Home Sweet Home

WHAT NOW?

I woke up this morning in my bed, came down to make breakfast and coffee in my kitchen, and right now I am writing this post from my computer. Happy day! I love to travel, to take vacations, to hit the road to new places and experience new things. But, I think one of my favorite parts of any trip I have ever taken has been coming back home. How else can you truly appreciate what you have at home if you never leave it?

The family road trip was a great success. Because it was formed around a business trip for my wife there was the outside chance it would have been a failure, but we managed to give our kids a great trip and relatively no cost and ourselves a nice little break from reality (at least I did...my wife still had those darn work meetings).

There are a couple of things I don't like about vacation road trips, and only recently have discovered them.

1. Eating out for every meal. I don't know if it's because we don't eat out as much when we are home, or if nothing will ever compare to my wife's cooking (let's go with that one, it sounds so much better and might earn me some brownie points). We ate at some really nice places and had some really good food, but at the end of every night my wife and I felt like we couldn't take enough acid reducer. It really did a number on our insides and we'll need 5 days of home cooking just to make those toilet trips more regular, if you catch my meaning.

2. Standard hotel rooms suck for families. In Portland we had a sweet suite with a room off the bedroom. We put the kids to bed, shut the door, and were able to enjoy each other's company and/or watch a little TV. In Seattle however it was one room, for all four of us. We made the best of it by putting the kids down in one bed and curling up in the corner, in the dark, with glass of wine while my wife read Harry Potter and I thumbed through USA Today. After they crashed we could crawl into the other bed and turn on the tube, but couldn't watch the good stuff on HBO. The thought of the girls waking up to First Blood was enough to keep us in the PBS zone for the night.

3. Most people in big cities drive like morons. I know things move faster and you have to react quicker, but come on. There is no need to ride my ass, cut me off, not let me merge and then give me the stink eye when you drive past. Go fuck yourselves and then learn how to drive! Oh, and on the same subject, would it kill the city of Seattle to use bigger and better place road signs? That place is a drivers worst nightmare. But it does make you appreciate life in a small town.

And speaking of small town, we have a nice little Saturday planned. Gonna hit the local farmer's market, then hit Costco to restock our empty cupboards, and then fill up the little backyard pool and try to beat the summer heat. HOME SWEET HOME.

PEACE OUT DADS!!!

Time for vacation

WHAT NOW?

I decided to take tonight off from blogging and enjoy a little more vacation. The Mrs. and I have some wine and will enjoy some adult time after the kids crash out. Back home tomorrow!

PEACE OUT DADS!

The children's museum and the parenting exhibit

WHAT NOW?

Day three of the family road trip had one, and only one, objective. Go to and enjoy the hell out of the Portland Children's Museum. This time is was me and the kids sans wife. She had to attend more work meetings which meant I was the sole parental entertainer for the day. I had the plan and it was going to work to perfection or there was going to be hell to pay!

OK, that is a little extreme, but a little extra drama could be good for the ratings, right? After we all kissed my wife goodbye I jumped in the bathroom for the s, s & s, got dressed, got the kids dressed, made sure everyone brushed their teeth, packed up the stuff, took three trips to pack up the car, double checked the room, got the kids packed in the car, forgot the glasses from the room were in the car, make another trip to the room, triple checked everything, got back into the car and hit the road for our big day.

We arrived at the C.M. and found the same parking chaos that greeted us the day before at the zoo. Don't people in Portland work for crying out loud? And if they don't then shouldn't they be saving their money instead of paying to see the local attractions? Actually, we only had to look for a spot for about 10 minuets so not too bad. The kids were still fired up and we were ready for fun.

Now, I'm sure you are thinking "kid's museum, why in the hell would you subject yourself to that?" "are there exhibits of ugly kids, asshole kids, fat kids next to tall kids?" No, nothing like that, but it is a place that parents can turn their kids loose and catch up with them several hours later without having to lift a finger, answer a question or do anything remotely resembling parenting. In other words...a little vacation within the vacation.

What is great is that while you, the parent, can take a break from parenting your own kids, you can observe other parents either doing or not doing the same thing. Some parents just can't let little Jimmy do anything on his own so they are their, helping him mold his clay, shoot the water gun and get dressed in silly costumes. Poor kid probably hasn't wiped his own ass, ever. Then there are the parents who do such a good job of "non-parenting" they don't notice when their sweet baby is tearing apart the exhibits or eating the fake rocks or kicking the poor volunteer who thought "helping kids" was what they wanted to spend their retirement years doing...poor bastards!

I think I fall somewhere in-between. Staying out of my kids hair long enough for them to feel a little Independence yet keeping enough of one eye on them to make sure they see mom in one piece later that afternoon. Plus, I can just enjoy relaxing, something that family road trips are not known for.

Day 4 tomorrow, bring on your best Seattle...cause we are coming!

PEACE OUT DADS!

All animals love sleep, not just my dog

WHAT NOW?

Day 2 of the ol' family road trip is coming to an end as I sit here on the hotel couch, stuffed full of late dinner plus dessert, and figure out what I should post about. Let's see...the day started off pretty good. We enjoyed some complimentary breakfast in the hotel lobby area. We took a drive to the local Target store to look for warmer clothing for the kids (much cooler this morning than we packed for). We dropped off my wife for meetings (we did kinda tag along on a work trip for her so whatcha gonna do?). We hit a mall carousal, the food court and the carousal again. What is it about those damn things? You sit on a wood horse, spin around a couple dozen times, slowly, and that's it. Yet, it will be the one thing my girls will say was their favorite part of the trip. It didn't even have that terrible organ music...what a jip! We come back to the hotel for some serious pool time (again a little cold, but my kids would swim in the outside hotel pool, in Minnesota, in January, just for the chance to do so. But, the real highlight came after we picked up my wife in the afternoon. THE PORTLAND ZOO BABY!!!

