Dear Rest Stop Operators,

Is there anything you can do about the smell and appearance of your Women’s Bathrooms? Especially along I-5 in Oregon or thereabouts. On our recent trip I had a humdinger of a time convincing the 3 and 7 year old that it was indeed okay to use the toilets. That the toilets were not going to suck them down or that there were no monsters lurking under the lid waiting to seize my daughters.

The very first time we stopped, Hope eagerly ran into the stall to show mom what a big girl she was by using the bathroom. She then immediately ran out announcing that…

‘That Potty is Evil.’

I of course checked it out and it appeared to be functional although battered and ancient. I saw no signs of it being possessed.

It took 5 minutes of pleading and finally bribing to get her to use the accused thing. The look of terror on her face led me to believe she would be scarred for life. I think she was too nervous to fully do the entire job for which the rest areas were created in the first place.

You might think that my bathrooms are immaculate and she has a high standard. Let me assure you that we do not. She has three older teenage brothers. Nuff said.

Needless to say, about 20 minutes after we resumed our journey. Both Hope and Princess announced that they again needed to use the restroom. So within 10 minutes I again spied another Rest Area) where I could pull over.

The scene of the Evil potty was then again repeated. This scenario happened over and over. Even the restrooms at McDonalds and Wal-mart brought not the full relief which we all were seeking due to the tramatization of the first few experiences.

On a good note – Thank you for providing so many Rest Stops. I realize that the recent downturn in the economy has forced you to make many cutbacks. But really, how hard is it to keep up the appearance of the Ladies Restrooms? Maybe you could spend less money on watering the grounds. If the grass turns brown you won’t need to mow it as often. And it will perk right back up as soon as the rains come back.

Later in our trip we happened upon another Woman’s Bathroom (Not at a Rest Area, by the way), where the stalls were PINK. My daughter instantly thought she was in the bathroom created for a Princess. And she gushed about how heavenly and perfect the accommodations were. And you also might want to contact the person responsible for the Target in Sac, CA’s rest rooms. Whatever they use for air-fresheners there is divine.

My recommendations:

*Pink Stalls

*Replacing the Toilet Seats more than once every decade

*More frequent cleanings

*Have you tried air fresheners?

*Stock your vending machines with princess or rose colored glasses.

There you have it. Now, as a side thought, do you have anything left in your budget that covers the cost of having the car seats cleaned and detailed? You know because kids would rather have accidents than use your facilities. Just Wondering?

Sincerely,

The Tired mom who survived a trip that should have taken 12 hours but took a day and a half.

My Twilight Pilgrimage

I’m going to now vicariously take you through the Most Fun, Most Grown-up, Giddy-Girl-High Weekend I’ve ever experienced. However, as I’ve never been on a Grown-Up (though we don’t act it) Ladies weekend retreat in my life, (Another Fawndear 1st) I have nothing to compare it with. But as you can see from my photo ops, my perma-grin of happiness from experiencing several Fawndear firsts is plastered onto my face and will probably be there for a while.

DaringYoungMom and Eve started the whole idea rolling a while back and invited a huge circle of friends to come partake of our inner-child, school-girl, and obsession-fest with the Twilight Book Series by Stephenie Meyers. Nine of us were brave enough to make the once in a lifetime trek to the Olympic Peninsula to visit the settings described in her series. And we did it on the very weekend that the Fourth Book in the series ‘Breaking Dawn’ was released.

So here’s my trip in a long photo adventure nutshell – many of the pictures are taken with my B.A.B friend also named Fawndear who stood in as my replacement.

Wait three hours to ride a 20 something-ish minute ferry ride across the Puget Sound. Not too much fun...

However, It wasn’t too bad because my van buddies...

Pazazz, Ethel & Lucy, and Angela (poor-human-lady-who-has-never-even-heard-of-the-Twilight-Series-but-wanted-to-take-a-girl-break), and me had too much fun telling everyone on the ferry what we were off to do, eliciting strange and 'your mental' stares from many fellow passengers.

On our way to our evening gathering location in Port Angeles we made a little detour so Fawndear could drive through a local game preserve and meet some of her not-yet-vampire-food relatives.


Oh so cute!

Then it was off to the cushy Best Western.

...where we gladly paid and arm and a leg not to sleep in the beds for more than a couple of hours. We were there long enough to unload and then we needed to make it to our dinner reservations at Bella and Edwards’s first-date-but-not-really restaurant the Bella Italia in Port Angeles.

