That is not my name!

I was sure that I had made a reservation at the New Orleans Riverside Hotel for the upcoming National Championships of Irish Dancing.  Why couldn't they find my reservation!?!  

Now, there are lots of aspects of Irish dancing that stress me out.  Trust me.  I think I've managed to encounter most of them.  Not on purpose. 

My kid has messed up during a ceili competition before.  Oh, to avoid the awkwardness after your kid screws up the dance for the entire team!  Kids dressed in matching dresses wearing the same wig tend to look identical.  This can lead to a delay in registering whether or not 'the mess-up' kid is my kid.  'Mess-up' kids tend to dance in the wrong direction, start dancing on the wrong bar of music, or instead of offering a hand to a partner - offer it to no one - this is typically the result of the kid having danced in the wrong direction, now I partner isn't where he is expected to be.  Yikes.  I cringe thinking about it.

Getting lost or running into bad traffic enroute to a competition also creates stress.  What if your kid's group is walking on stage at that moment?  Forgotten shoes or costume pieces:  far from relaxing.  Since I'm an old pro at encountering mishaps, I wish I could remain calm and remember that no matter whatever is unraveling - it will all work out.  Not my style, though.  I'm more of an instant-diarrhea type.

I tried to remain calm as I dug out my credit card bill from February.  There was a charge there for the Hilton Riverside.  Unfortunately, that did little to settle my stomach.  It listed a date in early February as both the arrival AND the checkout date.  Eventually it was clear to me that because the hotel collects a two night, non-refundable stay during booking, my credit card printed those dates on the statement.  For a few minutes, while I was in panic mode, I believed that the woman taking my reservation mistakenly charged me for the room the day I made the reservation.  

Curly was the only one home.  She kept trying to chat with me.  I instructed her to leave the room to protect her from hearing the harsh language that I assumed would escape my otherwise clean mouth (if you believe that my language is typically respectable, then you haven't been reading my blog regularly).  

Now I took the time to page thru the crumpled pages of my handy-dandy, paper (not-digital . . . so not me!) notebook.  I came across a page from February and a minute later I had zeroed in on the correct page.  There was my Hilton confirmation number scribbled up towards the top of the page. 

My secret weapon in surviving life - my notebook.  I know, I know, how very high tech of me.  The info I needed is at the top of the page in a square right next to the defining title:  Friday. 

I called the hotel back.  They were able to pull up my reservation, but it was under a different name.  The address didn't match my address either.  So little miss out-sourced, who struggled to command the English language, had completely botched my name and address.  I had a hard time convincing the hotel that I was who I claimed to be.  I couldn't verify the name or address on the reservation, because the agent created it from thin air.  Yet, I had the confirmation number.

The credit card number I used to secure the room had been compromised a few weeks after this charge.  Fortunately, I still had that number memorized.  It took some time to convince the Hilton people to change the name on the reservation.  Eventually they agreed.  They emailed me a copy of it.

I checked the email this time.  Um, it still had the fake name created by the foreign speaking agent. I called back.  'Hello, I can't convince the dancing committee that I am staying at this hotel (it was mandatory to stay in their block of rooms or face steep fines) if they don't have the correct record of my name on the reservation!'  A moment later they emailed me the corrected reservation.  Meanwhile, I had lost a few pounds in sweat, not to mention an entire evening of my life.

So while I utilize the name Ernie Shenanigan for my blog, my real-life name is no where near Sarah Scaberg.  NOT EVEN CLOSE!

 This is a copy of the hotel confirmation.  What a mess!

reservation booked, or was it?

One of the little annoyances (oh, yes there are many . . . do  you know that Irish dancers wear wigs, tan their legs, wear dresses more expensive than an average mother's wedding dress?) about having a kid compete in a big Irish dancing competition, is securing an approved hotel room.  

The group that runs the event requires the participants to lodge in one of the hotels where they have set aside a block of rooms.  In order to verify that these families aren't 'cheating' and making reservations at non-room-blocked hotels, the organizers require each family to fill out a form and submit it to the committee in advance of the competition. 

I held the phone in my hand back on February 1st, poised and ready to punch in the phone number for the Hilton in New Orleans at precisely the time that the block of rooms was scheduled to open.  New Orleans was hosting this year's National Irish Dancing competition.  I had the list of available hotel room blocks open on my computer, but I hoped to land a reservation at the Hilton Riverside.  The actual dancing competition was taking place on the Hilton's first floor.  Sleeping in the same hotel as the competition alleviates the added headache of figuring out transportation to the competition.  Since I often have non-dancers with me, it is convenient for the non-participants to be able to relax in the hotel room, or hang at the hotel pool if (WHEN) they get bored with the competition.  

I remember that phone call to Hilton vividly.  My kids were at school, but I was sitting for Theodore and Gilbert.  The boys were playing in the basement.  I ran up to the study and watched the clock in order to call right at 10 am when the block of rooms opened.  I was thrilled that the phone line wasn't busy, and I got my two queen beds preference on the first try.  Yippee!

Theodore emerged from the basement while I was sharing my information with the Hilton employee.  Thanks to his wound-tight personality, Theo NEEDED to tell me that he pushed his little brother down while they were in the basement.  He admitted that it wasn't an accident.  He didn't want his baby brother Gilbert on the chair where he stood to reach the air hockey table, so he pushed him down.  I ran down to the basement.  Gilbert was fine.  I ran back upstairs and motioned for Theo to sit in a timeout.  Meanwhile, I spelled my name slowly into the phone for the 3rd consecutive time.  Theodore's loud sobs made it difficult to hear the Hilton rep.  I moved his timeout spot to the mudroom.

I jotted down my confirmation number and released Theodore from his time out.

Months later it was time to fill out the hotel form to submit to the dancing committee.  I decided it was easiest to do a search of Hilton emails for my confirmation number as opposed to paging back to February in my handy-dandy, paper (not-digital) notebook where I jot down everything. 

