Another Day in Paradise: August 2016

Monday, Aug. 1st

For years, we have set aside the first week of August as our family vacation week. With six kids (four of which are boys!) I'm acknowledging the fact that it is unlikely that we will always gather as a family for holidays every year when the kids are grown. Sure, I'd love to think that they will ALL just desire to be home every Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter and their brides would join in on their enthusiasm, but I'm guessing reality may look a bit different. So, years ago, we declared the first week of August our family week and are instilling the idea of honoring it and keeping it sacred. Hopefully, our adult children (regardless of who is where for the holidays) will take a big red sharpie every year and keep the Aug. 1 week wide open for whatever we have planned for them and their families.

This year, that week coincided with National Fine Arts, so that was the plan- to make Louisville our family vacation. Here's an email I had to send a couple weeks prior to our trip.

Hey! I'm shooting this out to those of you directly affected / those of you who may mildly care.

The short version:
We are NOT going to Louisville.

The long version:
When Maddy and Nathanael qualified back in April in Providence for Fine Arts, the next step was Nationals. So we planned. It was perfect to fit our family vacation week the first week of August so the whole fam was headed to Louisville for Nationals and youth convention. I got right on booking the hotel knowing they filled quickly....and the shelved it all. Put it out of my brain to focus on a mountain of paperwork for Nashville and a two inch pile of camp forms due at the same time.

THEN, I recently remembered that the kids needed to be registered to compete!!!! I jumped online on Thursday to do so and saw that the cutoff was June 3rd. My heart sank, realizing my horrendous oversight, but naively thought, "No biggie. I'll call the national office and straighten this out."

I called and was given a hard 'no'. I got increasingly upset as I called a couple of my connections who in turn called their connections. The day dragged out as 'sorry' was emailed and texted back again and again. I was devastated. I single-handedly destroyed our family vacation and M and N's opportunity to dance and preach. No exceptions to be made.

I cried. Colombo sweetly comforted me, showing me mercy that I know I would have withheld if it had been him who made the stupid mistake of missing a deadline; an important deadline crucial to our family vacation and the happiness of our children!!!

I chose not to tell Nathanael, instead waiting until teens got home from camp and we could talk it over as a family.

Last night, I geared up and said, "Guys, I have some news."

C4 said, "We're not going to Louisville?"

"How'd you know?"

He was happy as 15 hour road trips with his sibs are not his favorite. Maddy was relieved as she is sort of tapped out on dance this summer, and Nathanael shrugged and said, "That's fine. We can just do it again next year."

They were 100% truly ok with it. While I was so thankful for their merciful understanding, their benign reaction was shocking! I was like, "what the heck, guys!!!??"

Anyway! I screwed up, spent two days in knots, but it all worked out!

We are sorry for the families we were looking forward to hanging with for the week and watching friends compete.

So, we'll gear up for it next year in Orlando and perhaps *finally* get this crew to Disney!

Love,
Amy

So we adjusted and decided to do some local day trips as a family. Next year we'll do better, and it'll be a long time before I miss a deadline!

Epilogue: Friday night of Fine Arts is the big Celebration service where the Top 3 from every category are announced and they pick 3 or 4 categories to perform on stage in front of 20,000. Well, OF COURSE, this year they used the Worship Dance Solo category to showcase Friday night. I'm not saying Madison would've won, but she definitely would've been in the running. More salt in the wound!

Day One: BOSTON. Oh my gosh, we had such a fun day! Originally it was supposed to be a beach day, but the weather looked iffy, so we opted for the Boston Museum of Science. I hadn't been since sixth grade.

Renna loved the phone... "Dats it!!! I'm cawying da pu-yees!".

We saw a cool IMAX movie about how dolphins communicate and what intelligent creatures they are.

This station calculated your calories burned from your steps. We got the biggest kick out of Renna's silhouette. Little sassy pants, walking belly first with her skirt swinging.

When we'd had our fill, we went into the North End, walked around while we waited for a table, ate at Lucia's, and took a connoli form Mike's for the car ride.

Tuesday, Aug. 2nd
We woke up to rain, so our day started at Ice Age 4. It was hilarious and we all enjoyed it, kids and parents.

Then we went on a hike at Wadsworth Falls State Park in Middletown, CT.

C4 missed Monday and Tuesday with us. Once we weren't going to Louisville, he put himself back on the work schedule, not quite grasping the sanctity of the week.

Then we went to Moe's for dinner and then the church for an hour of filming that Brent needed for Mystery.

My sister, Bethany had a baby- sweet Willow Holland. She is my 16th niece / nephew.

Wednesday, Aug. 3rd
We decided to do an overnight in New Hampshire and return to one of our favorite spots up there- Whales Tale Waterpark, which we hadn't been to in about 4 years.

Dinner at the Common Man.

They provide Trivial Pursuit cards to pass the time at the table. "What kind of bank cools its deposits to minus 196.5 degrees Centigrade?"
#1...that's cold!
#2...I got it right!

Thursday, Aug. 4th
A second day at Whale's Tale. They have a policy that if you buy your ticket after 3pm, you can then return for a full day the next day, so that was our plan. We had two great days at the park!

**Oh! The answer?? -- A sperm bank.**

Friday, Aug. 5th

This day was a treat! Garth and Tannie graciously extended an invitation to come and play at the lake since Ally and Levi were visiting them for a couple weeks. Cousins AND lake toys!!!

That? That's trouble!

Andrew and Anne Marie patiently took boatload after boatload of tubers out.

We picked up Mason and Bennett for a portion of the evening. For as little time as they have spent at our house, they fit right in! We love any chance to have them here!