It All Started With Vomit...Summer Vacation 2008

Day One

Tom and I are in the habit of keeping our kids home from church the weekend before we go on a trip. An LDS nursery rivals Walmart and Chuck-E-Cheese, on the Germ Richter Scale. We thought we were in the clear - when all of the sudden - Bradley and Bryce started with the pukies and the trots. We were set to fly out for our summer vacation on Thursday, July 31st. It hit all of us earlier in the week - and we were just waiting on Karah to "hurry up and get it". Late Wednesday night, it finally hit Karah. We made her a bed on the bathroom floor, where she spent most of the night vomiting. I was exhausted from being up the night before with Bradley (trying to keep the laundry going in the middle of the night). Sweet Tom volunteered to handle Karah's shift so I could get some rest. She woke up the next morning with a huge smile, ready to go! We loaded the car and Karah took her color coordinated pukie bowl with.....just in case. Everyone was still queasy - but their excitement drowned out awareness of how cruddy they really felt.

Bryce was still feeling too yucky to crank out a smile. Poor little guy.

We had the car all loaded the night before. All we had to do now was figure out how to leave the garage cracked for the cat (just had a new garage door opener installed). We eventually resigned ourselves to the fact that we would never figure it out - and just left. (Our neighbor agreed to feed our outdoor cat while we were gone. We knew he would be able to figure it out!)

The ride was great - smooth sailing!

After a quick pit stop at Grandma's. we headed to the airport. Since we were going to be gone close to two weeks - we opted for long term parking. The kids loved the bus ride back to the terminal.

We tried to grab some chicken soup at the restaurant in the terminal - but the waitress took our drink order and then sat down to eat lunch herself. We bailed.



Mama was the only one well enough to eat grease - So she went for the only other option - "The Great Steak"..... it was rather great. We went back to the restaurant that we had walked out of....and I ate my sandwich. They were a little annoyed.

We waited patiently for our turn to board. Bradley thought he was well enough to finish off mama's fries. As it turns out, it wouldn't be the last time that we saw them. Ew.

A couple great things about flying with kiddos....You get to take the special "family line" at security. Get to walk right up without having to wait in long lines....AND you get to board first! Plenty of overhead storage available!

We boarded the plane....the kids were so excited. Bryce fussed for a minute and quickly took a nap that lasted almost the entire flight. It rocked. He has always been such an accommodating child!

This man is a jerk. I don't know his name - but if I had to guess, it would be something like "Rick" OR "Jerry". He was not a friend of the little people. In fact, it would be fair to say that he is a child "loather". Perhaps this is why karma kicked in and he got to sit directly in front of us. He was an angry elf. At least that is what we will name him on our blog. Tom and I had a different adjective/noun that we used for him when the kids weren't around. Bradley made sure to kick his seat often enough to remind the man that he wasn't going anywhere. I took great pleasure watching him bang his head into the overhead compartment when he stood up from his seat.

Bradley had to pee... but not THAT bad. The toilet on the plane did not meet his expectations. He was rather disgusted.

We all had a great time on the plane!

Upon landing, we took a brief trip to hell at the Hertz rental car counter. We waited not-so-patiently while Tom was patronized by a middle aged Utah chick at the counter - complete with 80's hair and an "I would like to bear my testimony" condescending whisper voice.

Welcome to Utah!

We headed up to Midway - about 15 minutes from Park City. My brother Mat invited us to stay up at his new vacation home. It was incredible! Huge and beautiful. The views were amazing! It was approx 5000 s/f with 5 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms. There was no lack of space! The house is literally next door to the Homestead Resort and the Zermatt Resort. It could not have been more perfect!

My favorite was cooking on the Viking appliances. Who would think there would be that much of a difference? Well now I know. The dishwasher and microwave were even incredible. Could NOT hear the dishes washing OR popcorn popping. A domestic engineer's dream come true!
Our master was great - nice gas fireplace in the corner.... too bad we visited in the wrong season for that one. Maybe we will have to come back during ski season! There was another master upstairs - that Mat and Lori stayed in when they came up to see us.
The mater bath was equally lovely.... including the frameless glass shower. This kept me excited to go back home....knowing our frameless shower door that had been on order - would be ready for installation when we returned to AR. One of the ONLY reasons I looked forward to going home!

The living room has huge windows that go up to the ceiling. We had a beautiful view of the mountains and Deer Creek Reservoir. Deer were ALWAYS in the yard.

So, night one...everyone settled in and got ready for bed. My brother Mat and I went to the Grocery store in Heber, to stock up for the next week and 1/2. It was so fun. We even had an "opening ceremony" at McDonalds :) When we got home, we found out Bradley had finally returned my fries he had eaten at the airport. Poor boy.

The day started with vomit. The day ended with vomit...

and a whole lotta love in between.

Stay tuned for days 2-10!