Where we're joined by DaringYoungMom, Eve and her 2 1/2 week old baby sweet Miss Annie, my roomies for the night. We figured sure bring a newborn along because we weren't planning on sleeping anyway. She was a doll and people were lining up just to snuggle her.

And get this (as I scream with excitement) we got the happy couples (Bella & Edwards) booth around the corner and next to a line of other booths. DYM ordered Bella's dinner of Mushroom Ravioli ...

Heavenly taste - However the price-tag was a once in a lifetime but worth it ticket

DYM graciously let me have one of her raviolis’. I'm not a mushroom gal - But Yummy!

I would have got the whole dinner but it had prawns in it and I didn’t feel llike tempting my seafood allergy so I ordered the Chicken Storm..a..bocca or something similar sounding that was divine. Well, we daintily ate, gabbed, giggled, conversed with our cute (Edward crushing) waitress for a couple of hours before we headed off to the… very same bookstore ...

(that Bella did not go in, on her scary evening in Port Angeles) for the midnight release of the Breaking Dawn book...

Talk about a party!

with hoards of real life, honest to goodness teenagers. It’s o.k. we fit right in.

I think they had handed out all the books by 12:05 a.m. I got mine around 12: 04: 30 sec.

We were soon back to the lobby of our nightly lodging establishment.

Where we quickly found out who were the sleepers and who were the Twi-hards who could stay-up-all-night reading. I made it till 6 a.m. then zonked for 1 ½ hours.


And our reaction to page 360…


Silent Screaming because we didn’t want to get kicked out of the establishment and DYM collapsing from the sheer brilliance of Ms. Stephenie's Writing…

And… yes my first adult experience with bed-jumping.

And no, I didn’t break anything.

Let me tell you eating and taking showers are inconveniences when you’re so sucked into reading a book. But we did them anyway and were off by noonish Saturday to continue our journey on to Forks, WA.

The primary setting of the novels and location for the most Fawndear cheesy grins and girly squeals you can get in any one town.

Poor Angela had me sitting behind her in the van, screaming and giggling hysterically (probably from lack of sleep) whenever I would see different locations mentioned in the book. All my vehicle occupants agreed that I should continue seeing my Young and Gorgeous Counselor on a regular basis.

So Forks, WA was very Giddy-Tourist-Camera-Wielding hospitable town. I was regretting that they didn’t have more Twilight souvenirs but its o.k. because the pictures are priceless.

Here we are visiting the fictional character’s very real sites. Like...

Bella’s truck in front of the Chamber of Commerce Building with an oh-so-adorable city greeter who would pick up and read her own copy of Breaking Dawn in-between the hoards of romance fans who entered the premises.

Then we visited Sully’s burger for a Bella burger with pineapple and plastic vampire fangs, the Thriftway grocery store for some of Charlie’s (explode the microwave) favorite spaghetti sauce…

The Swan Residence… The funny thing was they had a motercycle parked in the driveway. I think Charlie must have been on vacation or something.

And look whose parking spot we found at the Forks Community Hospital (more girly screams). The Dreamy Dr. Cullen.

However, the Mercedes wasn’t there so he must have been off hunting, I mean hiking. Drat!

Back to Forks High School and a few other drive-by photo spots before it was off to our favorite Werewolf haunt down at…

and my favorite destination of the Day - First Beach.

Could this be Bella and Jacob’s favorite seat?

Or was it this?

Love is in the air - Look how sweet. We found this cute couple on the beach reading the novel of Breaking Dawn together.... Oh How Romantic! (Prince Erik take notes)


Stunning Location! I had to shamelessly collect a few pieces of red-brown driftwood and rocks that looked like perfect moons to bring home. Look Kids what mom brought home for you from my trip - ROCKS!

Then all too soon it was over, and we were headed back home to finish reading the book and join the land of reality.


Total time it took to read all 700 plus pages of Breaking Dawn – 25 hours. But consider that we visited all those locations as well, not to bad.

Now I just need to get some sleep and plan my return trip. I can’t wait to come back!

Homesick!

