Vacation: Day Five

I woke up Friday morning thinking, "Well, we've come to the final day of our vacation.  It's been so much fun, but we are totally exhausted.  We're also starting to feel the pull of our responsibilities at home.  I'm stressed out about the baby goats and the other pregnant goat at home.  David is not sure how he can get the lawn mowed and the garden planted and everything else that needs to be done in our yard. I'm sad that its almost over, but it's time to go home."

The day started out with a 9:00am hair appointment for me.  Earlier in the week, my mom saw a coupon for a great hair color deal.  She'd been wanting me to go back to blond for a long time.  I was ready for it - in fact, on the last day of school I tried to dye it blond myself.  It was too close to my natural shade to tell much of a difference, though.  So, I went into a salon by my parents house and I came out a new woman!  I loved my new hair color.  So did David.  What a great souvineer! 

When I got back, my mom and I took Bronson to a restaurant she'd been wanting to show me.  It's called Plates and Palates.  It's run by a family in their neighborhood.  The wife goes in early in the morning and bakes the desserts for the day. Then, she goes home to be with the kids and her husband and his brother go in to run the place.  They're only open for lunch and one night per week.  They make about 10 or 15 things per day, mostly sandwiches, salads and a soup or two. They write the menu on a white board and when a dish is gone, they just erase it.  The food is AMAZING and they have a huge following.  The men are probably home in the afternoon.  What a life!  That sounds like a really fun set-up.  I had a delicious salad combo and a coconut cheesecake.  Out of this world!  Meanwhile, David and Grandpa Smith took the kids to McDonald's.  Honestly, they probably liked their burgers as much as I liked my fancy food.

We met after lunch at the Hill Air Force Base Museum.  We had a good time looking at all the planes and jets.  The coolest part was the "discovery center" for kids.  They had all sorts of things to teach physics and aerodynamics and construction and other stuff.  Then, they helped our kids make paper rockets and we took them into the courtyard for a launch.  The had some sort of air pressure launcher that shot them 50 feet in the air or more. The kids got to hit the launch button for their own rocket. It was fun.

That is a big plane!  Look how little my family is under there.

What a stunning blond! He he.

The family.

Waiting for their turn to launch their rockets.

Three, two, one, blast off!

Even Josh got to push the button.

Where did it go?

Grandpa had to go to work in the afternoon, but the rest of us got a frozen yogurt at Orange Blossom.  That's one of those joints where you pay by the ounce and you can make any concoction you can dream up.  The kids loved it!

That evening I picked up Katie and we went to our old high school to attend a retirement celebration for our modern dance teacher, Mrs. Clifford.  She'd been teaching for 34 years and she really was an outstanding teacher.  She inspired and empowered so many students over the years including me and I was glad to have been in town so that I could attend.  The program was very nice, if a little eccentric (but hey - Mrs. Clifford is a performer.  It was totally appropriate for her!)  Let's just say that Katie and I both declined the offer to improv dance with the other 30-something-year-old alumni.  I guess our self esteem isn't quite as high as some of the others.  We did get the opportunity to talk to her and give her letters of appreciation that we all wrote.  I also loved the opportunity to see some of my close friends from high school dance, many of which I hadn't seen in a decade or more. 



The fabulous Mrs. Clifford!



My best friend in high school, Tanna.

When I got back to my parents house at 8:30pm, I expected to find the kids asleep and David ready to load up the van.  Our plan was to leave first thing in the morning and eat somewhere on the road.  However, all the kids were awake and David was ready to leave that night.  He said they were all packed and he couldn't see any reason to wait.  He loaded up the van while I fed Bronson.  My parents were gone at the time, but they walked in the door right as we were finishing our hit-the-road prayer.  We said goodbye and were on the road around 9:15pm.  The kids eventually fell asleep and things went pretty smoothly.  Josh kept waking up and crying.  He was pretty uncomfortable.  But we survived.  We pulled in to our driveway at about 1:00am.  Our house was clean, as we left it.  Our animals were all fine, and to our surprise, our lawn was newly mowed!  Thanks to Grandpa Gee, we had three extra hours to do our garden work the next day!

And that was our family vacation for 2011.  What a fun, memorable trip!