Five O'clock Somewhere

It's been a wonderful summer! I feel like I had balanced amounts of progress in my projects and time with the family, plus the kids really gained a lot of confidence in themselves in areas they had long struggled. They also just exuded the innocence of childhood as we kept it simple. No organized activities outside of baseball, which was good fellowship for all of us. Other than that they did all the stereotypical summer stuff. Chased frogs and ate ice cream and stayed up late watching everything from Hannah Montana to the race for the White House. (My oldest is fascinated already.)

As usual, I didn't accomplish near as much as I would have preferred, but it most definitely was not for lack of trying! I worked so, so hard this summer to deal with some organizational issues stemming from things long ago. (Too lazy to go find that post to link it right now. :) ) And I still have several months of it to go. So just before school started, we decided to enjoy a weekend away to relax and pretend summer wasn't really ending.

Now, let me just set the tone for this trip and tell you that despite all the slapstick comedy that could have been written from it, we were in that "Que sera sera" frame of mind. I mean it literally when I say that we were not dwelling one iota on the fact that school would be starting in a few days. It was all about being in the moment. And we didn't waste a lot of time on any kind of an itinerary. We don't even plan our vacations any more. We seriously just pick a spot, throw some clothes in a bag and go. As long as we have a moderately nice hotel with a pool, we're good. In fact, we had originally planned to meet my husband's family in Branson, but all of the hotels within 20 miles of them were booked so we just drove over to Tulsa instead.

Since we had planned a week long trip that got cut to a long weekend, hubby decided to use the extra money to splurge on a five star hotel. Score! We were only a couple of hours from home but it FELT like a million miles away! We pulled away from home under an overcast dry sky and headed for our Paradise. The only problem was that both of our "normal" vehicles were out of commission and we were traveling in my husband's open-bed work truck. So when the nice cool air gave way to a full fledged raging thunderstorm, the clothes got soaked! The ones I had spent the entire day laundering and packing the day before. I spent the first six hours of our trip in the hotel laundry room re-washing five loads of wet, bleeding clothes. But hey, I figure I got the easier part. Just grabbed a magazine from the lobby and enjoyed the solitude. Hubby had to keep three kids occupied for several hours in a hotel that LOOKED like absolutely nothing should be touched.

Actually though, the atmosphere was very laid back. They didn't seem a bit phased when a kid would occasionally yell across the lobby or somone would come down for a newspaper in their PJ pants. My husband did remark though, with mocked annoyance, that everything in a fancy hotel is SLICK. "The valet drivers, the marble in the foyer I almost fell on, the sheets on the bed - how come in a really fancy hotel, EVERYTHING is SLICK!" He made this comment from the floor beside the bed he had just slid off of. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Oh, it was hilarious. He mistook the many inches of fluff on the down comforter as mattress edging and plopped down unaware. And his comment made me think so much of my dad. I remarked to him that I never thought the old adage that you "marry a man just like your father" would ever apply to me because they are so different, but it just sounded exactly like something my dad would say. Then when I caught him watching The Learning Channel later, I KNEW it was true! Anyway, it cracked me up, especially the next morning at breakfast when they garnished our plates with some unidentifiable slick white gelled stuff. I guess I just AIN'T fancy enough to know what it was.

That evening we spent time swimming in the pool and watching the Olympics and the Stephen Curtis Chapman interview on Larry King (bless their hearts) while taking turns exploring the hotel just like our kiddos. At bedtime, I loved, LOVED laying there in the dark on the satin-y, fluffy, comfy bed, watching the lightning outside outside our window and hearing the giggles of our youngest two. They were torturing our oldest with repetitions of phrases they had concocted for the loop of advertisements on the electronic billboard across the highway. He was particularly annoyed that they didn't "get" who or what the Michelin Man was about. They thought he looked like a character built of toilet paper rolls. The ad immediately following that featured a look-alike of our pet dog. So poor kid. Every 23.2 seconds precisely, he had to hear "TOILET PAPER DUDE!.......LEXIE!!" Followed by unquenchable laughter. Then his growl-sigh. Maybe I'm mean, but I was laughing right with them.

The next day, we grabbed a brochure from one of those lobby racks and headed out to return to our favorite Tulsa attractions. My very first memories are made up of the landmarks of Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I was born. I can't remember the activities that accompanied these memories, but last year, I called to ask my mom about "the old-timey amusement park that had a giant metal man waving outside of it and the Mexican restaurant with different themed rooms and you raise the little flag to get the waiter to come." I had a great childhood, so I wanted to go back and see what had impressed me so as a toddler and hope it would do the same for my kids. My mom filled me in at that time and we went and it was every bit as magical as I hoped it would be. Not because there was anything particularly outstanding about these places, but because it DID bring back all those wonderful memories. And it DID make for a fun time together with our kids just like it had when I WAS the kid.

Well, I'm glad we did that last year. Because this trip, both those places were gone! So, we were now truly wingin' it.

I'm going to finish this in parts now, because it is SOOOO long. :)