Day 26

I wasn’t sure we were ever going to get the kids in bed last night. We started off with a big spaghetti dinner, followed by hours of playing. Andrew and Jaden played Legos and Toontown with Todd and Spencer, Kendra and Rachel did I-don’t-even-know-what, Aspen and Bridger disappeared and were inseparable all night, Levi ran around the house like the Energizer Bunny, and Lily wandered around doing whatever she wanted to do, since Alyssa is only five months old and can’t play much. Just before bedtime, Nicole pulled two pans of brownies out of the oven, and they lasted all of fifteen minutes. Eventually, everyone settled down, and by 10:00 even Levi was asleep.

This morning, my kids woke up, ate pancakes, and settled in like they’d been here all their lives. Besides the similar ages, my oldest four are boy-boy-girl-girl, and hers are boy-boy-girl-boy, and they all get along great. Aspen has been asking since day one of vacation, “Are we going to Bridger’s house yet?” Actually, since the day we left Snowflake last summer to head back home, it’s been a “Can we go back to Bridger’s house?” on a regular basis.

After lunch, we herded the cats kids into the van. Levi, again, wanted desperately to stay and play with his cousins. He howled in protest as we buckled him in his carseat, and two minutes later Lily joined him in chorus as we put her in too. I feel a little bit guilty, because I do wish we could stay for another day. Todd is being ordained a deacon at church today, and that’s an important occasion. We have to be home Monday night, though, and it’s fourteen hours of driving from here to Dallas, and if we don’t leave now then tomorrow will be absolutely miserable.

At the moment, we’re almost to Tucumcari, where we’re staying in a hotel, and we’ve only had to stop three times so far. Gas and bathroom stop, then a park in Albuquerque for dinner, and a rest stop after that. The number one complaint my kids have had in the car is being thirsty and needing more water, so we have several Nalgene and Camelbak bottles with us. You’d think after nearly four weeks that we’d remember to fill them up every time we stop, but we forgot today. When we stopped at the park and pulled out the stove to make macaroni and cheese, we had barely enough water to cook with, and that left none to drink. There were no drinking fountains at the park, so we had to drive another 20 minutes after dinner to find a rest stop to fill up our water. Fiddlesticks!

I’m glad we’re going to be in a hotel tonight, both for time-saving purposes (2hrs tonight to set up the tent, 2hrs tomorrow to pack it back up) and because we’ve been watching thunderstorms all around us as we’ve been driving. We haven’t hit any, but the road is wet, and the lightning has given us quite a show. Not the weather I want to be tenting in!