That's when I realized that in an effort to delete the thousands of unwanted emails I accumulate over time, I had inadvertently deleted ALL off my Hilton emails.  Oops. 

I've fallen into my old habits of allowing stupid Hilton emails to collect in my overflowing in box.

I called the Hilton Riverside directly.  I almost dropped the phone when they said they had no reservation for me.  

I sent Curly to play in another room to shield her from the anticipated language that I felt about to erupt as I broke into a sweat.

How could I secure a room at this late date?  My heart pumped as if I had just danced a heavy jig for two hours around my family room.  

ESPECIALLY the kitchen sink

You've heard the saying:  'Everything but the kitchen sink!' . . . for us, the saying has become 'Especially the kitchen sink!'

Right before Easter the kitchen faucet broke.  One of our offspring used excessive force to turn off the water flow.  Irish temper?  Perhaps, but I think it was more like a kid not realizing his own strength combined with an aging faucet.  Fortunately the water could still be turned off and on, but it took a little wiggling, a little caution, and a little know-how.

When my friend came over for lunch, she watched my technique with the sink.  I insisted that I felt like a doctor from the hit TV show of the 90's.  Once all the parts aligned, I felt like I was portraying a med student on ER trying to intubate a patient.  Once I had felt the necessary 'click' I wanted to call out:  'I'm in!'

For awhile I used a bit of duct tape to hold the faucet handle in place.  That plan interfered with the ability to adjust the temperature because the handle couldn't rotate, so the tape was removed. Temperature choices are not over-rated. 

When we hosted Easter, Coach and I shared a chuckle when my worry-wart mother-in-law caused the handle to come dislodged from the faucet.  She thought she had broken it.  I promise . . .  we only let a solid minute (too long?) go by before we assured her that the damn thing had been broken for a few weeks.  

Coach considered replacing the faucet, but knowing the kitchen was about to be completely overhauled we hesitated to invest much in what would become a temporary fix.  Mr. Handy husband made a visit to Home Depot and brought home the cheapest option he could find.  Turns out this faucet didn't line up with the holes that already existed in the granite.  Fail. 

On his second trip to the store he considered a cheap faucet that was intended for a bathroom sink.  We wouldn't be able to rotate it between the two sides of  the sink, never-mind fit anything under it because it would be affixed right above the sink divider.  The water flow would be limited to hitting the middle 'wall' of the sink.  OK, so that is probably not the technical term, but you get my gist.  Kind of a killjoy not to be able to rinse anything deeper than a plate.

Faucet that saw better days, plus a view of the ugly granite.  If you have the same granite - well, I'm sorry.  No really, I'm not sorry that I may have offended you . . . I'm sorry that you have this granite.  It makes it very hard to see sticky spots and crumbs while offering no aesthetic value. 

Eventually we chose to skip it and suffer thru with the broken faucet.  Big deal, right?  Construction was scheduled (see where this is headed?) to begin on the kitchen in mid June.  At that point we planned to operate out of our basement, where we have a sink, a fridge, a stove, and a storage room.  The storage room now resembles a bunker since I've moved all of our canned goods, pots and pans, etc. down there.

Of course, you can guess how this story ends, right?  As with all construction jobs since the beginning of time, (or at least since the ever-so-reliable Jesus and his dad Joseph got out of the business) progress is slow.  In fact, I struggle to call it progress. 

We alerted the building contractor of our many travel plans over the summer.  The intention was to have as much of the work take place as possible while we were out of town.  Makes sense, right?  We would be out of their way, and likewise.  

Poor grill.

Instead a few weeks after the planned start date, they removed the brick from the back of the house, pulled back a bit of the deck, and dismantled the gas grill.  Then nothing was done for 4 weeks.  Nothing.  Instead of workmen and newly framed out walls, we could see out our sliding kitchen window our once-functioning gas grill laying on its side.  Nothing like not grilling for most of the summer . . . for NO REASON.   

Eventually they dug a hole.  Poured a foundation.  This took place over the last three weeks.  The size of the addition is about 10 x 10 in one area and 4 by 8 in an adjacent section.  

Foundation poured where they pulled up the deck.  It'll be awesome when it is done!

In the meantime, our children have managed to knock off another interior plastic part from the broken faucet each week.  They fail to admit this, but I occasionally discover the black remnants ignored in the bottom of the sink.  Now the handle no longer balances on top of the faucet.  It takes a force of God to get the water on, and considerable mental alertness to get it to turn off again.

Tank recently attempted to use the sink.  He summoned me up from the basement bunker to assist him in turning it off.  I was down there searching for a pan I had stowed down there in preparation for the construction work . . . before I realized I could've left my kitchen in full function mode for the ENTIRE SUMMER.  Jogging up and down the stairs in search of where I stored things is my new favorite past time.   

To think, I hoped for a new kitchen for better storage, better layout, and better aesthetics.  Now I long for a fully functioning kitchen sink. 

kitchen reno justified, I think

Reasons why I felt it was time for a new kitchen:

I've already shared a few of the obvious . . . I HATE the granite.  The cabinets were refaced.  Since they are also cheap, pieces have broken off and the refaced fronts spin around at the slightest touch.  

My outdated kitchen comes equipped with a desk.  In reality this is just a giant dumping ground that only gets cleared off when we are expecting guests.  Oh the bills, notices, and school papers that have been overlooked compliments of my desk.  

The layout is goofy.  Rows of cabinets border my kitchen table, but there isn't sufficient space where I prep food, so I am left to perform a ballet of sorts as I prance around the room gathering up my mixer, a pyrex pan, or snacks for lunches from various off-the-beaten path locations. 

Lack of an island - the u-shaped kitchen never thrilled me when we bought the house.  Now the area where I prep food has become a high traffic area without the necessary traffic signals.  Too many people crowd around and try to make a lunch, grab a bowl, or reach in the silverware drawer - all while I am trying to whip up a meal to serve the masses.

