Returned from Vacation

Nose to nose with a crocodile


Nose to nose with the same crocodile


Daddy's little girl

We left last Thursday morning for a week in Texas to celebrate Mike's sister's wedding. Our plan was to leave as soon as the garbage man came @ 9am (so the can wouldn't sit out front for a week) and head southwest. Well, we should've known when the garbage man didn't show up that our plans may be going awry. We ended up calling a neighbor at 10am and asking them to pull the can in and finally headed out. We just got on I-72 when the check engine light came on. So, we pulled over and got out the owner's manual and located the right page and it told us.......nothing. I convinced my husband to just call the Honda service dept. - so, we did - and they said as long as the light isn't flashing to not worry about it - probably just a sensor gone bad. Well alrighty then. Mike said "Good, because it took me 3 hours to load the car and I have no intention of unloading it". We head back out onto the highway and aren't down the road 15 minutes when the TCS (Traction Control System) light comes on. Great. Get out the manual yet again. Discover that it's also a sensor that's probably gone bad - go figure the car is about to hit 100,000 miles. Off we go, yet again. Well, we're now about another 20 minutes down the road and the DVD player isn't working right - go figure. So, over to the side we go again. Get out the manual.......again. Figured out that we didn't have a switched flipped the right direction and BINGO! the dvd player works! Yippee - 1 success at least! Off we go, yet again..............only to have both kids say "mom, I gotta go!". Yeah - sigh. Find a rest stop and go to the bathroom. As we are walking out, my sunglasses fall out of my pocket and break into 50 pieces on the bathroom floor. I lost it as I shouted "This trip SUCKS!!!!"!!!!!! My husband and kids started laughing hysterically.........and then so did I. We finally were able to get back on the road, but we didn't get out of IL until after lunch. We made it uneventfully the rest of the way the next day to my parents house. We had a great time including going to the Fort Worth Zoo and hitting Chuck E. Cheese. My arm still is killing me from the number of rounds of skeeball I played trying to beat my son - to no avail! Little toot can hit those little bitty 10,000 point holes like they are no big deal! I was doing good to hit the much larger 3,000 point holes. We had a great time with Aunt Debbie and Uncle Robert (Mike's sister and fiancee') and the rest of the family. Didn't get too many photos though - ironically, the camera stayed in its case for most of the trip. We just had fun being around each other. Then it was time for the drive home. Lord was I dreading this trip. We headed out and got to the hotel and immediately went to dinner. After dinner we went back to crash at the hotel. We did Zach's nebulizer before bedtime as we've been battling his asthma pretty hard lately. He was doing good and went straight to sleep. Miss Katie was dead to the world and I had to shove her over to make space for me - little bed-hog. Well, the a/c in the room got us pretty cold so Mike turned it to "fan". Within 30 minutes we were roasting - so I got up and turned it back to a/c and then for the next hour it would turn on/off - on/off. When it was on - life was good. When it was off - we could hear people talking all over the hotel, cars going down the highway, toilets flushing, you name it - we heard it. Then, Zach started coughing with an asthma attack. great. Got the nebulizer going - and did a treatment. No luck. Waited 20 minutes and did another treatment. worked. Great - now we can get some sleep - since we just figured out how to make the a/c run and not freeze us to death. Then Zach woke up again at 4am with another bad asthma attack. "That's it - we're leaving!" was Mike's response - to my great relief. Gave Zach a nebulizer again as he started coughing so bad he couldn't catch his breath and really started freaking us out. As soon as I put the mask on him and the medicine flowed he calmed down - and that's when I got his clothes on him and Katie, packed our stuff and about ran out the door as soon as his treatment finished. Ah........and gee, it's 5am. Oh well, at least we got home before lunch time yesterday................and boy does it feel good to be home. The vacation was fantastic - the travelling stunk beyond w0rds!