As you’ve heard, my husband surprised us this last weekend with our first family vacation since having children. It would be a two day/one night event. Melissa asked, rather snarkily, “You had to wait until you had five kids?” And as I told her I had to wait until I had all the confidence in the world and absolutely no shame left. We’re there.
They were too excited to sleep the night before. Bouncing off the walls. Like Christmas. I was all abuzz with the gazillion things to be done.
When we woke up at 4:52am Saturday morning my husband whispered (because there were 2 little people snoozing alongside me) “If you’re going to get some things done you better get on it, because when the first crazy child wakes up it’s gonna be on like a pot o’ neckbone.” (Your “on” better have rhymed with “bone” otherwise you didn’t read it right. Go back, try it again..)
He was right. We were on the road by 6:30am. When we drove into Memphis (“It’s in another STATE, Mom?! Wow!”) the kids were renewed with giddyness.
Upon seeing the pyramid from a distance one of my children asked if it is was sitting on the ground. Giggling to myself I wondered what the alternative could be.
We went straight to the zoo. And we yelled things like “MonkeyFace!” for the camera.
We saw a sea lion show and rode a carousel.
We saw a panda..
We ate barbeque (because it’s Memphis, y’all!) and saw a polar bear..
And played in a geyser.
When asking them all what their favorite part of the trip was, my girl said, surprisingly, “The tram at the zoo.” You never know what will stick with them.
We went to the hotel and I watched the kids run around excited and crazy. The middlest said in a dreamy voice looking around the hotel, “I wanna live here.” I will say, my husband booked us a 2 bedroom, 2 bath, kitchenette suite with 3 beds, a couch/bed pullout, and full breakfast included. A chef, a pool, housekeeping, and fancy tvs – I wanna live there too, buddy. Next we got ready and went to a mall.
Where they jumped with bungee cord things on blow up trampolines (do you have any idea what I’m talking about?) and rode another carousel and played in a hurricane wind tunnel thing. They were amazed that there was such a thing as a Disney store, and …I forgot my camera. The oldest said the jumpy thing was going to be one of his best memories in his life and I said, “Oh, honey, I forgot the camera, is that okay?” “It’s okay, Mom, it’s so awesome I’m going to remember it forever.”
We got up the next morning, and my daughter said to my oldest “Last night was the best night ever.” And the oldest replied, “It was the best ever ever.” We ate a marvelous breakfast and drove around downtown so they could see the sights.
We saw Beale Street. To which my middlest cracked a joke, “Hey, are we still on Bob Street?” Giggles rippled all through the van.
Matt pointed out Rendezvous Barbeque and said, “Look guys, that’s the most famous barbeque in the world.” The middlest begged to eat there.. “because I wanna be famous!”
We saw the place where Matt proposed to me. And reminisced about the night he got down on that one knee. A true fairy tale story for the kids. Then we headed off to play at Overton Park. Where Matt tried to remind me of the time we went to play there when we were dating. “Uh, I never came here to play with you.” “Sure you did, remember?” “Nope, that was not me.” “Ummm, nevermind.”
Where my 3 year old peed right there for the world to see. We always tell the kids to not roll around in the rocks at parks. Now you know why.
While getting ready to cross the monorail to Mud Island the middlest said, “I wish I could skip rocks on the Mississippi River.” Oh, my little Tom Sawyer.
As we drove across the river bridge headed back into our dailyness the words of my oldest from the day before floated me home, “This was the best day of my whole life.”