Staggered rooms.  Our family room wall reaches out into the backyard farther than any other point in the house.  The next wall which borders the eating area is recessed about 4 feet from the family room.  The work area of the kitchen is indented another 4 feet from the work area.  Why?  Why?  Why, must the most important area of the house be limited the most spatially?   

The dishwasher isn't next to the sink, which has led to countless issues as this beloved appliance struggles to function properly with hoses stretched thru too many cabinets and bent at too many angles. 

The eating area once appeared so gi-normous to me, but now that the three oldest boys are all over 6 foot tall like their father, we crowd around a table we've outgrown and spend half of dinner listening the bigger kids beg the little guys wedged between them to move an elbow or a knee.  

The pine table that I bought about 8 years ago at an estate sale for $400, deserves to be retired.  That's right, I said 'pine.'  Imagine the fun things the kids have carved into this relic.  Just to make life interesting, the woven seats of the chairs threaten to drop one of us unceremoniously thru the loose openings at any time. 

That is my hand showing thru the growing hole in the seat of this chair.  We do use seat cushions, but still.  And yes, the chair is also stained from where a kid hid food that he (if I had to guess . . . Tank) didn't want to eat. 

No more junior kids - why the junior chairs?  In order to all fit around the table, we utilize two 'junior' chairs for Reg and Curly.  Those two are constantly being scolded for not scooting into the table close enough.  'Lean over!'  Well, leaning over is not possible when your legs don't fit under the table.  The junior chairs were never meant as a long term seating solution, but for our 9.5 yr old and our 11.5 yr old that is what they have become.  The table isn't large enough to accommodate additional regular size chairs.  I hope I can afford a new table that we can all sit at comfortably after this renovation!

These junior chairs are like glorified high chairs.  Reggie's is the solid oak one and Curly uses the hand-painted bunny chair.  Their friends give them quizzical looks when they are at the house for the first time.  My kids don't know any better, so they shrug it off.  Or maybe, they are just glad that they don't have to run the risk of slipping thru the opening in one of the woven chairs. 

The fridge.  How many times on this blog have I posted photos of my overflowing, disorganized fridge?  I stopped replacing the shelving in the door a few years ago.  Although I've replaced some appliances multiple times, my damn fridge refuses to die.  It's a side by side.  Translation:  there isn't enough room in it to fit a fraction of what we need.  Of course I have a fridge in the basement, but jogging up and down the stairs several times a day to find a necessary food item or a gallon of milk is exhausting. Sending a kid to grab a milk gallon often leads to a lonely gallon being trapped in the back of the fridge until it expires!

Are you convinced?  Maybe I'm still trying to convince myself of the financial wisdom behind this decision.  We do have quite a few kids who are heading to college in the next 5 years.  Hey, if we aren't careful one of our kids will still be sitting in a junior chair at their college send-off dinner.  

home/kitchen is where the heart is

I remember looking at houses with Coach back before when Laddie was a baby.  There was a house that we both really liked, but the kitchen was super small.  Like, I don't know that we could fit a table in it.  Coach's comment was, 'Well, it's not like anyone spends any time in the kitchen.'  Um, he was serious.  I corrected him, 'What!  The kitchen is where everything happens and where everyone hangs out!'

Coach and I are in our third home. . . that is if you count the first shoe-box that we lived in when Laddie was a baby.  The one bedroom condo that I bought a year after I graduated from college served as home to Coach and I as newlyweds.  As a bonus, my little tiny place was less than 10 miles from the Physical Therapy school that Coach was accepted to a few weeks before he proposed.  It was ideal!  Our dining room, which was adjacent to our galley kitchen, was converted into Laddie's bedroom shortly after he arrived . . . less than two years later.  I got in the habit of leaving the squeaky silverware drawer open when Lad went down for his nap.  That made it easier for me to tiptoe past his crib when I wanted to grab a yogurt and a spoon . . . without squeaking.  

Prior to Laddie, I had my college loft bed set up in the dining area of my one bedroom condo, which fit nicely over my wooden restaurant booth.  This is my friend from Ireland who lived with me one summer and actually slept in the claustrophobic space that served as my guest room!

Coach prepping the gross floor.

I remember when Coach and I took on the task of replacing the horrid kitchen floor in that 4 x 10 foot kitchen.  It was basically our first home improvement project.  We selected white vinyl square tiles with a blue flower in the center and a gray border.  Despite the small space and the simple project, we still visited the hardware store countless times.  

A very young Coach and I pose with our newly installed vinyl tiled floor.  Impressive, huh?

When Lad was 15 months old and Coach was a certified PT, we bought a four bedroom, 2.5 bathroom house in a nearby neighborhood.  At the time, that place seemed enormous.  Each room had some serious cosmetic issues, but the price was right and the structure was in great shape.  Because the kitchen had been recently renovated (nothing to get excited about, but it wasn't the original kitchen - considering that the other rooms boasted wall to wall multi-colored shag carpet, an improved kitchen was a huge upgrade) that room was low on our list of priorities.  

After adding 5 more kiddos to the family over the next 8 years, it was time to move again.  All I can say about my current kitchen is that it came with granite countertops.  Granite countertops that I HATED, but they were nonetheless granite.  The homeowner had renovated the kitchen with Home Depot cabinets.  Let me rephrase that . . . the cabinets were not replaced, they were simply refaced.  In other words, every time you open the cabinet you wonder what had died in there before it was given a new cabinet door.  

Nine and a half years later. . . it's time.  Time for a new kitchen.  Coach was shocked a few years ago when I cancelled the 'free quote' for new cabinets that he signed up for when he was visiting Home Depot for something else.  My current refaced cabinet fronts from Home Depot can be spun around like the propeller on an airplane.  The cabinets are always tilted at odd angles.  Hate to sound snobby, but I'll pass, Home Depot.  

