We've been home for almost two weeks and I've finally gathered my photos and thoughts well enough to start blogging about our vacation. It was amazing. Amazing. Hands down, best vacation we've ever taken as a family!
The day before we left (January 10th) was not amazing, however. Take all the stress of preparing for a trip with 6 family members and add on the stress of the heater not working. It's January in Missouri and we had no heat in our house. I've mentioned several times before how we are cursed when it comes to furnaces and air conditioners. We can't go 6 months without having major repair issues. We set up a couple space heaters in the house, but certain areas were too ridiculously cold to venture into. Ryan worked from home so he could talk to the repairman while I finished last-minute shopping and packing duties. While I was running errands, Ryan thought he would be helpful by cooking ribs for dinner. 15 minutes after setting the ribs in the oven, he called me in a panic because the house was full of smoke. The oven had malfunctioned, causing it to lock itself and stay on the broil setting of 500 degrees. Even when Ryan flipped the breaker for the kitchen, the oven would not unlock. When I got home, Ryan and I started assembling all the paperwork that was required for the cruise, but we couldn't find Lindsey's birth certificate anywhere. We had a million other things to get done, but spent hours searching every file and drawer in the house without any luck. I finally sat on the family room floor in frustration at 10:00 pm. Luckily, Ryan was still being patient and level-headed, even though we saw dollar signs flashing as we sat in our freezing cold house with black meat in the oven. Ryan had the thought to call Lindsey's soccer coach to ask if he'd left her birth certificate with him accidentally. The coach didn't have it, but gave us an awesome idea: if the cruise ship would take a copy of a birth certificate (instead of an original), we could go to the elementary school early in the morning and use the copy they have on file. We were singing his praises for the next week because his idea worked! After solving that dilemma, I got back to packing the van to leave and Ryan set about taking apart the oven and discarding the meat. We finally got to bed just hours before we needed to be on the road driving to Texas.
We woke up the four cold, excited kids and were on the road with the Napiers by 9:00 am. Finally we were on our way! We made a couple quick stops in Liberty, to get breakfast and buy prescription motion-sickness medication that Josh had prescribed for me. The kids spent the whole day switching back and forth between our van and the Napier's SUV, watching movies on the new DVD players they received from their Ellefsen grandparents for Christmas, eating piles of junk food I had purchased at Sam's Club, and occasionally squealing with me when the excitement was too much to handle!
Logan begged Parker to come in our van so they could watch Spiderman with Brevan. Logan fell asleep almost immediately, followed soon after by Brevan (in this horribly uncomfortable position!), so Parker enjoyed the movie all on his own!
After stopping at Taco Cabana for dinner (oh, how I wish we had these in Missouri), we made it to Buffalo, Texas at 10 pm. I had booked us two suites at a Hampton Inn that ended up being one of the nicest hotels we've ever stayed in. Unfortunately, the pool closed right when we got there.
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