Me, Myself, and Everyone Else: July

...ever ever ever ever ever ever {you getting the point?} AGAIN!

Okay, I am not saying that I will never take Zo on a road trip again cause let's face it, that's very unlikely PLUS I love road trips. But just the situation we were in. No No No No No, NOT HAPPENING!

So in my fathers van {that we borrowed} my sister Kristie was driving, I was the navigator in the passenger seat. My 8 year old niece, Grace, was sitting in the middle. Then my 4 year old niece, Gilly and Zoie were sitting in the very back.

Before even getting the van all loaded up... the mini vacation from "hell" began! The. Girls. Would. Not. Stop. WHINING!

"What are we doing?"

"I want my pillow"

"Gilly keeps hitting me"

"I'm thirsty"

"I don't want a biscuit"

"I'm hot"

"Are we there yet?"

"How close are we now?"

It was NEVER ending. Not to sound like a bad parent but next time, they all will get a healthy dose of benadryl before leaving! Although not to worry, this situation won't arise again because I absolutely refuse to be in the same vehicle with all three of those little hellians again!

My sister got to my house a little after 8 and I had pretty much all my stuff together and ready. So we loaded up the van and went to Hardees drive-thru to get some breakfast before taking off. I had the directions my mom sent us and some google map directions I printed off. So here is where the problems begin...

Dad's ac in his van was not working very well... My sister and I could barely feel anything in the front, so needless to say neither did the girls in the back...
In mom's directions she told us to go to 255 to 64 South... Ummm, 64 doesn't have a south! It's either East or West! So here ensues the FIRST of many u-turns of the trip down.
Shortly after the first u-turn barely back on the highway, Gilly says she has to go to the bathroom. Ugh.
Once getting to the truck stop to take a bathroom break, we had some difficulty finding the bathroom in a speedy fashion. LUCKILY though, Gilly DID NOT pee her pants.
After deciding to follow the google directions instead of Mom's directions... It tells us to get off of IL 15 and exit to IL 13. Okay, that was successful... But IL 13 is one of those highways that has many turns and you have to pay attention to the road signs at intersections to be sure you are still following it... And then our SECOND u-turn shortly followed.
Although google maps told us to exit on to IL 13 and travel through pretty much a good chunk of Belleville.... Eventually IL 13 combines with IL 15!!! SO WHY IN THE WORLD DID IT TELL US TO EXIT WHEN WE COULD HAVE STAYED ON 15 THE ENTIRE TIME!!!!
Eventually we just said screw the printed directions and went with using directions on the gps on my phone... My sister and I were so busy checking our phones to see when we would lose signal that we YET again missed a highway and had to make our 3rd u-turn.
{Remember, all the while we were continuously "yelling" at the girls to attempt to make them behave and trying to struggle with getting the ac to actually cool us off.}

FINALY, we made it to Carbondale... Only a little bit off schedule but we made some decent timing. {Camp is approximately 20 minutes on the other side of Carbondale} WOO HOO! My sister and I were secretly hoping that once we got to camp and located my mom's cabin, she would take the girls off of our hands while we relaxed. hahahaha... Although that is some what true but not what we dreamed of! {lol}

Getting to the camp was not difficult, no u-turns this time! We found my mom's van and parked close to it and out she came ready to great her girls. Grace, Gilly, and Zoie all went running to her to give her hugs. {But just a reminder... the whining still hadn't stopped!} Mom's cabin is definitely home away from home for her. Her and Belinda decorated it very nicely, it's just a kitchen/dining room, bathroom, bedroom, and an AWESOME closed-in porch!

The sign for my mom's cabin {obviously}

Doesn't look too special from the outside... but at least it has AC!