I’m a homebody at heart. Vacations and I don’t do well. Thankfully when the vacations are over I usually remember all the great things that happened and all the wonderful friends and family that took time out of their busy lives to be invaded by me and my rascals. But I’m not quite thankful yet because I still have a couple days left of my ‘What are the kids going to do next?’ vacation. That and I’m suffering because we are visiting a climate that’s just a little to warm for my comfort level. I want my 75 degree’s back.

Hope took a break from driving us crazy and passed the baton on to her older sister and brother.

I’ve been walking my kids around small Grandma's small town for the past few days with grandma in tow so as to not get lost and trying to keep them active in the mornings when the air is still breath-ably less warm.



I decided to try the local pay-to-dog-paddle Swimming hole (at the hottest time of the day of course) and after three of my four vacationing munchkins had mini-meltdowns within 20 minutes of arriving. Surprisingly Hope was the only one enjoying herself. Something about getting pool water splashed in her face drove Princess to hysteric’s so we left early and bought an over-priced inflatable pool (small town prices for they have to make money somehow) for grandma and Papa to have at their cottage for the grandkids to use when visiting.


It worked great for about an hour. We showed the kids how to step in a bucket of water before getting into the pool so as not to clutter the water with too many blades of grass. Things seemed well in hand and so I went back into the house only to find out that Princess decided that rolling in grandma’s garden dirt while being totally wet kind of was fun. Oh, but she remembered mom fuming over Hopes dirt episode so she tried to clean up before she came in the house. What is it with my kids and dirt? Well the pool water wasn’t so much fun with all the dirt in it.

So after less than two hours we started using buckets to hand water the bits and pieces of lawn and garden that often get neglected by the good old sprinklers. That and I used the hose to blast the rest of the dirt off Princess.

See what happens when you roll in dirt. Mom gets revenge via the garden hose.

The kicker was when I was visiting my BFF - The Quilt Lady and I gave the car keys to Evo-man so he could bring in some food for lunch. An hour later when we were getting ready to leave we couldn’t find those keys anywhere. After frantically searching for a good while we concluded that Evo-man had either locked the keys in the trunk or I had thrown them out with a smelly diaper in the trash by the road. Not good when it’s garbage day and the can had been emptied while me and the Quilt Lady yakked it up.

So I called the locksmith to come open the car. He was there is less than 20 minutes and had it opened in a jiffy. Was nice enough to even give me a student discount because I told him I was a student of life. $40 bucks well spent? Nope - the keys were not in the car. We even made a nice old pile on the sidewalk while going through every nook and cranny of our travel trashed car.

Mr. Locksmith who I’ll call George because he looked like a George wasn’t having fun in the heat of the day right along with me. But he was kind enough to stick around while I dismantled my belongings. I then began the process of getting new keys made since I’d come to the conclusion that I must have tossed the keys in the garbage. Having new keys with security chips wasn’t going to be cheap. George tried making a couple without the chips hoping we would get lucky and one actually started the car but the engine would die after a few seconds because that security code I guess has omniscient power over the fuel pump.

By this time I’m sweating buckets in the heat by the road. We called my Sis-In-Law to tell her our visit was being further delayed and she promised to pray for us. Evo-man then remembered that he had visited the Quilt Ladies Master Bathroom because the main powder room was occupied by one of the many girlies in the house.

Tada! The keys were still there. Thankfully George took pity on me and didn’t charge me for the extra 20 minutes he had spent researching how to get me working keys. Good thing for prayers. I let Evo-man keep the non-working key as a souvenir.

Regardless I can’t wait to get home and start remembering all the good things about the trip.

Wild and Crazy Forth!

Hope found…

A. Grandpa’s Black Powder Rifle has an awesome smokey kick to it.

B. She was face painted at the park and this is all that was left of her raccoon mask at the end of the day.

C. Riding in Grandpas open-aired tractor through many a dusty field can leave dust in every nook and cranny of the body.

D. The dirt in Grandma’s garden sure beats the dirt in Mom’s garden.

Stay tuned to see what the real answer is.

I know, I know, I've been missing in blog-sphere action recently. I plead my crazy-busy week. The Crazy included spending 16 hours in my husbands small but fuel efficient car with my four youngest children squished together while traveling to see my folks in their neck of the forest. Prince Erik lobbied strategically for me to leave the two least annoying and much more mature Abner and T-rev with him as he would be staying home and didn’t want the house destroyed while I was gone.

