Rewind a few weeks ago:
We were in a frenzy trying to get everything taken care of with our pulverized van, while trying to shop for a new one, while trying to prepare Shad to go to Basic Training and Tech School, while trying to prepare me and 5 kids to hit the road for nearly 3 weeks. Yay, life!
I came out of my bathroom one morning and found these humans waiting for me to feed them breakfast.
We enjoyed our last forest day for several weeks.
We drove to Denver for our last weekend so that we could a) have a last meal with Shad's family, b) buy a van, c) have a date of our own (early anniversary celebration) because Shad's sister Ruth wanted to have all the kids for a sleepover and who says no to that? And so, we bought a 2007 Honda Odyssey touring that has everything we were looking for (DVD player, navigation, leather seats) except for the 8th seat, which I still need to look into adding. We named this van Quicksilver after the X-Men character, and Dancy named the navigation voice Emily because everything that can be named Emily gets named Emily. This touring trim comes with a few bonus features we weren't even looking for, but will definitely enjoy: the heated mirror button works, remote tailgate, memory seating, more dashboard info reporting on vehicle conditions.
After buying the van, we picked up the kids from my mom's house where they were having Grandma time while we shopped. We had dinner at Dan & Tabitha's house with Vern, Pris, Levi, Ruth, Coltyn, Dan, Tabitha, Ryan and Will. All the kids but Sam and Will slept in a tent in the backyard. In the morning, Ryan went to karate while our family hung around, then Shad and I took all of the kids (Ryan included) to Ruth and Coltyn's apartment for their sleepover.
Shad and I ate a late lunch at Jerusalem, then went to Elitch's on our date and were pleasantly surprised to find that we can still ride roller coasters!
We had a blissful sleep, waking up naturally and peacefully at 9 am. No doors slamming, no crying. Since we missed the hotel breakfast, we ate at Ikea, then got to Ruth and Coltyn so we could play Scythe with them.
Monday was spent doing all the last things that needed done. Shad had a date with Samson, but I don't have those pictures because I didn't get them off Shad's phone. I don't remember exactly what they did...Dancy says it was bowling, Katie says it was football at Target followed by a hotdog and smoothie at Costco. Either way, that little boy was so thrilled to have his first Dadda date. And because he missed his nap, this is how I found him later that night when I was getting everyone packed for our first roadtrip.
