Impromptu Vacation--Day 1 & 2

A couple weeks ago, I had a breakdown. Big surprise, I know. This one sort of shook me on many levels and I realized that the best way I've learned to cope with my problems is to run from them--specifically to the beach. I've always done this and I think it is highly effective. I decided to take the kids to Disneyland and the beach. My sister, Tiffany, her three kids, and my mom all came with me. We all needed a change from the bleak, greyish nothing of Utah winter. So here we are in Newport Beach, CA renting a little beach house about two blocks from the beach, loving the weather, and just chillin'.

Day 1: We left at 7 am and drove straight through from Utah to California. My kids and I are professional travelers. We have long trips down to an artform. The children have back packs with their activities. They get a snack every 45 minutes. They are only given small swallows of water after the snack. We only stop every three hours for 15-30 minutes. The kids do awesome. Diamond seems to have the hardest time because he is the only one that complains about anything. Florence occasionally asks, "Are we there yet." To which I always give the same answer, "If we're there, the car will be stopped and I'll say, 'we're here, get out.' If I don't say that and the car's still moving, obviously we're not there."

When we stopped the first time in Cedar City, Utah to gas up, Oakley kept pointing at this Uhaul moving truck saying, "Something's wrong with that, Mom." I was distracted at first, but when I turned my head, I realized that the driver had driven away with the gas pump still attatched, along with the hose and a gasket that had been ripped out of the side of the gas pump stand. We started laughing hysterically. I watched as he started to pull out of the gas station, wondering to myself how long it would take for him to notice the hose dragging down the freeway next to him. Suddenly, he stopped the van and got out. The next thing I know, this man in a purple t-shirt with gathered puffy sleeves is walking past me with his head hung in humiliation, carrying the gas pump back to its stand. I sort of felt bad and said to him as he passed, "It's so good you saw that before you got on the freeway." But what I was really thinking was, "Dude, I don't know what is more humiliating, driving off with the gas pump, or wearing that shirt in public!" I laughed about it for hours and still occasionally giggle. I bet he wore that shirt because all his other ones were dirty and the whole time he's thinking, "It's okay, no one will see it, I won't have to get out of the truck." Haha! No such luck, buddy--we all saw the purple puffy shirt and the gas pump getting ripped from the stand--and we're still laughing!

The drive took about twelve hours. It should have taken nine, but I forgot about the horrors of L.A. driving. The beach house is a cute little house about two blocks from Newport Beach and just down from Huntington State Beach. However, there is no where practical to park a twelve passenger van. I parked it behind my sister's car in the garage, but then when I went to put the garage door up, it turns out it was one of the ones that swings the entire door outward. Whoa, that totally did a number on my paint job. Thank goodness, kamkazi deer in Georgia already did a $4000 number on the entire right side so I wasn't overly upset. And, I was still giggling about purple shirt gas pump guy. No biggie.

We decided to go out to eat (yes, on Sunday--go ahead mentally flog me if you feel the need), but had no idea of the best place to go. We drove down the main road, where I noticed a Joe's Crab Shack. We pulled into the parking lot. On the south side were several orange cones marking certain parking spots and there is a valet sign. I rounded to the other side of the lot where there were no cones. I parked the car and the kids proceeded to pile out. Suddenly, there is a dark hair man banging on the my window. Shocked, I rolled down the window just as he said, "So ma'am you want valet parking." "No," I answered, "that's why I parked way over here." "Sorry, ma'am the entire parking lot is valet and you'll have to pay." I was ticked at this point. What stupid restaraunt makes you pay to park to eat there? I shot him a not-so-nice look and called out, "Get in the car, kids, we're definitely not eating here." Oakley, got in laughing, and said, "I love it when you're sassy like that, Mom." Little does he know that it's one of my finer talents. We ended up finding a Panera (one of my favorite restaurants that doesn't exist in Utah) and had a great dinner. Afterwards we returned home got the kids in bed and enjoyed having nothing to stress about. So far so good!

Day 2-Woke up this morning to the garbage trunk honking maniacally. Turned out he was honking at me. Apparently, it's illegal to park in the alleway behind the garage door. I moved the car and watched as lots of people randomly move their cars to park on the otherside of the road. I shrugged it off and went back inside. We decided to take it easy and spend the day on the beach. It was a little chilly so we hung around the beach house until 9 am and then loaded up and headed out. When we drove across the two streets and got to the beach there was no where to park--not because there were any cars--but because it's street sweeping day and you can't park on the side of the road. Then I suddenly understood why everyone was randomly reparking their cars. We found a meter parking spot, but I had no quarters. So I drop off all 10 children and the other two adults and drove two blocks back home and found three quarters which gave me just over a half an hour of beach time. Tiffany scrounged up three more and I got a whopping hour. The kids played and had a wonderful time. It was cold, but that didn't stop Gwynyth and Oakley from body boarding. Diamond tried, but pointed the nose of his board downward so when the wave came up, it caught him and his board and turned them over in a washing maching fashion. He came up with a look like, "What the crap just happened to me," and then ran for shore. I took each of the kids on a walk down the beach for a little bit for some one on one time. It was so nice to just relax with them and see how liberated they all felt on the beach. The beach has some seriously therapeutic effects. In an hour I gained some much needed clarity about my life. But then real life came back and I knew the meter was about to expire. I tried to hurry the kids along, but it's no small task to clean up all the beach toys, gather all belongings, and herd 10 children back to the van. When I got to the van, there carefully and thoughtfully placed under my windshield wiper was a freaking $50 parking ticket! I missed the stupid parking attendant by six minutes! Ugh! I bet he stood there hovering, just waiting for my minutes to run out. I ripped the dang thing to shreds and tossed it. Hunt me down, sucker, if you want your money! But, I wasn't mad, in fact, I giggled a litte. I was still laughing about purple shirt gas pump guy, and thanks to the beach. my life was completely in perspective.

When we got home, we had to first hose down all the children with the garden hose and then we let them run upstairs to take warm showers and try to scratch the sand out of the their scalps (pointless really). So, we had made it through about six of the seven kids' showers when Tiffany started screaming, "We have a problem." I ran downstairs to the garage and water was dumping out of the ceiling onto Tiffany's Santa Fe. It was also coming up from under the carpet on the stair landing. We called the owner, who was less than please to hear it and she told us that we're all going to have to share the same shower (not at the same time, of course), until they get it fixed. Tiffany is stressed at that point, and my mother is a little overwhelmed by all the unexpected bonuses of the vacation, but I'm still giggling. They looked at me, baffled, and I answered, "Purple shirt guy sure gave me something to laugh about, and I'm just going to ride on that one for a good long while!" Tiffany shook her head, "You are a drama vortex," she accused me. "You suck everyone and everything into your crazy, chaotic world. Purple shirt guy probably wouldn't have pulled the gas pump out if you hadn't been there. People are pulled, flailing and screaming, into your madness. My life is only like this when I'm around you." She was joking. . . I think.

After naps, we went to the Laguna Beach tide pools--incredible! We were there for sunset and it was magnificent. The kids touched the barnacles and the sea anenomes and climbed on the rocks. When we returned the children ate and crashed with a thud (and several horrible tantrums) into bed. Tomorrow. . . Disney California Adventures.