I never dreamt that we would be able to swing a  kitchen remodel let alone an addition, but after some stressful marital debates last winter that is the direction we decided to go in.

During our weeks-long stand off, Coach insisted that I try to make the current layout work and just tear down the gross cabinets and invest in some new ones.  I stood my ground.  If the crappy layout and the storage struggles weren't going to be addressed, then what was the point?  This is our forever home, so I encouraged him to upgrade.

I'm shocked - but IT'S HAPPENING!  Now you know we rarely eat out -even when on vacation, so I'm bracing myself for the joy of cooking meals from our mini-kitchen located in the basement.  I'll keep you posted. 

making memories in the TSA line

At 2:30 am one of the kids started to cry.  Coach thought it was Mini.  'It's me, Reggie.  I don't feel good,' came the whimpering voice in the dark.  I hopped up and ushered him thru the maze of air mattresses (we were down to two air mattresses as opposed to three because we were now in the room with two queen beds, but still) to the bathroom.

At first I assured him that he wasn't going to throw up.  I asked him what I always ask my kids when one of them admits to me that they don't feel well.  'When was the last time you pooped?'  He claimed it was recent, and he was convinced that wasn't his problem.

Our conversation was cut short.  He puked his guts out in the toilet, brushed his teeth, and hopped back into bed and went right to sleep.  Coach and I on the other hand found the room temperature a little stuffy and the experience a tad jarring.  We laid awake for the next hour or so.  There's nothing quite like sleep deprivation after already being exhausted from traveling.  Making this unforeseen awake time even more awesome was the fact that our alarm was set to go off at 4:30 am.  We had an early flight, air mattresses to deflate, kids to corral, and a cab to catch to the airport.

In the morning, Reg told us that he was feeling much better.  He and the other kids ate what was left of the cereal.  Dry.  I couldn't pay any of them to pour the somewhat sour milk on their cereal.  Kids today!  They drank some juice, gathered their stuff, and sleepily staggered down the hallway to the elevators.  Our load was considerably lighter without the extra huge bag with all of our food in it.

This huge duffel bag was jammed full of food when we checked it thru to New Orleans for our flight out of O'Hare.  On the way home, we stuck a smaller bag in it and consolidated.  I wasn't aware that American Airlines had gone 'dark side.'  I guess I don't travel enough.  They have joined all of the airlines that I avoid like the plague, because they nickel and dime you.  'Welcome aboard flight 321, if you want to use your seat-belt on this flight please hand the flight attendant the mandatory $150 fee.  Thanks, have a safe flight!' 

At the airport as we stood in the TSA line, Reg gave me a look.  'I don't feel good again,' he whispered.  Seriously!  I reached in my purse and pulled out a plastic grocery bag.  I'd like to convince you that I am a mom-of-the-year candidate and have you believe that I had strategically planted that bag in case a kid needed to hurl in the TSA line, but it was just luck.  Well luck, and I am a Mom after all, so I do have one of everything in my purse.

Reggie stepped up to the agent.  He answered a few questions, like 'Are you Reggie Shenanigan?  What is your birthday?'  When this kid fears that he is going to be in trouble or he is getting yelled at, he doesn't move his upper body.  He becomes very stoic and acts like a robot.

My 11 year old son then stepped to the side while in robot-mode.  There was no flailing, no doubling-over, no moaning.  He simply bent his head over the white grocery bag and vomited into the bag repeatedly.  It was as if this was one of the expectations of the TSA crew along with removing shoes.  Emptying the contents of your stomach.

Coach was a few steps ahead of us.  I motioned until I had his attention.  'Ask where the nearest garbage can is,' I ordered as I pointed to Reg.  Coach's face suddenly registered that his youngest son was getting sick.  I still had to present my boarding pass to the TSA agent.  Reg's quiet mode kept him off this guy's radar, so while my son stood holding a bag of throw up near the guy's elbow, Mr. Clueless continued to grill me on my name and my birthday.

With my boarding pass in hand, I dug into my purse again.  This time I emptied a plastic grocery bag full of snacks into the purse and handed Reg the empty bag.  The agent working the x-ray machine waved Reg forward.  Then he called out, 'Wait a minute.  What's with the plastic bag?'  He looked annoyed.

'Oh, he was throwing up about 3 minutes ago, so I thought he should keep that bag in his hand,' I explained.  The agent blinked and waved him thru. 

fat Tuesday, but it was a Monday

So this most recent issue cropped up on our last night in New Orleans.  This really has nothing to do with traveling with food, unless you consider it an indirect result of our budget travel system.

On our last night in New Orleans, we planned to eat out.  We aren't accustomed to dining in restaurants - not even fast food.  I've dedicated a good deal of my blog this last few weeks to describing the lengths we will go to in order to avoid eating in restaurants - particularly when we travel, and some of the pitfalls.  It bums the kids out that we aren't like 'other families' who enjoy eating out as part of vacation plans.

I'm guessing 'other families' don't have kids who feel it necessary to hide their toothbrushes out of fear that their siblings might use them.  Just saying. 

At any rate, our budget conscious system came back to bite us.  Big time.

When in New Orleans, eating beignets is a must!

With Irish dancing behind us, we set out to explore the city of New Orleans.  Our first stop included  beignets for breakfast, because everyone told us that eating beignets at Cafe Du Monde was a must.  I can't eat them thanks to my Celiac disease, but the rest of the family raved about them.

We had been given a gift card to a restaurant by a dancer who won it when she placed on the podium.  She left town before she could use it, so we stopped at this diner in the late afternoon for a snack.  It was a bit off the beaten path, but our family is incapable of turning down free food.  The kids and Coach feasted on a basket of fried shrimp and french fries.  Since most of the food in New Orleans appeared to be fried, I was patting myself on the back for bringing my food with me. 

