All done vacationing.
The trip to Boise went really well. The family reunion was lots of fun and not nearly as claustrophobic as I expected despite the fact that there were 11 children and 13 adults in one house.
Fandemonium was amazing. There is so much to tell that I hardly know where to get started. Since today is the coming home and figuring out where I left stuff day, I don’t really have time to elaborate, so I’ll just put it this way. When I was driving home and I had to pass the exit which would have taken me to the convention hotel I felt a wave of sadness. Particularly since I realized that even if I did take the exit and drive to the hotel, the people I wanted to go see wouldn’t even be there. I’ve GOT to get together with those people again, it was too much fun.
The drive home was miserable. I was tired and cranky, the kids were tired and cranky. Patches was angsty because all weekend Mom kept abandoning him to the care of his aunt and grandmother. An hour and a half into the trip the kids decided not to eat when I sugguested it, because they wanted a restaurant with a playground. 2 hours, 150 miles of exits with no services, endless miles of road construction, an hour of Patches screaming, and one bloody nose later we stopped at McDonalds. At McDonalds we cleaned up bloody nose, ate, played, changed diapers, changed soiled pants, and then had to get back into the car for an additional 2 hours of driving through commute traffic and a pouring rainstorm.
Things are much better today. The car is unloaded, the mounds of laundry are begun, some of the stuff has actually been put away, and I’ve begun to shape life back into a routine. I don’t have a much time to pull it all together though. School starts next Monday.