Some random stuff from our trip...

Oh my, I really don't know where I should begin..there has been some funny and interesting stuff on this trip.  I guess I'll just do bullets with comments of things that are filling my head.  This family of mine is seriously fun...

• Ok, the funniest thing said on this trip has to be something that Charlie said.  We were making great time on the trip and somewhere in Utah Charlie made a comment about the fact that we were really moving along.  He turned to me to comment and halfway through he realized the whole car was listening so what came out was "man we are seriously hauling 'A'......double snakes'.  I think Miles was the only one who truly got it but we were all cracking up for a while. 
  
• If you have not been lucky enough to hear Brooke sing along with the radio or iPod well let me let you into our car traveling world.  She has a couple of favorites which she sings with LOTS of enthusiasm....here are a few of her favs - Hurts So Good, Proud Mary, Wedgy Woman (which the rest of you may know as Witchy woman - clearly there is a woman out there with a huge wedgy that needs to be taken care of) 
• While in Seattle, Brooke saw homeless people for the first time and was alternately intrigued and frightened by them.  She kept asking if it was bad to be homeless and she was quite fearful of them, even when we were driving by in the car.  She even said "don't look them right in the eye"...clearly they were magical and mystical homeless people..which begs the question, if they have special powers why are they homeless...I'm sure my sarcasm does not do much in the way of consoling her in these matters.
• Also in Seattle, Brooke decided she wanted to invent and institute her own personal sign language and we spent part of a very frustrating, albeit silent, day trying to decode her made up hand motions...that would be until I finally lost it and demanded that she speak and stop doing hand motions that neither she, nor I, could remember.  This was super fun, as you can imagine, and clearly not my most fabulous parenting moment.
• While stopping in some random ghost town in New Mexico for lunch I narrowly escaped eating at Shorty's BBQ...Charlie's says I'm missing out on some good eatin', but I'm pretty sure I just missed out on a trip to the ER or the very next rest area down the road.  
• Charlie and I became official video game usage referees. Our black and white striped shirts are on order as we speak.  This is truly a proud moment for us as the parents of children who are officially considered gifted.  We had to set up a schedule of usage for a roller coaster video game.  Thank you Aunt Heather and Uncle Chris for Thrillville.  I may have at some point, during a heated discussion from the backseat, threatened to roll down the window and send the game sailing "frisbee style" into the wonder that is Idaho. Again, awesome parenting moment...no worries though, after I'm done with the blog I'll be starting a parenting book which should make enough profit to pay for therapy for all 3 of our kids later down the road.
• Our kids never drink caffeinated soda but somehow Brooke managed to get a glass of  Mountain Dew at lunch one day.  Well, let me tell you, I was begging for the crazy made up sign language that day.  I was driving and she talked to me literally NON STOP about anything and everything she has ever thought of...in her entire life.  I did lots of smiling and head nodding...I did get nailed a time or two...it's not good to answer a question with a head nod or a uum hmm...it's a dead giveaway that you aren't listening.
• We saw 7 rainbows in a two hour period in Idaho...and yet we always managed to escape the rain.  The weather has been nothing less than perfect since we left.
• While driving to a particular destination there was a map reading snafu and Charlie and I got lost...I was navigating, which he says means I got us lost, but I say that this is a team effort and we got lost together.  During this time two things happened, the Dr. Miles show was created...a backseat interview show run by our son and the mantra "get a girl a Garmin", which I've been saying for months, became a real possibility. 
• Since we've been in a kajillion hotels since leaving Valdez we've been bed sharing. This would not be a problem if our kids could hop in bed and just quietly go to sleep in the same bed.  No... there have to be noises, smells, and lots of giggling, so we have to separate them.  I cannot explain to you the "joy" of sleeping in a bed with your children.  Now I'm not talking about babies or little kids.  We're talking flopping like a fish, kick you all night, throw an elbow in your eye, half grown kids.  It's so not a good idea.
• Miles was misbehaving during some, or all, of the trip...Kidding he's been pretty good considering he's 13 and traveling with his dorky family.  Anyway, at some point Charlie was informing him how obnoxious he was being and said "Miles, I'm gonna have to lay the hammer down if you don't cut it out."  To this Miles responded..."how about a mallet?" Now while I value sarcasm, and I'm probably the reason Miles took a chance on saying something so clever, there's always a time and place.  I will say Charlie chose not to come ripping out of his seat and Miles walked away in one piece...but I'm pretty sure he didn't have any privileges that day.  
• Charlie introduced the kids to a 1980's movie, Strange Brew, before we left Valdez, if you haven't seen it...don't bother...it's like an hour and a half of your life that you'll never get back.  Zach received a copy of this movie for his birthday. Thank you Aunt Deanna, Uncle Mick and Chloe.  The kids watched this movie about 8 times in the car and now we are being treated to all of the memorized lines from the movie.  We are hearing things like "hey dad can we stop at the next rest area so I can throw a whiz?"  Yeah - one can never get enough of the Canadian comedians Bob and Doug McKenzie, eeh.  This, paired with entire memorized monologues from Napoleon Dynamite, has made for a very fun trip. 
  

I guess that's all I can think of for right now.  I'm sure there's more rattling around in my head but for now the lack of sleep has caught up with me.