For dinner we chose a restaurant recommended by the concierge at the hotel.  We wanted to try some of the authentic New Orleans food.  Reggie and Curly ordered fried chicken.  Tank ate catfish.  Coach ate some form of seafood too.  Mini enjoyed some grilled chicken.  Coach decided to introduce them to fried oysters.  I ordered myself a well-deserved fillet.  For dessert the kids feasted on banana foster bread pudding.  It looked heavenly.  

Reggie refused to finish his dessert.  He told us that he was too full.  Understandably.  Curly, on the other hand, was still going strong.  

Reg had to call it quit midway thru his banana foster bread pudding

I think it is important to note that Curly rarely is able to finish an entire meal.  I sometimes wonder if she has a tendency to graze more throughout the day than the other kids.  The portions I toss on her plate each night are smaller than anyone else's in the family.  She ate the same beignets,  fried shrimp, fried chicken, fried oysters, and banana foster pudding as Reggie.  The girl was holding her own, and for once wasn't pushing her plate aside insisting that she was done.



It was a great meal and we had a great time.  We all felt incredibly full as we practically rolled back to our hotel.  We all probably overdid it a bit.  I can't help but blame the rarity of our dining out habit on what happened next . . . 

delegating to my hero

One of my all time most frustrating traveling with food incidents just occurred when we were in New Orleans.  You'd think that after years of road trips with food stashed in coolers we'd have streamlined our process.  Think again.

The first night in the hotel we were only able to get a room with one king bed.  Coach and I slept with Reggie between us.  Tank, Mini, and Curly created a fire hazard on the floor at the foot of our bed on three air mattresses.  Cozy!

In order to secure a room in the hotel that was hosting Curly's dancing competition, I made our reservations the minute the block of rooms was opened back in early February.  It wasn't until months later that we finalized our travel plans.  We were stuck with a king room for that first night.

The food.  Oh no, the food.  It occurred to me before we left that we were going to have to pull everything out of our first room's mini-fridge in order to store it during the day until our two-queen  room was ready.  I spoke to the hotel and they agreed that they could store my cold items in a fridge until our next room was ready.  Dodged that bullet!

We let the kids sleep late in the king bed room because we hadn't checked in until after midnight the night before.  Oh how I wish I could sleep late, too.  We were heading to the meat locker - I mean the WWII museum with the crazy-cranked AC, so the minute my sleepy heads were up and moving, Coach and I packed up the room, and deflated the air mattresses.  That was fun.

We dragged everything to the lobby, waited in line, and requested that our stuff be put in storage.  I was a bit anxious that Ms. Hotel Employee would grasp our need for cold storage.  Ms. Hotel Worker Lady danced her fingers across her keyboard for a minute before announcing that our room with two queens was already ready.  She offered to let us check in right away, or put our stuff in storage and check in later.

Little tickets and dog tags to remember the WWII museum.

We WERE in a hurry to get to the torture chamber, and by that I mean the WWII museum.  At the same time, I knew that it made sense that we handle arranging our food in our mini-fridge as opposed to taking the chance that someone neglect to store our meals properly while we were gone.

If this picture had a sound bite, it would be:  'Kids sit on my lap, rub my arms, if you love me you will share your body warmth with me.  Now!'

Before departing for the day, we tossed our bags into our new room.  (By the way, carrying enough food to feed your family for a few days is back breaking.  This made juggling rooms a blast).  I knelt in front of the fridge to arrange our food.  I noted to Coach that the fridge smelled funny.  Moments later we were on our way (minus our very necessary parkas) to the WWII museum.

After thawing out after the museum, I prepared dinner for the gang in the microwave while Coach ran to the kind of gourmet food store that sells gluten free stuff.  He became my hero by purchasing a few single-serving, gluten-free oatmeal containers, which saved me from starvation.

I was busy trying to feed everyone simultaneously despite using a tiny microwave that may have been powered by two hamsters running around a little wheel for all I knew.  I asked hero aka Coach to check the fridge, because I just didn't feel like the temperature was very cold.  He opened the fridge and told me that there was no dial.

Really, I'm giving the WWII museum a bad rap, it was awesome.  Just frigid!

By delegating this fridge temperature adjustment task to him, I expected him to handle it.  After all, I had booked our flights, reserved our hotel rooms, prepared all of the food, packed all of the food, packed for everyone but him, cleaned the house in preparation for the sitter to hang with the big boys, debriefed our grad-student sitter on my concerns with the big boys, and stocked the fridge at home for the big boys and the sitter.

Delegating was a mistake.  The next morning I got the girls ready to go down to the dance room at 6:30 in the morning.  I gave them some cereal with milk.  Again, I was unimpressed with the chilliness of our food.  As I gathered up our dance bags like the Sherpa that I am, I told Coach that he needed to call the front desk and demand that someone come and take a closer look at our fridge.  With bags weighing down my shoulders, I poked around at the back of the fridge a bit where it jutted out of the furniture that housed it.

'Hey, there's some kind of dial on the back of the fridge.  Maybe you can play with this and see what happens,' I called to him as I was about to walk out the door.  Coach finally moved the furniture piece out a bit and crouched down to get a closer look.

He stood up with a sheepish expression and admitted, 'The fridge wasn't plugged in.'

Ah, the beauty of my kids learning something  . . . just before we tried to poison them with food that was not properly refrigerated. 

Moldy grapes, warm milk, questionable lunch meat, and declining dinners.  That was what my 'hero' left me with.  The space in the fridge was so tight and the food was cold when it was stuck in there, so it sort of worked to stay somewhat acceptable.

