What was I smoking last weekend???

Dear Readers,

For the Memorial Day weekend Aaron took Tyler up to a BYU sports camp. Since I was going to be home alone with the girls for four days, I decided I needed to go somewhere. I rounded up my sisters , their kids and mine and we headed to Palm springs. It was supposed to be a relaxing vacation in the sun. I should have known better...

Things got off to a great start when we were packed and ready to go only 2o minutes behind schedule. Really no big deal. We grabbed the kids some treats and hopped on the freeway by 12:20 pm. The freeway was free and clear and I felt a little smug about how smart we were being for leaving early on a Friday so that we didn't hit any of the weekend traffic. Then suddenly the freeway stopped and I hear my sister Michelle say. " Oh, yeah they mentioned something on the radio about the freeway being backed up." okay" I think, no problem. We'll have a little traffic and then be on our merry way. Fifteen minutes later it was clear that we were in some serious trouble. I checked the mirrors and decided to break away from the pack and cross over the yellow cones into the fast track lane. I was desperate! I had a car full of kids!! Again I thought we might be in the clear. The fast track was moving...well...FAST. But to my horror I saw brake lights ahead. It didn't take me long to realize they had shut the whole freeway down and we were being diverted off the highway!
Once we made it off the highway, McKenzie AND my sister both needed potty breaks. It had now been forty five minutes since we had left and we were still only a few miles from my home. I pulled into a gas station, hopped out and dragged McKenzie with me. it seemed that everyone else who was caught in the traffic had decided to have a "potty break" too. I tell Michelle, "she is just going to have to go on the side of the road! I'm not waiting in this, we need to get going!"
However, after much talking , Michelle convinced me it was better to wait for the bathroom to open up.
With everyone 'empty", we drove off in the direction of the freeway on side streets hoping to pass whatever obstacle was on the freeway. Needless to say after 20 minutes of driving around in circles we realized that none of the side streets went through. We completely turned around and decided to get back on the freeway going the opposite direction and make a big loop to get back to where we needed to be. Again, everyone else had the same idea!!! By the time we had been in the car for two hours, my sister called it quits. "Lets just get off, go back to the house and leave later tonight." At first I didn't want too. I was already here and i wanted to keep going but the kids were starting to go out of control so I consented.
The kids spent the rest of the late afternoon swimming in the pool while the moms pouted over the fact we should have been laying out by a pool at a beautiful hotel. To break up the time, we took the kids out to dinner. Must give props to our waiter who was awesome and didn't even flinch when I grabbed his butt! (by mistake of course!) After dinner we received a call that the freeway had just opened and we needed to get on the immediately to beat the rush. I pushed the pedal to the metal and we took off. There was still some traffic which took up about another 1/2 but once we passed the crash site (overturned tanker) we were one our way.
The mood in the car became upbeat and we couldn't wait to get to our hotel room. Things went smooth for a while until McKenzie had to go to the bathroom AGAIN! I was in no way going to stop at a gas station so I pulled over to the side of the road. Which made my sister scream about how crazy I was to pull over on the 91 freeway to have my three year old pee!" Realizing i was being a little crazy I drove to a gas station.
Finally all was well and we were ready to have some fun! Once we pulled off the main highway towards Palm springs the excitement in the car grew, then McKenzie threw up all over Michelle!
Now my sister can not handle throw up. She gags like crazy! Me? I'm okay with it, it's better than poop and heaven knows I have had my share of both! So with Michelle dry heaving and McKenzie crying and covered in throw up, we finally pulled up to our hotel! To which Michelle exclaimed that there was NO WAY she was walking through the lobby, smelling like throw up and looking like h*ll at such a nice hotel.
It took a few minutes to clean everyone up and gather our stuff. As we filed into the lobby to check in I heard a woman say. "Wow, they have a lot of kids."
I felt like saying " Yes lady, we do! would you like to keep one for the weekend??
In the end it was a fun but very exhausting trip and I would do it all over again.... but next time ladies either we leave the kids at home or we hire some help!!!

Kristen