We went to visit our good friends, Jon and Duquesa, and their 6 kids in San Antonio earlier this month. We spent a fun and eventful week filling their house to the brim with our 10 combined kids. Luckily the weather cooperated and the oldest 6 spent most of their time playing outside in their grove.
Here are our top 7 memorable moments from the trip:
#7 Visiting the cock-pit on our flight down.
Charlie misunderstood and thought he was actually going to be allowed to fly the plane. As much as he enjoyed getting to see everything, he was pretty disappointed when he had to leave without a chance to fly.
# 6 Babies!
Frankie and Blaise are only 3 days apart so it was a bit confusing for their siblings who kept getting them mixed up. On the flight home, Elena turned Frankie to face her and said, "I'm just checking to make sure we didn't accidentally take Blaise!"
#5 The toddlers!
Charlie and Thomas hit it off right away and spent the whole week playing together. On our last morning, Charlie crawled into bed next to me. Thomas followed and crawled in next to him. Lying in between us, Charlie looked from one side to the other, sighed and said in a utterly contented and happy voice, "My mommy and my best friend!"
No trip to San Anonio would be complete without a visit to these two places. We loved strolling down the Riverwalk. It was probably our first family trip where at least half of our kids were old enough to really help out and listen well, which made sight-seeing a much easier task than it has been in the past. I'm happy to share that we received several compliments on our children. Good job, kids!
We borrowed the Lamers' 11-passenger van so we could bring the oldest 6 kids and Frankie to the caverns, and I think the car ride was almost as much fun for all the kids as the Caverns. The whole way there, they were shouting out all the exciting places they saw. "Look! It's Chuck-E-Cheese's!" "Look! Six Flags!!" (Elena, who had never heard of Six Flags, responded "Cool - that's one flag for each of us!"). The excitement even carried over to less thrilling spottings: "It's the Bank of America!!" "A CVS Pharmacy!"
Once we reached our destination we went through a maze, toured a cave, and (our favorite) mined for gems. I didn't expect the mining to be that much fun. You buy a bag of dirt that has a variety of gems hidden in it, then mine out the gems in water. It was so fun watching the kids get excited every time they found a gem.
#2 The Poop Story (sorry, no pictures):
A few hours into our first morning in Texas, we four parents were sitting around having a nice talk when Jon & Duquesa's very spunky little girl, Siena, came running into the house very excited to tell us about what our combined oldest six kids had done.
"Guess what!!! I brought 2 bags out into the woods. One had toilet paper in it, and the other was empty, and we all Pooped In The Woods!!!!!"
"I'm sorry, you What???"
"We pooped in the woods! We ALL did it except for Dominic!" (For the record, Elena later informed me that she only went #1)
At this startling news, our reactions - or mine at least - were torn between a mixture of several emotions - mainly surprise and yuck - and a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to suppress our laughter.
When we asked why they thought it would be a good idea to all simultaneously (or consecutively? I didn't ask for details) poop out in the woods, Siena pointed at Seth and said, "He told us to!"
At that point the last few shreds of willpower we had that were holding back the impulse to burst out laughing were completely gone and we (or I at least) about peed our pants laughing, while Seth said, "I think I have some explaining to do."
It turns out that, earlier that morning, Elena had asked Seth to tell the kids about the time he went "survival camping" with his friend, Adam, about 10 years ago. Long story short, they went camping in February with nothing but what they could carry on their backs for 24 hours. They built a shelter, attempted to catch their own food, built a fire...
At one point, one of the kids asked what they did when they had to go to the bathroom. Seth said they probably had some toilet paper or something and went in the woods. He told them this not realizing that the kids were planning their own day of survival camping and that they were interpreting his story as instructional - not anecdotal - material. Luckily, they didn't go so far as to start a fire.
#1 Friends!
Of course the best memories were simply our time reconnecting with old friends (for the parents) and meeting new ones (for the kids). As we pulled away from their house on our way to the airport, the kids were pretty sad. Elena said, "I never wanted this day to come!" Since coming home, the kids still frequently talk about how much they loved the trip and want to go back - "even with the cactus and rattlesnakes" says Elena who learned firsthand how painful it is to step on a cactus while wearing flip-flops. She says misses her friends every day at social studies when her teacher pulls out the map of the United States and she sees Texas.
Here are the ten enjoying sunny Texas!
#1 Friends!
Of course the best memories were simply our time reconnecting with old friends (for the parents) and meeting new ones (for the kids). As we pulled away from their house on our way to the airport, the kids were pretty sad. Elena said, "I never wanted this day to come!" Since coming home, the kids still frequently talk about how much they loved the trip and want to go back - "even with the cactus and rattlesnakes" says Elena who learned firsthand how painful it is to step on a cactus while wearing flip-flops. She says misses her friends every day at social studies when her teacher pulls out the map of the United States and she sees Texas.
Here are the ten enjoying sunny Texas!