If I will lick yogurt from an aging cooler while waiting in line at Disney, then you better believe that I will feed my family not-so-cold food in a pinch.  But, I wondered if the food would've been better off being cared for by the hotel staff while we allowed our body temperature to drop at the WWII museum all day.  

a chance to make fun of Mommy

For our recent trip to New Orleans, I packed bits and pieces of our food over time.  I gathered piles on the dining room table.  Apparently one morning while I made my breakfast, I prepared for our trip by loading up a bag with the fixings that I drop into my oatmeal to make it taste less 'gluten free' each morning.  I was most likely unloading the dishwasher, on hold with a doctor's office, calling up the stairs to wake someone up, and racing the clock before I had to drop someone somewhere.

At any rate, in our New Orleans hotel I pulled the old, cracked bowl out of my bag.  I keep this bowl exclusively for traveling and heating up my oatmeal.  This pesky stuff tends to overflow in the microwave, so I require a deep bowl.  My cranberries, granola, raisins, and measuring cup were all packed properly.  The only item not present and accounted for was my Ziploc bag full of oatmeal. Shit! 

This is my travel bowl.  If I ever leave it behind or if it breaks, I will not shed a tear.  It does get the job done . . . when I remember to bring the damn oatmeal!

So, the tap water in the hotel didn't offer a 'cold' option despite the standard letter 'c' on the handle.  Insufficient water.  No oatmeal.  My decision to only pack cans of mandarin oranges, some apples, and some grapes in lieu of my daily REQUIRED whole grapefruit started to make my head spin.  Of course the fact that I replaced my huge, fresh, mandatory salad at lunch with trail mix (I don't recommend for meal replacement) for packing purposes, was exasperating my 'situation'.  What situation could that be you wonder?

Seriously, if you need me to spell it out for you c-o-n-s-t-i-p-a-t-i-o-n.

We had just returned from the World War II museum when I discovered my packing mess-up.  I hadn't taken the time to make my oatmeal that morning so I was the first one off of the elevator racing to the room to cook it up in my cracked bowl.

My usual collection of items I use to make my oatmeal.  Raisins, granola, cranberries, and the elusive oatmeal!

Another tidbit to consider it that we thoroughly enjoyed the WWII museum, but I felt like I was being tortured in a meat locker by cruel kidnappers.  The museum itself was incredibly well done and informative.  My wardrobe choice created my only real problem with this visit.  You see, it was as hot as could be in New Orleans that day.  I wore a sundress.  Coach laughed at Mini and I for contemplating packing a drawstring bag with sweaters.  I am always cold, but I decided that he was right.  I'm always right.  Coach rarely.  Why, oh why, did I listen to him?

Mini and I spent our time reading the displayed information at the museum while rubbing our arms against each other for warmth.  I wanted to cry.  Literally.  It was INSANELY COLD IN THERE.  It was like the museum's way to require guests to stay awake and attend to the exhibits better.  There are several buildings at this campus.  We stepped outside between buildings and opened our drawstring bag for lunch.  I doled out mandarin oranges, Ritz crackers that I spread with peanut butter, granola bars, and my main food source - trail mix.  When we were done eating, I cringed at the thought of returning to the frigid air conditioning.

On our taxi ride back to the hotel, I asked the driver to turn off the air conditioning.  Pretty confident that he doesn't get that request very often.  As the kids made plans to go to the hotel pool, I assured them I would do nothing until I had eaten my oatmeal.  Usually I need time before I am able to laugh at a situation like this, but Tank actually had all of us in stitches moments after my upsetting realization that I HAD NO OATMEAL.

In a high pitched voice with hands flailing dramatically, he mocked me:  his mother, who delivered him vaginally despite the fact that he weighed in at 10 lbs 3 oz. Yep, he did.  His impersonation. . . and it wasn't. 

went something like this:  'Oh no!  What am I going to do now?  You know if I eat my salad too late in the day, I'm going to be up all night.  If I don't have my oatmeal, how am I going to poop?!  If I don't get enough water, then I'm all messed up.  I won't be able to sleep tonight.  What am I going to do without my grapefruit?  I need to sleep, you guys, and I can't sleep if I don't poop.  It isn't funny!!!'  But it was, and it wasn't!

licking yogurt from anywhere

A few more of my rougher experiences taking meals on the go:

7.  SPILLS:  Last summer when I was in Orlando with the youngest four, I packed our breakfast and lunch up each morning and brought it with us to the park.  We feasted on a dinner from a restaurant, but until dinner all meals and snacks were produced from a drawstring bag and a small cooler bag a bit larger than your average lunch box.  My yogurt got squished and broke open in this cooler bag.  While we waited in line to visit Belle's Castle, I discovered the mishap.  Unwilling to stand in a long food line, or spend additional money on food at Disney, I scooped up the yogurt with my hand and ate it.  This was not pretty, and probably not sanitary since I'm not sure when the last time was that bag was cleaned properly.  I essentially turned the bag inside out and licked the yogurt out of the bag.  I don't necessarily recommend this approach.  Part of me wonders if I can be seen in the background of someone's Disney photos licking yogurt off my hands.  At times I might become a tad over committed to the 'I brought this food and I'm going to eat it damn it' mindset.  

I can only share this picture of my kids enjoying their breakfast while waiting for Disney gates to open.  I do not have a photo of my yogurt disaster.  Me desperately diving head first into my cooler in order to lick up my yogurt wasn't exactly a Kodak moment, or a moment I am proud of.

8.  MISCALCULATING:  It is sometimes tough to predict how hungry people will be after a day of hiking in the mountains, or touring Disney, or competing in a dancing competition.  I have been forced to ration out dinner portions if I fall short of anticipating their hunger, or I go to my fall back plan of offering applesauce as a filler.  On the other hand, it can be challenging to deal with leftovers (I do always travel with extra Ziplocs or a Tupperware container).  I am not ashamed to admit that I have suggested that my family eat more than their stomachs can hold in order to deal with extra food. 

I was elated that this little rustic cabin was available . . .