This is one view of the porch... {Don't mind the mats, that one is Kristie's bed but it wasn't going to stay there my mom and I had just brought them in}

View from the other side of the porch... {Now you can see my bed too, although mine is staying there, lol}

Big checkers! {woo hoo}

After the tour of the cabin, Mom took us in her van for a tour of the camp. It's a pretty decent sized camp, I'd hate to be a camper all week in the HEAT and having to do all of that walking! lol. My sister-n-law Meagan and my niece Anna have both been working at the camp so we stopped to see them too. When getting back to mom's cabin we decided it was time for lunch and instead of cooking at camp, we decided to go into town and eat. ALTHOUGH, we weren't going to go in dad's van since the AC sucked and mom's van didn't have enough room for all. We borrowed my sister-in-law's Chevy Trail Blazer, with WORKING ac! Soooo with 8 people piled into Meagan's car (Mom, Belind, Kristie, Anna, Zoie, Grace, Gilly, and me) we headed to town to get some lunch.

We decided on Arby's. Oh that poor kid at the register, he never seen us coming! Apparently it was only his 3rd day working... muahahahaha. Of course Belinda being the little trickster, when she ordered her sandwich, she instructed the guy that she didn't want her meat cut horizontally that she wanted it cut vertically. You should have seen the look on the guys face as he was looking for where to change it on the register. {bahahahaha} Anyways, the girls sat at 1 table while the adults at the other. Think we could get SOME peace? Hahaha, NO!

We were lucky enough to have Anna sit with them!

Of course when I ask Z to smile... She sticks her tongue out. She is like me more and more everyday!

After Arby's, we headed back into camp because we were going to go swimming at the lake. Yay, swimming! Yay for getting some sun! Mom's driving back into camp was a little scary, she definitely didn't know how to handle Meagan's car, she is lucky my insides didn't come flying up! {gross} After getting to the camp and gathering up all of our swimming stuff, we headed to the lake to get our swim on! Zoie did such an awesome job! She even SWAM for the first time! No floaties, no vest, only her googles! She stuck her head in and would SWIM. Yay! Next time we are at the pool I am definitely going to get video of it! I was such a proud mama. The lake was fun, excluding the fact that apparently the fish thought I tasted yummy because they kept biting me! It didn't really hurt but it definitely didn't feel comfortable either. It felt like someone was throwing small rocks at my legs so I was constantly moving my legs {they were making fun of me} The moment I would stop for a few seconds, one would get me again!

After the lake, the rest of the night was pretty relaxing. {Still, the girls were always whining about something}. We went back to my mom's cabin, we had hot dogs for dinner and the girls were watching movies on the porch and playing around. While all that was going around... I started writing this blog! At least a good chunk of it, so it was still fresh in my mind. After getting some writer's block, I was playing The Sims 3 {my all time favorite game} until bed time.

Zoie eventually wanted to lay down with my on my small mat, of course I let her. At one point I had to get up to go pee, checked to see what time it was (6:22 am) and went back to the porch... Zoie was already hogging my bed! Psssh, I said screw it and decided to stay awake. After everyone started waking up Mom cooked stuff french toast for everyone, but the girls ate cereal. We were all in a rush to try and get dressed because there is this park in Carbondale that is a "Medieval Park" mom had been talking about and we all wanted to go. The park was definitely the highlight of the entire trip! It was awesome! {I'm only going to post a few pictures from the park on here but if you want to see more click HERE} There were soooo many things there to see! Archers and creatures in the trees, Wizards, a fountain, cool mosaic benches, and much more! You should definitely check out the photos.

This is the picture of the outside of the castle.

A REALLY cool and REALLY big Dragon you could climb on!

Zoie, Gilly, and Grace at the entrance before running off.

We were at the park for a little more then an hour before the heat got to us and we were ready to go back to camp! We stopped at Casey's to get something to drink and then went back to camp. By that time it was almost time to start packing up and head home! The ride back was just going to be Kristie, Gilly, Zoie, and me because Grace was staying for a week of resident camp. We said all our good-byes and headed home! This time, no u-turns and not much whining because the girls fell alseep. {WOO HOO} Much more successful then on the way down. We made it home safe and sound and ready for a nap! :)

All in all, looking back on it, I guess the mini vacation wasn't TOO terrible. But it would have been much more enjoyable without all the whining!

-Nik

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5 Years Ago Today {7/26/06}

The Mini Vacation Extravaganza {NEVER, EVER AGAIN}

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