When we visited Portland a couple of years ago I took the kids to the zoo solo while my wife again was at work meetings. At the time they were 5 and 3 and really loved it. It could only be better at ages 5 and 7 plus having their mom there. When I looked it up on the Internet last week they were promoting two new things, a baby elephant and the Chimpanzee Maze for kids. Both were very much anticipated by my girls.

We pull into the parking lot to find, what seemed like, just about all of the Portland metro area trying to find a spot. Why the hell would so many people be coming to the zoo on a Tuesday afternoon? Were they giving rides on the giraffes (that would be so sweet, and I would pay big bucks for that attraction, just for the record). After what seemed like 5 hours trying to find a spot we finally park the family roadster, waltz up to the ticket counter and prepare to plunk down close to 50 bucks for 3 hours of zoo fun. The ticket gal said "that will be $8 please." Whoa, turns out every second Tuesday it's $2 Tuesday at the zoo. That explains the body jam, and the sweet collection of some of Portland's finest visiting this day. OK, we pay the $8, feel a little better about the parking situation, and head in.

We cruise around, taking in all the exhibits and trying to locate the animals who lived in them. Two observations from the zoo trip, a) just because there is a cage and a sign with the name, picture and description of the animal that lives there does not mean you will see this animal live and in person, and b) animals of all shapes and sized have one big thing in common, they love to sleep. When we did see the actual animal that matched the photo of the sign there was a 75% chance they were in dreamland.

We were making pretty good time and seeing just about all there was to see, even the baby elephant (very cute I must say). All the time my wife is trying to steer us towards the much anticipated Chimpanzee Maze. We finally roll up to the entrance at 6pm just in time to see them put up the "closed for the day" sign. Oh shit! Within 2 seconds of K seeing this sign she breaks down into uncontrollable tears. R, who can't read completely yet also breaks into tears, for what reason she does not even know at the time. All the fun and snow cones of the day will go right down the old shit drain now, and not even another ride on that fucking mall carousal will fix it. Thank goodness my kids weren't the only ones having a hissy fit, and out of the goodness of the zoo hearts they reopen for another 15 minuets. The day is saved, and for just $1 each my girls were able to spend a good 3 minutes negotiating what they believe to be training ground for all zoo primates.

So, in closing it was a good day. And thanks to the now legendary Portland Zoo Chimpanzee Maze I won't have to hear about that carousal...I think. Tomorrow is a new day.

PEACE OUT DADS!

What...no stories???

WHAT NOW?

7 1/2 hours in the car, several potty stops, one lunch stop, one stop to see Multnomah Falls (Dad, we've never seen waterfalls before) and no great road trip stories. How can this be? The girls were great, the wife was happy, and I have nothing to complain and/or laugh out loud about. I mean, besides gale force winds that nearly took me into the river two dozen times the trip was fast and easy.

Maybe kids are just adapting better to long road trips in the car better than in my day. In my day we would only be 15 miles out of town before we started asking if we were there yet. It was only 30 miles outside of town before my parents had to separate us before we killed each other. and it was every 15 miles on the 15 miles that they would threaten us with turning around and going home. We complained about being too hot, being too cold, needing the windows down for fresh air, needing them up because it was too windy. Turn the music up, turn it down. How my parents made those trips, and continued to make them each and every summer is so beyond me. I think the best description of me and my siblings on a road trip is how Gremlins get when you put water on them....except with crazier eyes and smaller ears.

Now, I could have done without the 10 million questions we got from "R" (as you know she asks more questions than...um, well....someone who asks a ton of questions. And our special road trip lunch was at Denny's (I still feel like Satan's spawn is slowly chewing his way out of my stomach lining). But, all in all the trip was a great success. We roll into our sweet hotel, enjoyed the complimentary dinner and Fat Tire beer, jumped in the hot tub for a soak, put the kids to bed and am now enjoying a little wine with the wife watching Two And A Half Men....how can life get any better (OK, so having a separate room for the kids next door with walls thick enough to keep a heard of elephants quiet so the adults can "play" would be great, but...the wine tastes pretty good so, eh?).

Maybe tomorrow the real road trip fireworks will start...we do have plans for the zoo, kids museum and science center. They can't stay this perfect...can they?

Until tomorrow,

PEACE OUT DADS!

This is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy!!!

NOW WHAT?
"I think you're all fucked in the head. We're ten hours from the fucking fun park and you want to bail out. Well I'll tell you something. This is no longer a vacation. It's a quest. It's a quest for fun. I'm gonna have fun and you're gonna have fun. We're all gonna have so much fucking fun we'll need plastic surgery to remove our goddamn smiles. You'll be whistling 'Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah' out of you're assholes! I gotta be crazy! I'm on a pilgrimage to see a moose. Praise Marty Moose! Holy Shit!" - Clark Griswold from Vacation

Today we pack up the family cruiser and hit the road for a little vacation to Portland and then Seattle. It's not our first family road trip, but it's been a couple of years since our last one and since our girls don't really remember it so I am calling it the first, unofficial road trip for the family. I will do my darnedest to blog about the trip while on the road giving you insight on the good, the bad and the funny. It should be a fun ride for everyone and maybe we'll uncover some great family spots for those of you who travel to these cities in the future.

Today we have 7+ hours in the car so it should make for some great material. Have a great Monday everyone and make sure to check back and see how the family road trip is going.

PEACE OUT DADS!!!