9.  CHANGE OF PLANS and CHANGE OF APPETITE:  Our plans to camp at Glacier last year changed abruptly.  I can't say I minded.  After spending the longest night of my life freezing my butt off (only a slight exaggeration- and I was in a tent inside a down sleeping bag), high winds forced us to abandon our second night at the campsite.  Damn.  We were able to bunk up in a nearby cabin.  The cabin was equipped with a microwave.  It sort of killed me that I wasted miles of aluminum foil to wrap up our dinner that was intended to be cooked on our campfire.  I knelt down in front of the microwave and extracted chicken, rice, and broccoli from each campfire-ready pouch, plopped it on a plate, and heated individual portions of it up until everyone was fed and of course ready for applesauce.

 . . . even if it meant my planned campfire food was warmed in a microwave!  We all grabbed a place to sit and eat in one of two cabins that we slept in for a few nights.  Oh, it was so toasty!

 Other issues that could crop up here would be a dinner invitation from someone you are traveling with - therefore causing you to neglect your packed meal.  The headache of catering to different taste buds might also be a pain.  In our family, everyone is expected to eat what is served.  That rule doesn't change when we hit the open road with a crockpot, a cooler, and a meal plan that I'm invested in 100%. That doesn't mean I get to avoid 'hearing about' the meals I've chosen to bring along. 

Boston or bust

Well, tomorrow is the day.  Coach and I drive the Great White (our 12-seater Chevy Express, white, former-airport-shuttle van) to Boston.  We plan to depart at 5 am.  It happens to be our 21st wedding anniversary.  How romantic.

Coach usually does most of the driving.  I do most, or ALL, of the packing . . . so that means I end up in a somewhat self-induced coma for the first several hours of most lengthy trips. It's a hard earned, well deserved nap.  No matter what nonsense goes on in the car, Mommy snoozes thru it.  Blood curdling screaming that threatens to wake the dead will bring me 'round, but God help the child that is responsible.  All members of the family know that sleep is the only thing that helps me cling to my remaining sanity, especially on a long road trip.

After 15 hours of driving, we intend to arrive in Boston.  A day of touring Lexington begins our adventure.  The next two days will be devoted to downtown Boston.  The freedom trail is calling our name.  We aren't baseball people, so I'm not sure we will hit Fenway Park.  On Monday, we will check out Boston College in case Eddie decides to apply there.  

Monday afternoon we log three more hours in the van as we drive to Laddie's college an hour north of New York City.  

Because we are dropping Lad at college, the van's storage space will mostly be devoted to bins of college gear.  Last time we spoke, Coach was toying with the idea of removing half of the bench of four seats -the last row, and the only row that reaches across the entire width of the van.  

It occurs to me that if the last row is reduced to a mere two seats, then two of our children will be forced to sit next to one another without an empty, 'buffer' seat between them.  There will be accidental touching, inevitable bumping, and potential leaning against one another.  This will undoubtedly lead to moaning and groaning.  For 15 hours, no less.  Sounds horrifying, right?  

What better way to celebrate 21 years of marital bliss?  Oh, and we will be feasting on whatever meals I have slaved away to prepare in advance.  Of course, the fact that this adventure ends with our oldest being unceremoniously deposited at the school he is transferring to makes it all worthwhile.  It's been a long summer chock full of opportunities for him to ignore our basic rules and regularly behave inconsiderately.   IT IS TIME, so I accept the unpleasantness that accompanies

our Boston or bust trip.  (these pictures were taken when we drove to Glacier last summer - note there was hardly anywhere for me to sit in the front seat - can't wait to do this with college gear too!)

the importance of shells & lost and found

Here's a few more food packing no-no's we've encountered:

4.  MOLD:  I chose to pack some grapes in a baggie for our trip to New Orleans.  I became somewhat desperate for fresh fruit.  Translation:  I swallowed a few more moldy grapes than I would care to admit.  Why were the grapes moldy, you ask?  Oh, I'll get to that.

Nothing screams 'we-experienced-a-food-packing-issue' like a bag of moldy grapes.  You won't believe what happened to jeopardize the freshness of our grapes.  Saving that gem of a story for one of the last in this little segment on traveling with food.

5.  MISPLACED ITEMS:  When I visited St. Louis for an Irish dancing competition back in February, I brought grapefruit.  I packed my favorite little knife that glides ever so nicely thru my grapefruit.  It was my constant companion on my mission to eat a grapefruit each morning.  In my haste to pack our stuff up and get on the road, I misplaced the knife.  Did I throw it out when I was eliminating our paper plates from lunch in the hotel room?  I initially believed that I stuffed it into some little zippered pouch on our cooler bag on wheels.  My search of the cooler bag, my purse, and my overnight bag has produced no awesome little knife.  Since February, I am stuck using dull kitchen knives to butcher my tasty fruit. I swear one day I will replace these pathetic knives and choose to live like an adult with a real set of knives.

I still chuckle when I think of the park ranger who came across my enormous cutting board in his welcome center in Gettysburg.  My dad and I took 10 kids to Gettysburg back in 2011.  I slid my huge, handy-dandy cutting board in the car between my cooler and the passenger seat.  Rather than stop for lunch, I whipped up sandwiches on my board while my dad drove.  At one point, I dragged my lunch fixing stuff into the welcome center.  We ate lunch in the cafeteria there where I used my board as prep space.  After lunch the kids lined up to secure their junior ranger badges.  Each kid posed for a photo with the park ranger.  In order to take the photos, I leaned my cutting board against the counter.  We drove off without it.  I'm guessing that my portable lunch counter was the first of its kind to be left behind.  I must've just been overly excited to witness 10 kids achieve greatness as junior rangers.  

My nephew posing with the ranger.  In order to capture a photo of each of the ten kids in our party, I stowed my cutting board in front of his desk.  In all the excitement of seeing the kids sworn in as junior rangers, I forgot to grab my cutting board. 

