How Did It Go?

How did it go yesterday? you ask?

WEll, let me say this. If I ever plan a trip for all of us at the same time and suggest to you in any fashion that it might be fun for me, knock me in the head with your knuckles and say, “HOW DUMB ARE YOU?”

Actually, we survived, but the kids haven’t been this hyper in YEARS. I had rented movies for the van DVD player for the little kids riding with me, so other than Tony doing his best to annoy everyone in the van most of the time, the ride to and from were not horrible.

However, I had a meeting while Bart took the kids to see the mall, where John had to cuss and swear because he had no money. He has no money because he “lost” his wallet. I think Mike took it, but have no proof, which would be interesting since John has been Mike’s loyal trustworthy friend over the past three weeks. Mike also took John’s IPod... great friend he was.

Then Tony got lost in the mall, and it took Bart 20 minutes to find him while I waited with the vehicles and 6 kids who REALLY wanted to see the new house. When we got there they just RAN through it, getting mud on the carpet and talking way too loud, going everywhere. It was mayhem. The good thing is that everyone loves the house and the neighborhood.

We then drove by the outside of schools. We will tour the insides only a couple at a time over the next weeks as I can’t do it with everyone.

We then toured the church -- which was hosting the annual rummage sale -- and so it had lots of people there. When we walked in they thought we were customers. We let them figure out it was us without saying anything. People were very friendly, but the kids were hitting each other, and Dominyk of course has to tell Tony to F*** himself quite loudly. They couldn’t keep their hands of ANYTHING and had all kinds of very odd questions to ask the secretary who was giving us the tour.

We then went to a park to kill some time and watched them do the exact opposite of what we instructed. They walked through the mud, with Jimmy falling on his butt of course. They were playing with a dead squirrel. Rand had to use the outhouse, so John took as long as he possibly could in there while everyone else threw snowballs at the roof and the door trying to hurry him up. We finally left in frustration.

I dropped a few off (the ones that weren’t covered in mud) at the YMCA and used our guest pass from the welcome packet. I had a meeting and when I finished, we met for dinner. Finally everyone was calm enough to be human, and we had a great authentic Mexican dinner. The ride home was calm. When we got home it wasn’t.

I’m just glad the day is over. Now I am in “pre-trip” mode -- trying to get everything done before I leave tomorrow (including packing up everything I didn’t get done to take with me).