Right now I’m sitting in front of my laptop waiting for the washing machine to finish so I can put the next load in. Sounds like a pretty typical Sunday for me. Except this Sunday I’m in Florida. In a hotel at the Disney World resort. Where it is raining, but still better than the 2 feet of snow they are getting back home. Not that I’m bragging or anything (but I totally am).

It has been almost exactly 10 years since our last visit to Disney. Last time we came right after Lee and I renewed our vows on our first wedding anniversary. Back then we just had Keaton and Justis. It seemed a lot simpler then.

That time we flew to Florida. This time we decided to drive. We figured it would be cheaper than flying 8 people (it’s 8 ’cause my mom is with us). And since gas prices have gone down significantly it is cheaper. But we completely forgot to consider the sanity factor. When you are traveling with 5 kids, your husband and your mother flying is priceless. It will be a cold day in hell before I ever take a road trip this long with the entire family ever again. I don’t care how much it costs, flying is the only way to go from this day forward. I’m seriously thinking about selling my minivan here in Florida, flying us all home and just buying a new van when we get there. The loss we would take on the van outweighs the jail time I would have to serve for killing my family. I’m just sayin’.

We left at 9am on Friday morning. We drove through southern Iowa, into Missouri, then Illinois, Tennessee and stopped at 2am Saturday morning somewhere outside of Atlanta, Georgia. I don’t know exactly where we were, but somewhere in Georgia is the best Holiday Inn I have ever staying in. The beds were pillowtops. The covers were luxiurious. The hotel was impeccably clean. I was in heaven. I just wanted to stay there for the rest of the trip. But the kids all wanted to continue on to Disney, so we hit the road again.

A few hours later we stumbled upon a Pizza Hut that made me rethink my new found love for Georgia. Georgia apparently has awesome hotels, but their Pizza Hut sucks. The waitress were rude. The bathroom was almost worse than a gas station bathroom. I gave some serious thought to running next door to the Shell station to use their bathroom instead of planting my butt cheeks* down on that disgusting toilet seat at Pizza Hut. Plus, instead of napkins, they had a roll of paper towels. Really! WTF?!? So we ate quickly and got the hell out of there.

We ended day 2 of the trip from hell to the happiest place on Earth in New Smryna Beach (which my mom still calls Smirnoff Beach…and oh do I wish there really was some Smirnoff there). Our plan was to stay the night there and hit the beach in the morning. Being from Iowa, Skyler, Spencer and Caleb have never seen the ocean before. We have beaches in Iowa, but they surround man-made lakes. Not quite the same thing.

However, when we got in to the hotel room Saturday night and flipped on the television, we heard there was going to be “severe thunderstorms” in Florida the next day. That sucked big hairy donkey balls. But this morning we woke up to cloudy skies, but no rain…yet. We threw on our suits and headed down to the beach. Caleb loved it. At first. Then he got a big gulp of salt water and started begging to just go to the pool. Skyler says she got salt water in her mouth 5 times and “it didn’t taste very good. So she headed over to the pool for a while too. But Spencer stayed in the ocean the whole time. He leapt in to big waves and tried to swim. He and Justis dug a big whole and Spencer sat in it as the water rushed passed him. We had a great time.

After a couple hours it started to sprinkle. We took that as our sign to go back in, shower, and get on the road for Disney.

We made it to Disney around 4:30, checked in to the hotel, and got unpacked. We have a very nice suite with a couple of bedrooms, a kitchen, laundry in the room, and a jacuzzi tub. You better believe we’ll be checking that baby out.

And now, after three days on the road with 8 people, I’m going to go find me some of that Smirnoff.

*As I was writing this I had to ask Lee, “Is butt cheeks two words?” He looked at me like I was crazy and then he said, “Well they are divided.” Oh this trip is bringing silly back.

I did it! Again. That’s three years in a row I blogged every. single. day in November. There ought to be some consolation prize for completing it three years in a row. Maybe a cheap, plastic spider ring or something.

Oddly, I didn’t find it that difficult this year. I’m not going to lie and stay every post was stellar, but I didn’t have much trouble coming up with something to say. [Those who know me IRL are like, "DUH! You are never at a loss for words."]

So, if you participated, did you make it this year? Was it a struggle? Or is this blogging every day thing a piece of cake?

I am not a football fan by any sense of the word. I tolerate the noise of football in the background while I’m doing homework on Sundays, but that’s about as far as I go. But I have heard of Brian Urlacher. However, until I read an article on him recently, I couldn’t even tell you who he played for (which is apparently the Bears).

But then I came across an article about his custody case. Screw football. I’m all about he gossip.

Apparently his the mother of his 3-year-old child is threatening to deny Urlacher his visitation with his son because he put the kid in pink Cinderella pull-ups and painted the kid’s toenails blue. Seriously?!? How is a judge even willing to hear this case? How is her lawyer able to show her face in court with this as a defense?

First, it’s not harming the child to wear pink pull-ups even though he’s a boy. Maybe Urlacher accidentaly picked up the wrong kind when he ran out to the store. Or maybe they were visiting a friend and realizing he had run out of pull-ups borrowed one from the friend who has a girl. Wearing a pink pull-up is not going to turn the kid gay or make him a sissy or whatever the hell this crazy Tyna woman thinks. She says it confuses the boy. The boy is 3-years-old. You know what’s confusing him? His mother making a big deal out of something that covers his butt and catches his poop.

Second, the nail polish was blue. The article claims it was Bears-blue. What’s wrong with that? It sounds like team spirit to me. Many male rockstars paint their nails (although it’s usually black). It doesn’t make them any less of a man. I’ve painted my boys’ nails before. When they are toddlers and they see you painting your nails they want to do it too. The article made mention of Urlacher’s girlfriend. Maybe she was painting her nails and the child wanted to copy her. Who knows. But it certainly isn’t a reason to keep a child from his father.

Third, is it in the child’s best interest to have his business all over the national news? Who’s hurting the child more? The parent who put him in a pink pull-up that’s covered by clothes because that’s all he had at the time and painted his nails for fun? Or the parent who spouts her bullshit to the press?

Finally, it disturbs me that so many people make such a big deal about these gender stereotypes. A child of this age does not yet understand these stereotypes so why not just let him explore whatever he wants to explore. As long as he’s not playing with knives, he’s fine. Stop taking their innocence away and just let the child be.

Spencer was eating ham and he claimed he didn’t like it.

Skyler: It’s the same thing that’s in hamburger.

Spencer: No it’s not.

Skyler: Yes it is.

Spencer: No it’s not.

Caleb: SPENCER! HAM…burger. Yes it is.

Skyler: Mom, is ham in hamburger?

Me: No, ham comes from a pig. Hamburger comes from a cow.

Spencer: See. A hamburger has burger in it.

Me: I think the word you’re looking for is beef.

Spencer: Yeah, whatever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Later that night…

Caleb was sliding down the stairs on his back.

Spencer: Caleb thinks he’s drunk. Caleb, you aren’t drunk.

Caleb: Yes I am.

Spencer: No you aren’t. You haven’t drinken any alcohol. Or beer.

Caleb: Yes I have.

Spencer: Root Beer doesn’t count.