But then (just days before we were supposed to go) my sister decided she'd rather not have us stay with her and asked us to get a hotel instead. So I started to scramble. Hotels don't work for our family. They don't make rooms with enough beds, so we'd have to get two rooms, and none of our kids are old enough to be in a room by themselves. And then we'd have to eat out for every meal. And it's extremely hard to wash bottles and sippy cups in a little hotel sink. Hotels just don't work for us. So, I looked at houses or condos for rent that would fit our family. Since I was looking at such short notice, there weren't a lot of choices. I found one that would be perfect for us...but it was a thousand dollars for the week. I just couldn't justify spending that much money. So, we canceled our trip to Utah.
We decided instead to do a "stay-cation". Scott would still take the week off of work, and we'd just do activities here in the Boise area. We started out yesterday morning with "Birds of Prey". It was a disaster. I was shocked at how un-child-friendly it was.
I knew we were in for it, when I couldn't even get the kids to stand for a decent picture.
We looked at some of the birds in their cages, but the cages were really dark and heavily barred, so it was hard to see the birds (which were in the very back of their cages).
The California Condors. These were actually the best part of the whole place. It was feeding time, so we got to watch them pull apart some chickens.
Comparing wing spans.
Then we joined a falconry tour. This was a mistake. It was not geared toward children. And our tour group was filled with middle-aged and older people who were more concerned about seeing and hearing things for themselves, than letting our kids see anything. So, our kids were always in the back where they couldn't see or hear, and they just fought and misbehaved because they were so bored. (The pictures are outside the building before the tour started--you can see just how interested Nate was, and it only got worse from there.)
I finally took Nate and Owen and left the tour and just hung out in a grass area till the tour was done.
The falconry tour finally ended. And next was supposed to be the live bird presentation. I thought that finally we'd found something that would be cool for the kids. But, this was the extent of the live bird presentation....
Yes, that measly little thing was the only bird they got out to show. Pretty disappointing. And, since the kids were bored, they just fought through the whole thing.
At the very end, when we were ready to leave, a worker (a very nice old man) gave Savannah a scavenger hunt paper (a checklist of facts she had to find). It was just what we needed--if only they had given it to us when we first got there instead of at the end. The three older kids had a great time running around filling in their scavenger hunt. At the end they each got a calendar with pictures of birds of prey on each month.
When we loaded back into the suburban to go home, I told the kids that our vacation was getting canceled. I told them that I was going to send Dad back to work, and the rest of the week of activities were canceled. They all had acted so horrible (bad attitudes, fighting, teasing, not listening to instructions). I told them I'd rather spend the week at home where I could send them to their beds when they misbehaved, than spend the week out doing things and having to deal with them acting so terrible.
We drove home in silence. As we got back to our neighborhood, we stopped at the common area and let the kids spend some time at a carnival that two families were putting on. It was a fun idea. These families had let their kids plan it all out--obstacle courses, bean bag toss, food (homemade cookies, lemonade, otter pops, popcorn). They charged 5 cents a ticket and each game or food item could be purchased with tickets. And then they planned to donate all proceeds to the Food Bank. So, we stopped and let the kids get out of the suburban, gave them some money, and let them play at the carnival for a couple of hours.
Owen was asleep in his car seat, so Scott and I stayed in the car and talked. I cried. This was not the vacation I had wanted. The kids would probably still fight during our activities in Salt Lake, but at least it would feel more like a vacation to me because we would be getting away from home. This didn't feel at all like a vacation. I know we have a lot of kids that are very close in age, and that we are a lot to take. But, are we really that horrible to be around that even family doesn't want us to stay with them? I mean, how do you not take offense at that? After a good cry and a long talk, we decided we'd give the kids another chance and just try to make the best of this week.
So, we went ahead with our evening plans of taking the kids to a base ball game. We got a babysitter to stay home with Nate and Owen. And....we had a great time. The kids LOVED the game. They were running a Monday night kids special, which gave the kids a free hot dog and juice with admission (food always makes an activity more enjoyable). And it was also Math Monday at the game. The kids each filled out a series of math questions that had to do with baseball, then they got to submit the quizzes for a free ticket to a future game. That means we will get to do this again soon. The kids behaved so amazingly well, and Scott and I were actually able to enjoy ourselves. The game was long (three hours), but the kids were excited about it the whole time. It was definitely a better end to the day than the start was.
No comments:
Post a Comment