Well, it has been such a long, LONG time since we’ve taken a vacation that we made a break for it this last week. We booked a beautiful beach house on the Oregon coast for nearly a week! EEEEeeeeeee! All my kids and their families took a different route–depending on when they were leaving and where they wanted to stop by the end of the day. The only common goal was to meet at the beach house by Tuesday. The Bald Kid and I jumped in with April and Jacob and the Littles and off we went.
Now you need to know that whenever you take a trip like this, it is mandatory that you pack a ton of good, healthy snacks. I know what you’re thinking, but I solemnly swear the there are apples and mandarins and bananas in that box. They just sunk down to the bottom because all that goody-goodness is much, you know, heavier. Oh, and there are carrots in the cooler too. I swear.
It’s also highly recommended that you bring lots and lots of word games and puzzles…
and bingo cards so that you can keep the short people occupied. And our sweet little Beckham, did very well with his card, by the way, despite the fact that there are absolutely no tole bridges from Utah to Oregon. He got positively everything else so we let him slide on the tole bridge. It was either that or redirect out trip through Pennsylvania.
You see my point.
We watched a movie…
stopped and readjusted the seating arrangements…
and found a few unexpected creatures along the way. Can anybody say, “RANDOM?”
We drove and drove through the mountains and hills of beautiful Idaho…
and watched another movie. The kids had the headphones of this one so we go to watch the no sound version of our dear Harry Potter. Our made up dialogue was better than theirs’ anyway. Heh, heh.
More mountains, more valleys and then…
who should drive right up next to us but…
Lyle Lovett!!
Ok, we didn’t actually ask him his name, but that’s pretty much because we didn’t need to. This guy was totally Lyle Lovett.
Trust me.
And just when we thought me just might perish from all the beautiful mountains and valleys…
we found a park for the wee folk to play in for a while. April and Jacob rested on the grass. Lily climbed the jungle gym.
Beckham slid on the zip line.
The Bald Kid–who is a bit of an over achiever–ran around the whole park twice to stretch his muscles. I sat on a bench and wiggled my foot around to stretch mine. Hey, we each do what works.
Then on we drove through the prairie…
with one more movie in the background.
Our first stop– The Dalles, Oregon and a wonderfully soft, cool, fluffy bed.
Perfect start, I’d say.
