Day Sixty-Seven

Actual Date: Monday, May 31, 2010

Ok so I have to tell you all how I won the Mother of the Year award on this day. We had said our good byes to our Billingsley family and we were headed on our way back south to California. First my Dad asked us to stop by the train museum and check out the bricks he had made for the girls with their names on them.

As I was busy unloading stuff from the car, Ava accidentally tipped Parker and his stroller back and it fell right on top of her. Everyone was ok, just more scared than anything but of course as a Mom I felt awful. Parker was screaming because he had no idea what had just happened. I set him upright and asked him "Are you ok buddy?" And that is when my lovely 4 year old exclaimed "Oh he's fine Mom. It just scared the crap outta him."

So yeah, I gotta say I'm pretty convinced right there. Makes you realize just how much they're listening, even when you don't think they are.

Here's the happy little guy just moments after. As you can see, he's fine. Brooke with her brick. She loved it. When we were driving home I asked her what her favorite part of the whole trip was and she said "seeing my name."Ava with her brick. Little stink wouldn't look at me.We stopped on along the river and took a family picture of my parents with the kids for their Christmas card. It was the perfect little spot. We pulled off the road alittle and propped everyone up on the rock. You can't tell in the picture but it was actually really cold. One more special thing I have to share from this day is our trip home. Now the trip from Reno back to my Parent's house is about 6 hours long. Long enough for the kids to get restless. They usually do pretty good but on this trip in particular they were done with being in the car because we had just driven from Texas to California the week before. So as I was trying to think of new things to do to distract them Brooke said "Our car is so fast, we catch all the motor homes." From that, "Team Motor home Chasers" was born. I made a game out of us counting how many motor homes we could "catch" up to.

Now, if we were going to do this right, we needed to have nicknames to be official. I was Mother Goose, Brooke was Princess Sparkle Diamond, Ava was Swipper because she kept stealing all of Brooke's books, Parker was Captain Under Pants (Brooke picked that one because she said it sounds like a boy name) and my Grandma who was ridding with us was given the name Rose Bud because she has a beautiful rose garden.

I am proud to say that Team Motor home Chasers did their job that day. We successfully passed (safely, most of the time there were two lanes on our side) every motor home within sight on our trip down on 395. As silly as it sounds, it worked. The kids got into it and before we knew it we were back at my Grandma's house.

So next time you are in your Motor home and you see a white Acadia GMC packed full of kids and a Grandma who are throwing invisible lassos in your direction, just smile and wave, that'd be us!