I decided not to wallow in my own homesickness though, wallowing will get me nowhere, I might as well enjoy the time while I have it. Besides, I chose to be on vacation this long. I toyed shortly with the idea of coming home for 4 days before returning for kids college. But the con's of that were driving back up instead of flying, missing my moms birthday, and the four day turn around time at home. It was just much better to do it this way. I can't let it get to me now. I'm at 75 percent complete. I have achievements to unlock, dang it. Plus, I don't want it to rub off on the boys. They seemed to be doing alright with it. Although today Peyton asked if I thought we would ever go on vacation for this long again. I told him I highly doubted it. Later he asked if 'normal people' went on vacation for this long? Again, i told him no. Sane people certainly wouldn't do this.
A block down from my moms house is a little convenience store that sells candy. I used to walk down there when I was a kid, and this morning Peyton was asking me if he could go. I was watering my moms plants out front so I let him and Calib walk down by themselves. I think they enjoy this more freedom thing, and it sure does make my life easier. I could see them the whole time, except for when they were in the store, so it's not like I just let them roam Fremont. After that we watered some of my moms plants in the backyard. Hayden loved this job and made up some song about watering plants while he did it. It basically went 'oh, I'm watering grandmas plants, watering grandma's plants, I'm watering grandma's plants so they don't die'. Weird-o. I blame Asa.
When Calib left for Jeffs house Peyton and Hayden were really bummed out. As was I. Not only is Calib an awesome kid to have around, he is the buffer between Hayden and Peyton. I've lost my buffer, and the sparks are already starting to fly. It's not going so well with the two of them. But then I think about how annoyed with my brothers I would have been if we were together that much for 3 weeks. Heck, I would be annoyed with them if I had to spend that much time with them now. Cort and his ninny bus reminiscing. Not awesome. Anyway, tonight they are sleeping in different rooms because they need the separation. It's like the adult, kid, adult, kid, adult, kid dining pattern all over again.I decided I needed to perk them up a bit, so I took the two of them to Woody's. It's a little restaurant that's local to Fremont and is only open in the summer. You order at the window and eat at picnic tables. It's right up Peyton and Hayden's alley because they serve things like hot dogs, and rootbeer floats. I knew this would cheer them up. I actually didn't eat at Woody's till I was in high school, so it's not like it's a big must stop when I'm 'home', but those CVS jerks went and tore down Rudy's. Like they didn't have enough corners in america. Why'd they have to build one on the home of the best Queen Burgers and fries in all the land. *sigh* Anyway, Hayden was quite disappointed in the fact that there was nobody from toy story there. I didn't think about the fact when I said we could go to Woody's, he was expecting to see THE woody, buzz, rex, and slinky. Such disappointment in his face. I should have put it together when he was so excited to go.
We picked up mom from work and headed out to Niagara Falls. It's a decent trek, especially when you feel like you've been traveling nearly non-stop for 3 weeks. But, I mean, I've come this far. I'm really trying to break up the rest of the trip for the boys, and I have the passports. We did stop at the rest stop that is in the middle of the highway and you have to cross the bridge over the road to get to it, which the boys were rather amused by. Sidenote on the car trip, Mom is the only person I know who questions their GPS system. She'll slow down looking at street signs saying things like "wait, shouldn't we go that way?" My response 'No, Mom, the gps says we should stay straight' Mom persists 'doesn't it seem like we should go that way?' RECALCULATING...
Also worth noting the boys got out of the car, put their feet on the ground and had their picture taken in front of a Pennsylvania sign, so there's another state for them. I would just like it to be noted that state counts, unlike questionable California.When we got to the hotel, they asked if I would rather have a king sized bed and a falls view instead of two queen beds and a city view. It's an embassy suites hotel, so in addition there's a living room with a pull out couch. I thought the falls view sounded really nice, but I didn't get it in the first place because it was almost double the price. I said we would make it work, and boy am I glad I did. The room is awesome. It's two rooms, with a huge bathroom, complete with a jacuzzi tub. There's also a fireplace, and when you open the window you can hear the falls. The view is super awesome. You can see both the falls from here, and we're on the 26th floor so you can see forever.
We walked down to the falls to check them out right about the time they started to light them up for the night. We stopped by a gift shop and Hayden wanted some absolutely ridiculous guitar glasses. At this point I've learned not to steer him into the souvenir direction I want him to go in. At least it's not a hat with some curly red hair attached a la Gwen. He got those and a slinky, and Peyton got some rocks. I gotta say, the tax here is out of control. No wonder they have such good publicly funded health care.Perhaps they use some of those taxes to put on the nice fireworks show they have at 10 pm every Friday and Sunday night here in the summer. I had no idea that such a thing would be occurring when I got the falls view room, but we high tailed it back up to the room before the fireworks started to watch them from the comfort of our hotel. We even picked up some ice cream from the gift shop. I got a drumstick, which is my favorite, except for chocotacos, but those seem to have disappeared. It was nice because the boys didn't have to deal with the loud noises, we didn't have to deal with the crowds, and when it was over, we were right here in our room. Plus, it was a bonus because we didn't get to see any fireworks on the 4th of July since we were on the cruise ship.
Another bonus of this upgrade is a jacuzzi tub. I filled it up, and the kids got in their swimsuits, put their goggles on and had a blast in the tub for nearly an hour. They didn't even ask to go to the pool. I think they really enjoyed the fact that they got to press the buttons to start the jets going. The started and stopped them, over and over and over again. We tried to skype Asa to show him the awesomeness that is our hotel room, but it really wasn't going very well.At the end of the day though, my self taken picture is me being quite tentative. We are teetering over that line of misbehavior and acceptable behavior. And by we, I mean Hayden. He straightened up today when I picked up the phone to call Asa, but other than that he's been pushing everyone's buttons a bit too much.
Homesick meter: 7. I'm more homesick today, and I'm also going to be one of those parents who chalk bad behavior up to something, in this case, homesickness. Surely it's not just Hayden wanting to misbehave.
Up Next: Free Breakfast, Maid of the Mist, and another stadium off my list!
No comments:
Post a Comment