, so they were w-i-l-d with excitement. Mason and Mitchell ran around and put on some great shows as we were leaving. I apologized for getting them so wound up and I worried they’d be up until all hours. Exactly ten minutes after we left, Kelly called to tell me the boys were already snoring in their beds.

We pulled into our driveway at 9:15 p.m. At any given time, Alex will jump out of our van and leave a bushel of personal belongings behind. Oh no, not last night, when I wanted him to leave it all behind. He insisted on getting every scrap of everything that ever belonged to him out of the van before going to bed.

I think we'll need awhile to recover before our next day-out-of-school trip.