A tiny little good time*


James and I took the kids out of town for a couple days. Since buying the house and moving, as well as juggling school schedules, we haven't had time or money to do a family vacation this summer. Normally we take the kids camping for about a week, or stay in a cabin deep in the woods, but this year, we could only carve out about 48 hours. So we took them to Dubuque. Since we won't be staying in the Midwest once we're done with school (we love you Iowa, but we just can't stay), we decided when we moved here that we would try to see as much of this part of the country as we could.

So I booked a hotel with a waterpark for two nights. It had slides, a lazy river, and a water jungle gym. We only suffered 2 bumped heads and James was hot. Not hawt, just hot. The man is nuclear. He would steam up the car windows even if we were driving around Hell (which we once did, btw, although I'm pretty sure the residents there usually just call it West Virginia). So we cranked the AC to 62 and the rest of us slept under piles of blankets, pillows, and a couple of bouncy balls that snuck their way into bed after being banned. The rest of the room was pretty good. It's hard to find a hotel room that will actually sleep 6 without having to turn children 90 degrees on the bed and have them all sleep that way. This room actually had 2 doubles and a pullout couch. You know your kids don't get out much when they fight over who gets to sleep on the pullout couch. I would have taken pictures, but we haven't been able to find our cameras since we moved. There was also a balcony. It was only a balcony in name, however, because it was literally about 8 inches deep. James got out onto it and slid the glass door behind himself. He was holding his breath and sort of leaned over the railing a little. And then I locked it. He couldn't turn around to give me a dirty look, but I could see little curls of smoke starting to come out of his ears, so I unlocked it and let him back in. After that, he told everyone else they couldn't go out there. Spoilsport.


We also went to the River Museum. If you ever need to take your picture next to about 15 different statues of Mark Twain, Or, if you want to spend more time herding your children out of the gift shop and then dealing with a crying 8-year old who couldn't find ANYthing that cost $2 or less, than actually looking at exhibits, OR, if you want to explain 20 times why the touch-the-gar exhibit is closed due to resting fish issues (fishues?) to an angry 6-year old, you should totally go to the River Museum.

This is not a paid advertisement for the museum by the way.

So I think our next mini vacation will probably be a weekend camping trip. Now that the Hamster is almost fully potty-trained, I will end my ban on tent camping. Anyone who has camped with a kid in diapers will understand.

I need to go, I'm having a yard sale this weekend and I'm still pulling stuff together to sell. Anyone want to buy one ice skate? or half a puzzle? or an obnoxious neighbor?

*Sassafras used to make up words and phrases. Having a "tiny little good time" meant we were all enjoying a really great experience.

P.S. James really is hawt :) And the museum was actually pretty fun.