Crazy escalated when the portable DVD player died just two hours into our long trek. I then can’t tell you how long we sang along with Veggie Tale Songs, played I spy and listened to mayhem before I cracked and bought a portable CD player with headsets so I could to listen to ‘Twilight’ and tune the kids out while they fought over who got to play the DS or complain about someone’s hair touching them to the point of annoyance. That and I seriously can’t tell you how many times Princess asked how much farther until we got to Grandma and Papa’s house. I’m back to the drawing board for the road trip home. That or I’m switching vehicles with Prince Erik and he can enjoy my little circus kids.

Needless to say the nightmare of a kid-squabbling road trip ended and I was grateful there were no tire mishaps like our trip last November.

Finally we arrived at my parents for an awesome 4th. The only thing that would have made it perfect was to have my whole family there and possibly eat some cherry pie. But since there’s no such thing as perfect I was hugely happy to enjoy the following.

PR (Wahoo!) as in Personal Record (at altitude in 80 degree morning heat to boot) of 31 min. 40 seconds, in my fastest ever 5K. Of course I ran in my parents little town race along with my brother Arrow, my 1st place finishing speed-walking marvel of a Mom and Lea and Evo-man. Meanwhile Princess, Hope and Sweetie consumed our after-race goodies for us.

Next we watched a good old town parade where they actually still throw candy at the kids. It helped that Grandma was driving one of the floats because she must have unloaded a half-box of candy right at the feet of her grandkids. Don’t know what she was thinking because those sugared up grandkids would be going straight back to her house to climb her walls and drive her crazy later.

Then it was off to the park...

where Grandma and Papa once again treated us to lunch – small town style (roast beef on buns with Pork and Beans and Corn on the Cob. The kids were still too sugared up from all the candy she unloaded on them so we were able to take lots of leftovers home.

Other highlight from my down home Forth included.

The kids and I podding peas from my parents still amazing garden.

Nothing tastes better than straight from the garden.

Running through the sprinklers.

And the answer is... Hope found Grandma's garden dirt so irresistably soft compared to my gardens harder than packed clay soil.

She couldn't resist taking a softer-than-baby-powder dirt bath. I wonder if she will add these ingredients to her future spa treatments?

And with all the clothes my kids went through in one day - well I happily put my parents clothesline to good use. I'm tempted to dig it out of the ground, strap it on to the top of my car and bring it home with me. Do you think they will they notice?

It appears that my mom is all tuckered out from dealing with me and my rascals.

Poor Dear. She only has to put up with us for another week.

The Inconvenient Flat???

Driving from my home to my parents can take up to 12 ½ hours on a good day. That is with minimal stops. So I figured with just myself and my three girls it would probably be around 14 hours. Not wanting to be on the road for any longer than necessary I started off around 6 a.m. If plans worked out right they would be content until my first scheduled stop in Pendleton Oregon.

Fortunately, the girls were great in the car. Amazingly no fighting, teasing, etc., how lucky could I get?

????????????????????Why did I take an exit based on less than 10 seconds of thought at only 2 ½ hours into our trip. Something along the lines of ‘I remember there being a Wal-Mart on this exit and the girls could use the bathroom (even though I had no idea if they needed to use the bathroom or not.)Still don't know why I took the exit seeing as how I my main objective was to take as few stops as possible and waste as little time in the process.

Fortunately a kind lady in the Wal-Mart Parking lot let me know that my tire was super low.

Fortunately there was a gas station less than a block away with air.

Unfortunately, after the tire was filled I continued to hear a strange hissing noise.

Fortunately Wal-Mart Tire and Lube was less than a block away.

Unfortunately, the flat was un-repairable, with a leak in the side wall of the tire.

Fortunately I was able to buy the last two tires of the style I needed for an o.k. price.

Unfortunately I had to chase 3 girls around Wal-Mart for 3 hours while waiting for the car to get done.

Unfortunately my husband had to hear the blow-by-blow account of his wife freaking out on the cell phone.

Fortunately for me he listened.

Fortunately the entire rest of the trip was uneventful and the girls were great.

Unfortunately we didn’t arrive at my parents until 12:20 p.m. their time.

Fortunately I didn't get too tired while driving.

Even though it was a pain I am sooooo thankful for those ??????????????????????????'s I don’t want to think of how it would have played out had I not taken that exit for whatever reason. The fact that this Inconvenient Flat happened where it did just helps me know there are angels watching over me and my girls.