On the Road Again

For the next four days, the girls and I are doing something different.....we are going on a vacation with their father!

Nothing else about the vacation is different. We are once again heading to the other coast with family. Our destination is St. Augustine Beach and this time we are traveling with Tom's side of the family.

Tom's sister, Beth, lives in Chicago. Each summer she and her two boys, Mark and Teddy (13 and 11), come to Florida to visit the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Beth likes to take a side trip somewhere (we have the same educational vacation philosophy) and this time she chose the east coast of Florida and asked us to tag along.

With some gentle nudging by me, she settled on St. Augustine and so with two cars packed to the roof with kids, luggage and snacks we are off!

10:00 AM - We are a half an hour off schedule and I'm blaming it on the following phone call:

Me: "Hello?"

Mark: "Uh, um, well, um, uh....."

Silence

Mark: "Where are you?"

Me: "I'm exactly where you called me."

Mark (giggling): "Oh, um, well, uh... Who is this?"

Me: "Betty Jean"

Mark: "Oh, uh..."

Me: "What do you mean who is this? It's Aunt Cara, Mark, and you called my house so I'm at home. We are heading out the door right now. What do you need?"

And then the rest of the phone call continued in a normal conversation - something about charging iPods. And thus we were thrown off our schedule.

10:30 AM - We have reached the grandparents' house where we will pick up Mark and Teddy as well as Michael, Tom's sister, Julie's son. Julie has opted not to join us as she would have to bring one-year-old Brea and that wouldn't be a vacation....for any of us.

11:00 AM - The boys are ready to go, and after visiting the bathroom we leave Beth and her parents (who will come in the second car) and head down the road.

Unfortunately, we got one minute down the road and I realized I had left my purse at the grandparents' house. Tom turned and headed back keeping a running commentary about how stupid it had been to take my purse into the house, how we were only in there 5 minutes and it would have been safe in the car, etc.

I finally shut him up by telling him I took the purse in the bathroom with me in case I needed feminine products. It wasn't true, but it always works to shut up men. He snapped his mouth closed.

11:15 AM - Back on the road.

12:30 PM - I'm hungry. I have devoured the Sunday paper sometimes reading aloud to Tom. The kids are busy with electronic devices. In the middle row are Madison and Mark who are on a Nintendo DS. In the back row, are the other three who are singing loudly to the Chipmunks on a battery operated iHome.

We pull off and head into a McDonald's substation attached to a gas station. No one argues about our choice of restaurants so we exit the car and go in. It is a fairly decent size place, clean and deserted. We do the bathroom thing again, order, eat and are back in the car again in about 40 minutes.

3:00 PM - We have arrived at our destination. The kids are playing a board game in our room. Tom is across the street exploring the beach. The others are in their rooms eating. I am going through the tour book I found in the room and I'm circling points of interest that I'm sure I'll never see as a group as large as this one won't be able to agree on anything....oops, did I say that?