Road trippin'
Since my last blog, we've had Elissa's family visit, celebrated Easter, celebrated a friend's Birthday (last night) and started packing for our road trip. Oh yeah, we've done all that other stuff families do......gotten cranky, made messes and annoyed each other.
That's the part people tend to ignore in a blog...understandably. I don't really want to read about other people's problems all the time. But it's funny how the rough moments often lead to some great moments. Like last night.
We were nervous about taking Jalen with us to an adult birthday celebration. He doesn't typically handle social niceties very well and a big crowd would be a perfect time to have difficulties. He had chosen to stay home initially, proclaming "I hate music" (it was a music-filled event) but decided to go at the last minute.
It started out pretty typical......"Jalen, the people might not like balloons in their food", and such. We stayed nervous. His grand moment was releasing air from a balloon up under a ladies mini-skirt which caused it to fly upwards making us wish we could holler something like "would somebody please come get their kid" pretending we'd never seen the child before.
As it turns out, he had a ball. And so did we. There were some times we needed to take him outside for running up and down the sidewalk to test out his noisemaker contraption or practice the hula-hoop again. Most everyone tolerated his joyful noise and movement quite well (Jim was rolling the hula-hoop back and forth with him at one point) and he tolerated a social gathering without a melt-down.
I suggested a fork when he was putting his face in the chocolate cake, and I think he ate almost all of Dave's "rat meat" (chicken in disguise...all for the sake of trying to disgust Jalen who thought it sounded just fine to eat rat. oooh ick.) but we all had a most wonderful evening.
He said "that was a really fun party Mom" when we got home. "I want to go to bed, come lay down with me I'm tired" he says. So we did. He cuddled up to me saying "I love you Mom" and fell asleep promptly.
We have some beautiful messes to deal with this morning, baking to finish, clothes to pack and a van to empty. Most of it will get done, some of it won't, but either way we'll hit the road tomorrow morning to go visiting, kayaking, eating, fire-pitting, wining (no truly, the drink not the high-pitched voice), exploring, talking, hugging and having a generally fabulous time at FLT.
The cabins are heated this time around, so no frozen noses in the morning...yay! We're hauling the cast iron dutch oven and the tripod for some outdoor chili. We'll be right on the bay and enjoy the ocean that we've missed since moving up here to the mountains (it's really easier to miss the ocean than the mountains for us though). Still need to pick up film and a bottle of wine to share with Geri.
I love, love, love heading out for a road trip. North Carolina coast, here we come!!
That's the part people tend to ignore in a blog...understandably. I don't really want to read about other people's problems all the time. But it's funny how the rough moments often lead to some great moments. Like last night.
We were nervous about taking Jalen with us to an adult birthday celebration. He doesn't typically handle social niceties very well and a big crowd would be a perfect time to have difficulties. He had chosen to stay home initially, proclaming "I hate music" (it was a music-filled event) but decided to go at the last minute.
It started out pretty typical......"Jalen, the people might not like balloons in their food", and such. We stayed nervous. His grand moment was releasing air from a balloon up under a ladies mini-skirt which caused it to fly upwards making us wish we could holler something like "would somebody please come get their kid" pretending we'd never seen the child before.
As it turns out, he had a ball. And so did we. There were some times we needed to take him outside for running up and down the sidewalk to test out his noisemaker contraption or practice the hula-hoop again. Most everyone tolerated his joyful noise and movement quite well (Jim was rolling the hula-hoop back and forth with him at one point) and he tolerated a social gathering without a melt-down.
I suggested a fork when he was putting his face in the chocolate cake, and I think he ate almost all of Dave's "rat meat" (chicken in disguise...all for the sake of trying to disgust Jalen who thought it sounded just fine to eat rat. oooh ick.) but we all had a most wonderful evening.
He said "that was a really fun party Mom" when we got home. "I want to go to bed, come lay down with me I'm tired" he says. So we did. He cuddled up to me saying "I love you Mom" and fell asleep promptly.
We have some beautiful messes to deal with this morning, baking to finish, clothes to pack and a van to empty. Most of it will get done, some of it won't, but either way we'll hit the road tomorrow morning to go visiting, kayaking, eating, fire-pitting, wining (no truly, the drink not the high-pitched voice), exploring, talking, hugging and having a generally fabulous time at FLT.
The cabins are heated this time around, so no frozen noses in the morning...yay! We're hauling the cast iron dutch oven and the tripod for some outdoor chili. We'll be right on the bay and enjoy the ocean that we've missed since moving up here to the mountains (it's really easier to miss the ocean than the mountains for us though). Still need to pick up film and a bottle of wine to share with Geri.
I love, love, love heading out for a road trip. North Carolina coast, here we come!!
posted by Ren Allen | 11:41 AM
2 Comments:
Awwww.. have fun and greet all the peoples from us. Kyra is bummed that we can't go but something about 22 hours of driving again isn't very appealing, or doable.
Have a great time :)
have a wonderful time!! Funny you should mention puking over at my blog and then I see you are heading to NC (site of our last family puke-fest in Nov of last year). We had fun, anyway. No, really, we did.
Hope it is delightful!
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