6.  PEELED EGGS:  Last May was a nutty time for us.  Reggie knocked Coach's front teeth out when a ball he was practicing pitching with took a bad bounce.  This was hours before Lad graduated from high school.  It was days before we were leaving for our family road trip to Glacier National Park.

The dentist had Coach pose for this shot before he jammed the tooth back in his mouth.  Then Coach met us at Lad's graduation.  Curly brought him a bag of ice to hold to his face during the ceremony. 

In an effort to pack healthy breakfast items for our big trip, I hard boiled dozens of eggs.  I mean DOZENS.  My kids like hard boiled eggs.  If we kept them in the cooler, I thought this would be a perfect protein to offer for breakfast.  I took my desire to simplify eating on the road one step further.  I PEELED dozens of eggs the night before we left.

We were planning to camp.  We also planned to drive around in the comfort of the family's 12 seater white van, the 'great white' before dawn to watch for wildlife.  I figured it was easier to peel eggs in advance in lieu of having kids peel their eggs in the car.  Besides, I always think peeling an egg with a splash of running water makes it easier.  There would be no running water in the car on those chilly mornings. 

I tossed huge gallon sized Ziploc bags stuffed with our eggs in the cooler.  We ate the eggs for the first few mornings out west.  Then one morning a kid complained that her egg tasted funny.  Initially I suspected that my kid was just complaining because she didn't want to eat food I packed in the backseat of a car.

Turns out those handy little shells are meant to keep the eggs fresh.  A hard boiled egg outside of its shell is just a hard boiled egg waiting to go bad and smell up your cooler and your car with the added bonus of possibly making your kids gag.

I get tired just looking at this photo of our kitchen the morning we were TRYING to depart for Glacier.  All that stuff had to go in our van.  Our awesome plumber is in the middle of the work area as he prepared to unclog the sink. 

Oh, and as a fun aside, I jammed all of the shells from our soon-to-be foul hard boiled eggs down the garbage disposal the night before we departed.  Not only was life before our trip made hectic by Coach's emergency visit to the dentist, and our garage door being pulled off the track when the little release cord from the opener got stuck inside the closed door of the great white the night, but we also got to invite our plumber over to unplug our kitchen sink because egg shells shouldn't go down the disposal - well, certainly not in mass quantities. 

traveling with food: a few of my mistakes

There is a GREAT amount of planning and prepping that goes into traveling with your own food supply, especially for a family of 8.  Running into glitches must be expected.  In case you ever decide to sacrifice your sanity to save a few bucks, I'm going to share the issues I've encountered.  I invite you to learn from my mistakes:

Exhibit A:  a flat Stanley style nutrigrain bar!

1.  OVER PACKING:  I have never actually counted the number of granola bars or snack items my kids eat on any given day.  Perhaps this is because Tank could drastically skew the results for any eating measurement guide, depending what full box of something he chose to ingest the day of the study.  This lack of information forces me to estimate.  When I travel, I grab LOTS of EVERYTHING that they munch on throughout the day.  As a result, we have abandoned a fair amount of cereal and other items in hotel rooms rather than bothering to cart it home.  Oh, the number of granola bars or Nutrigrain bars hat have been pressed into a paper thin form that no one in my family would ever eat.  As much as I love saving money on restaurants when traveling, I DETEST WASTING FOOD.  I've adjusted.  I now pack potentially squishy bars in a somewhat sturdy Tupperware container, so they don't get smashed.

2.  SHIPPING STUFF TO MYSELF:  A few times before traveling, I've shipped boxes that I've packed full of cereal, applesauce cups, goldfish crackers, granola bars, paper products, treats, etc.  I check with the hotel in advance to be sure that they will hold this box until I arrive.  Last summer when I took the four youngest to Orlando, I shipped two boxes to the hotel.  I hadn't counted on the fact that the 'package room' wouldn't be open on a Sunday, which was of course the day we arrived.  I kept calling the front desk asking about my loot.  At first I was just told to call back.  My hunger pains grew, as did my impatience.  After a few more calls, someone finally told me that I couldn't access the room that stored deliveries because it was a Sunday.  I described my health  dilemma (Celiac disease) and I pointed out that the hotel assured me that my genius food-in-a-box plan would not be a problem.  The next thing I knew I was driving in a hotel vehicle with the maintenance man to retrieve my boxes.   Just before I was forced to eat my young.

3.  FORGOTTEN ITEMS: I'm human, so a few times I have gone to a lot of trouble and forgotten something important.  Back when I took Laddie to look at two schools before he chose a college, I inadvertently left an entire cooler at home.  It was spring break, and I was bringing the other kids along with me to swim in the hotel pool and eat complimentary college cafeteria food (this is an exciting past time for them, especially if the school offers a serve-yourself frozen yogurt machine.  What can I say, they don't get out much).

Eddie decided at the last minute not to come.  I had given him the option of not attending in part because he wasn't planning to attend either of these colleges.  He was old enough to stay home during the day while Coach was at work.  This bummed me out though, because he tends to be my most helpful kid.  Coach was already at work when we were leaving.  It was tough trying to corral 5 kids and their stuff into the car on my own.  We had to meet a football coach at a specific time, so I was trying not to run late.  Speeding was out of the question.  Obviously.

If memory serves, and it usually does, I believe the car packing went kind of like this:  'Oh, that's cool, you guys just sit in the car and watch me bring EVERYTHING out - can I get you anything while I'm up, and sweating?'  This made for a grumpy start to the trip.  We still had the dry food that I had packed and the a fore mentioned meals on campus, so it wasn't a total disaster.

Typical amount of stuff I haul for a weekend away - and that's just the food!

Oh, but I'm just getting started.  I have many more lessons to share- some you might consider hair-brained.  In my next post I will describe Tank's imitation of me in a panic over another forgotten item.  Stay tuned . . .