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This weekend we headed out for a very quick and slightly insane road trip.   We drove three and a half hours with three other families (and thirteen kids total, ages 6 months to 11) to a family waterpark and theme hotel for a day of swimming and a night of sitting around the lodge campfire talking.   The family who planned our trip is military, and the husband is gearing up in the next three weeks to deploy for eighteen months, leaving his wife and four daughters behind.   We planned the trip months ago and had everything organized down to who was bringing the wine and who was going to go on which waterslide first.

Everything, that is, except the actual confirmation.

When we arrived at check-in, kids already in the their suits, we were told by the clerk that indeed, our confirmation numbers were in the computer, but, alas, they were for last weekend.   We stood, baffled, looking at each other and wondering, how, indeed??   It turns out that since they were booked with a military discount through a third party, someone at reservations got the dates wrong, and the hotel was now over booked, leaving us, quite literally, with no room in the inn.   The manager, distraught over our plight, gave us “free” passes for the day (free only in theory, as we had already been charged for the rooms we didn’t use the weekend before) and directed us to a Days Inn a few miles down the road.

Crises averted, we swam (or rather, the kids swam, Kenny road the mini waterslide over 100 times, and Casey and I took turns holding Cooper) until dinner time, then loaded up and shuttled over to the Inn.   The Inn itself was practically empty, and we asked the front desk clerk if we could eat our dinner (which we had brought in coolers) in the lobby area, where there were big couches and  nice tables ready for the complimentary breakfast.   She told us to have at it, and we uncorked the wine and had a feast.   The bigger kids, exhausted from their play, passed out on the couches, and the little ones – Kenny and his two-year-old friend, Ruthie, ran laps around the lobby and ate nearly an entire bag of Doritos between them.

We headed back home after an IHOP stop this morning and the drive couldn’t have been more smooth.   Ah, but there was a surprise waiting at home: one of our pipes burst while we were gone and we arrived to find water gushing out of the side of the house and a good inch of water in the guest bathroom.   We are determined not to call an emergency plumber, so Casey turned the water off in the house (after filling a few pots to wash up later with) and we have settled into the afternoon to relax, play games and watch football.   Not a bad 48 hours, I would say!