Time of Departure...

......will be at least ten hours later than I expected.

I don't know what gets in to me, but I like to torture myself by planning fun Saturday field trips with the kids. Yesterday, I decided to take them to a nature center near our house. It's about a 15 minute drive, so, of course, it took about 4 hours to get there.

First, I attempted to get everyone's attention. That was an hour of my life that I will never get back.

Then, we had to find the hairbrush, which is always, always, hiding in weird places. Today, we located it in the box of Fruity Pebbles.


Cramming pants over Victoria's casts was a piece of cake compared to brushing the hair of five girls. Francesca thinks the brush is some barbaric form of torture.

Finally, we were all loaded into the car. No, wait, little Catherine had to use the bathroom and Isabella only had one shoe on.


At least Victoria has found a way to amuse herself; the old, "rip up paper napkins and throw them all over the car" game was quite the hit.

An hour later, we backed out of the driveway. By then, everyone was hungry, so we stopped for Chick-fil-A and waited in the drive thru line for at least 20 choruses of "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands!"

"Why aren't you clapping Mom?", asked Anastasia.

I explained that banging my head on the steering wheel was my special way of clapping.


Ok, ready to go. Nope, we needed gas. Did you know a Suburban has a 40 gallon tank? Jeez.


We're on our way at last, but, wait, there's a stupid family parade going on and we have to take a detour.

Now, little Catherine has to go to the bathroom again.

Victoria threw up, probably what was left of the paper napkins.

I was sorely tempted to give up and go crawl back into bed, but look, we are here!!!! And they are giving out free cookies!!

We got to pet snakes!

Maybe today I'll just climb Mt Everest; it would be easier.