Our Summer Vacation

This is going to be a long one!

Every girl knows that before going on vacation to any sunny location, one MUST have a pedicure.

Then we were off to exotic Eagle Lake, Michigan! Jen invited us up for two days at the beginning of the week. Veronica and I had a wonderful time, as usual, with the Paczosas. Here she is on their boat, driving and tubing!

Then we went home, packed again and left for our big road trip to OKLAHOMA! Veronica had the coolest setup in the car. She had her movies, her DVD and her puffy headphones. She was a happy traveller! We left at bedtime so she'd sleep most of the way. It worked!

We drove all night and through the next day and arrived around 12noon. Veronica fell in love with her cousin Averi immediately.







Averi took such good care of her! We went to dinner in Bricktown the night we arrived and the kids had so much fun feeding the ducks and playing on the river walk. It was the first time Veronica met Averi and Ashton (who she calls Avy and Baston).

After dinner I had the brilliant idea to get on a water taxi and take a tour of the river. Remind me to keep my ideas to myself next time. We waiting in the sweltering heat for about 20 minutes, during which time Jason ran around with Veronica like a maniac up and down this huge grassy hill. Then we all piled onto a boat driven by a drunken chick who kept bumping into the walls. About half way through the trip, the heat and the motion got to Veronica and she proceeded to hurl on me, Robbie, Averi and a few people we don't know. This happened 3 times before it was over and we had to jump out of the boat at an unscheduled stop. I feel sorry for the people who had to finish the ride! We hightailed it to Toby Keith's restaurant and headed straight to the bathroom where we stripped her down and bathed her in the sink. We basically flooded the bathroom in the process. Sorry Toby! Here she is, naked in the sink.

The next day was the 4th of July when we headed to Abi and Mark's house for a bbq and fireworks. Deirdre and Sebastian and Roma showed up that evening on their way to AZ. Roma and Veronica had fun fighting in the pool! There are more photos I hope to post later that I don't have on my camera with pics of all of us. It was like a reunion of sorts. Even Annie showed up! There was a big blowup slide pool thingy that the kids had fun in and a baby pool too. They swam all day! Then at night we took the golf cart on rides through the neighborhood. Abi's neighborhood is really neat the way they all blow off tons of fireworks. Of course, it's more than a little dangerous but I tried not to think about it. The boys had a lot of fun scaring the hell out of us with too close fireworks.

Then we got back in the car the next day and headed off to Grand Lake for some boating on Katie and Robbie's boat. Robbie hauled that thing on a 3 hour drive in his SUV and had to fill up about 10 times. I think he got about 1.3 miles to the gallon. I can't believe I didn't take any photos of us on the boat but I didn't. It might have something to do with the fact that Robbie kept hitting these huge waves soaking everything on the boat. It wasn't the safest place for a camera.





Now for the comedy portion of our vaca.

Jason didn't have the greatest of times on our first day at the lake. It all started with a playful dunking game. I tried to dunk Mark (which is next to impossible). Then Jason tried it and when Mark went after him to retaliate he "accidentally" punched him in the eye. We staged a dry land photo for your viewing pleasure.





NICE SHINER!

Then, that evening another boat ride was planned to watch fireworks which we said we were going on but somehow the info wasn't communicated so they left us. But we didn't know this so we went trucking down to the dock, through the fireworks and the smoke in about 95 degree heat carrying Veronica and 2 six-packs. We never found the boat but Jason got hit in the head with a firework and one of the beer boxes broke. I should have taken a picture of his face at that moment. Then, as if the rest of it wasn't enough, when we got back to the house all Jason wanted to do was sit and have a beer. The bottle opener was missing. So Jason used his pocket knife to open one for me and it worked. Then he tried to open one for him and the glass broke slicing his finger. He was bleeding all over the deck! Luckily, Damon the medic was there and I had a first aid kit. Everyone agreed he should sit where he was and stop moving for the rest of the evening.

Here are a list of things I've learned on my trip to Oklahoma

1. Under no circumstances do I ever want to do any of the following; noodling (a form of fishing where one sticks ones arm into a hole to pull out a fish which may or may not tear off your hand), witness "cat brains" (which I shall not describe in the interest of keeping this blog rated G), meet Pedro (a growth so large it has its own name), or pee off a balcony in mixed company while holding a conversation.

2. Even rednecks get pedicures. That's right...I mean YOU Mark. All the men in my family have been "manscaped" and while Mark is the most surprising candidate, I hear he enjoyed every minute of it. (All of the men except Jason! He's the only one left to be initiated. We'll get you one of these days)


3. The men we married would choose beautiful women over sane, kind or healthy women. In Katie's words "You either get beautiful or sane. You don't get both!" Guess which ones we are? My very favorite moment had to be when Damon (no photo! someone send me one and preferably one with cornrows!) tried to illustrate this. "Come see my wife. Honey, do you need to throw up again? But look at her, isn't she HOT??? Honey can you smile for me when you're done throwing up? Look at her! Isn't she something?" You see, the women in this family are quite lovely but all of us have some sort of physical or mental issue. Terrible pregnancies, auto-immune diseases, chronic fatigue, fibro-myalgia, lupus, addictions, neurosis, ticks, skin picking, hair pulling weirdness....all kinds of things. But it speaks to the character of our men that they put up with it all.... because we're pretty. LOL

this is no makeup, 95 degrees, no sleep, and probably no showers. We had crammed 16 people in a 2 bedroom condo. We are pretty smokin if I do say so myself. :) (These are my cousins Katie on the left and her sister Abi on the right.)

Someone needs to send me photos of the rest of the girls! Aunt Thalia? Please send!

And look at the fellas who nabbed us. We think they are so.....oh what's the word?

LUCKY

Now, continuing on with things I've learned on my trip.

4. YES. That is a worm Robbie is about to eat. Oklahomians, man! They're crazy
5. Don't piss off Mark and most definitly do not share a room with him. The man snores like a grizzly bear and scares the children.
6. If you should ever move to OK, steer clear of the Sout-Siiiiiiiiiiiide! (Mark lives there and the snoring would keep you up all night)
7. Even when you're in your 30's, you still get shushed!


A big thank you to Katie and Robbie for treating us to such a nice weekend and to Averi for lending us her room and taking such good care of Veronica, and to Ashton for seranading us with his guitar. To Abi and Mark for hosting such a nice party and to Cole for enjoying Uncle Jason's ribs with so much gusto! To Tiffany and Dennis and Cooper and Connor for coming out to see us while we were there and to Audrey and Damon and little Emma for making us LAUGH so loudly we got shushed. And to Annie and Jen for surprising us all! And to Auntie Thalia for helping out so much with the little ones. Thank you! We love you all and can't wait to see you again!