Spring Break 2011

This week has been Spring Break in our area. Because of Keith's job in accounting, we can't really make many plans during this week as a family so I've never put much thought into planning our week. I'm sure once the boys get older the 3 of us will make plans to do some fun stuff during their break, but for now, it's hard to plan on doing anything of much excitement with a 5 year old and a 1 year old.

Keith has been traveling quite a bit to Paris lately for work. (Paris, Texas, unfortunately. Not France.) As it turns out, Keith had to travel the week of Spring Break so the boys and I figured we would tag along. This week, Keith only had to be there from Tuesday-Thursday, so the boys and I left a little after lunch on Tuesday to make the 2 hour drive. Keith was already there hard at work. We headed straight to the hotel and got checked in and settled into our room. Then we changed and headed down to the indoor pool. Garrett was very excited about swimming.

We were literally 1 foot away from stepping into the pool when a maintenance man walked in and told us that the pool was closed for treatment. First, there was no sign anywhere that stated this. The pool was full of water, there was no equipment sitting around that would lead you to think it was out of service. Second, couldn't there have been better planning to avoid this during Spring Break? That seems like a bad decision made by someone somewhere. I know that sometimes they don't plan these things ahead of time, but during Spring Break I would put a rush on getting my pool fixed. To be perfectly honest, the pool was the main attraction for this trip, so to say I was frustrated with this would be an understatement.

Thankfully, we don't have cable or satellite at our house, so switching between the Disney channel, Nickelodeon and the Cartoon Network kept the boys pretty well entertained for the rest of the evening. We went and picked up McDonald's for supper and ate in the hotel room before heading to bed. Keith got back to the hotel around 8:30. After the boys went to sleep, we watched a lot of HGTV. I would have that channel on 24/7 at home if we had it. Really cool shows!

On Wednesday morning, we all went down and ate breakfast at the hotel. I love the fact that hotels now are getting away from the "continental" breakfast and tend to serve a "hot" one instead. Of course the boys only wanted cereal, but Keith enjoyed eggs and sausage and I had biscuits and gravy. After Keith and his coworkers left for their client, the boys and I hung out in our room some more watching cartoons. I checked with the hotel front desk and the pool was still closed. They "apologized for the inconvenience." Later in the morning we went to the movies and saw "Rango". I wouldn't recommend it. There were several parts where the characters cussed and the storyline just didn't impress. Not to mention that it was almost 2 hours long, which seems like a good 30 minutes longer than most cartoon movies should be. I assume their target audience are children and many children can't sit still for that long.

Thankfully Cooper slept through part of the movie because during the parts where he was awake, he enjoyed kicking the seat in front of us more than he should have. I know the lady was not happy and I did my absolute best to keep him from doing it, but short of leaving or moving (and the theater was pretty full so I don't know that I would have found a seat with an empty one in front of it), I didn't have many options. I hope when adults go to kid movies, they anticipate that sort of thing. I know I didn't even flinch when the boy behind me burped. Long and loud and continuously. Which then enticed my child to attempt the same thing.

After the movie, we met Keith and his coworkers at a cool burger place in downtown Paris for lunch. They had a wide variety of options for a burger. One of which was a burger patty in between 2 grilled cheese sandwiches. Can you even imagine how unhealthy that would be? It doesn't even sound appetizing.

After lunch, the boys and I went back to the hotel for naptime. Unfortunately no naps were actually taken, but I strictly enforced quiet time for an hour, so that helped me to regain my sanity. Thankfully Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was on for awhile after that, so the boys were entertained. (We did bring toys, lest anyone think that I automatically assumed the TV would be a good babysitter.) Then we ordered pizza to be delivered to our hotel room. Incidentally, I placed my first online pizza order. I always worried that the local pizza franchise didn't really check those orders, but I know now that they do.

The boys took showers and got into bed where they "rested" until Keith got back to the hotel around 9pm. About 30 minutes after the boys finally went to sleep, Garrett started thrashing around in his bed, moaning and everything. I finally got him to tell me that something hurt, but before we could figure out what he was talking about, he threw up in the bed. That was fun. You haven't really lived until you've cleaned puke out of a pillow in a hotel sink.

We put down a layer of towels underneath him and put a trashcan beside him in the bed and then we tried to settle down for sleep. That was pretty impossible since Garrett thrashed and moaned once an hour, every hour. He never actually threw up again, but since I wasn't sure if he would or not, I still grabbed the trashcan every time and held it in front of his face until his "moment" passed. That was loads of fun. During one of these trashcan sessions around 3am, Keith told me that he thought Cooper had thrown up in his bed.

Here's the thing, initially Keith had been sleeping with Garrett in one bed and I was with Cooper in the other. Garrett nearly missed puking on Keith and then we swapped beds. At 3am, rather than being puked on, Keith was the lucky one to get pooped on. Cooper didn't throw up, but he was having very bad issues of a different variety. (I'm sorry for the turn this post has taken. Unfortunately it is very much a representation of what our Spring Break was this year...) I helped Keith clean up and then we hosed Cooper off in the shower. I'm pretty sure if there were people in the room next door to us, they hated us by this point. My apologies to you. We did our best to be quiet, but there's not much you can do when holding a 1 year old whose been woken up at 3am and shoved into the shower to clean up what no amount of baby wipes could ever clean up.

We then had the fun task of cleaning up Cooper's bed. Both of the beds in our room have now been scarred for life. We put down another layer of towels (thank goodness for housekeeping who left us extra that morning!) and Cooper went back to sleep pretty quickly. Unfortunately that was not the case for Keith and me. Earlier in the night, we had debated heading on home because we were already planning to leave first thing the next morning, but Keith decided against driving home in the middle of the night. At this point, we were regretting that decision. We turned on some more HGTV and dozed until 6:30am. Then we packed up, cleaned up (as best as you can when armed with baby wipes and hotel soap), left a good tip for housekeeping, and headed home.

Keith had already taken the day off because our window company was coming out to change some windows in our house. So once we got home and unloaded, I got changed and headed to the church to print bulletins. I normally work every Thursday at our church printing, folding, and stuffing all the bulletins (among other things). Thankfully Keith was home so I didn't have to bring the boys with me this week (they're in school on other Thursdays.)

We will now wrap up Spring Break by attempting to catch up on missed sleep, scald all clothing worn during the "night from hell", do more cleaning around the house, and hope and pray that no one else gets another stomach bug.