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Vacation to Uncle Rick's Wedding
June 1 to 4, 2000Last Updated: 6/8/2000
It was a long drive, but do-able in one day. We left Thursday morning and arrived at our hotel that evening. Nicole got carsick once on the way up. Poor thing. We didn't want her drowsy on Dramamine, but it's better than getting sick. On the trip home we used it and everything went fine. In fact the trip home went very well and the kids were VERY good considering how long the trip was.
Only a short way into the trip Christopher started asking, "Can we go home now?" He wanted to play with his trains at home so badly; he wanted us to turn around. Ever since we took the train trip in Palestine, he has really been into his trains. But we had a surprise for him in Kansas City. We went to a restaurant that actually delivered your food by train. It had rails that went around the entire restaurant near the ceiling. You ordered your food from the table telephone. After a short wait you heard a train whistle blow in the kitchen and a train engine, with a tray of food hanging below, would chug down the rail to your table. Hanging above the table was a tray. When the train passed, a bar comes out to catch the basket of food and slide it off onto the tray as the train goes buy. A motor then lowers the tray toward the table where you pull the basket off. Christopher was in heaven. Every time the whistle blew he'd jump and yell, "Here it comes!" at the top of his voice.
On Friday morning, Tina's close family, including her mom and Uncle Dick, came out to our hotel and we met for a breakfast buffet. We were able to meet Rick's fiancée, Carla, for the first time there. It was a very nice time. After that, Rick's girls, Billie and Bobbi, as well as Tina's mom, stayed at the hotel and we swam for a long time. Nicole is a little fish now and loved playing in the water. Christopher has no fear and loved jumping into the pool as long as someone would catch him. Billie and Bobbi taught Nicole how to sit on the bottom and do flips in the water. Amazing! Christopher would stand at the edge of the pool and motion for you to move back with his hands saying, "Farther, Farther". He really wanted to jump far out. I wish I could have captured his face each time he jumped. Pure delight. Some pictures were taken, we'll see if they turn out.
Friday evening was a family dinner at Carla's house. Carla has three boys and a girl ranging from Junior High (I think) to college. They were all extremely nice kids. They took Nicole and Christopher under their wings and made them feel right at home. They had a huge trampoline in the back yard and all the cousins played for a long time. They played a game where one was in the middle with closed eyes. They had to find one of the others by sound and feel, and tag them. Christopher was the youngest and they decided he was neutral. That meant he got to attack the "blind" cousin in the middle at will. He was really up for that job! The food was great and it was a lot of fun getting to know everyone.
Saturday was mostly free until the wedding. That's when we went to the train restaurant and shopped. As souvenirs we got Christopher an "electric" Thomas the train that runs on batteries. For Nicole we got a stuffed horse that has magnets inside so it can stick to things. She wore it on the collar of her shirt a lot of the time. It works great on her new metal bulletin board at home too. Christopher played with that electric train for the rest of the weekend. It was a great distraction at the wedding while we were waiting for pictures and such.
The wedding was beautiful. It even had a video produced by Rick and Carla that introduced their new family (they have a business together doing sports broadcasting). Nicole was a little angel during the ceremony. Christopher was good about not turning on his electric train, but it about killed him not to "hoot, hoot" as he drove it along the pew. Tina had to hush him a couple times. On the last time he let out a sigh of frustration and lay down. In a moment he was sound asleep. He hadn't had a nap that day.
The reception was a wonderful and delicious buffet dinner. Afterwards they had organized all kinds of games for the kids out on the church lawn. Our kids were by far the youngest, but everyone was so good about including them in everything. The games were too old for Christopher, but he didn't mind too much. He wanted to do the sit-on-the-balloon-and-pop-it relay, but I don't think he'd be heavy enough to pop a balloon like that. Nicole played in a couple of the games. In one they broke up into teams that tied themselves together by the arms. They then had treasure hunt clues and had to go all over the huge church grounds to collect points. Nicole went with a team including Rick's girls, Carla's girl and her boyfriend. They went running all over. Nicole looked really tired, but she enjoyed every minute. I'm sure she had to take twice as many steps as the big kids.
Christopher and I spent time exploring the wooded area around the church. I took the opportunity to take some woodsy photos of him. I can't wait to see how they turned out. At one point, returning to the church, we had to climb a very steep hill. Christopher began running and I made some comment about it. He replied that Thomas (the train) can go up big hills but that sometimes the freight cars come uncoupled and he has to go back and retrieve them. I love hearing him retell these train stories that seem to apply to the situation at the moment. He'll use all the big words like uncouple and locomotive. Pronouncing them as clearly as a narrator.
After a while, Christopher and I headed back to the church to wait for the treasure hunt to finish. Christopher then looked at me with a puzzled look and said, "What is that, that bees get?" At this point I didn't know what he was talking about. He then answered his own question with, "Oh yah, nectar. I'm going to go see if the bees are getting nectar." He was pointing up a hill by the church. I said, okay but stay in sight. What brought this on, I don't know. I'm amazed he remembered the word 'nectar'.
Later, after cake and ice cream, there were fireworks. Nicole was scared to death and insisted on sitting in the van. They set them off in the baseball diamond. I sat with Christopher in the bleachers, Tina with Nicole in the van. Christopher told me "I'm not afraid of fire that goes up into the sky". And he really did like them. Even though it was late, he had so much energy. He'd scream with the initial boom and then clap and yell as the fireworks lit up.
After that we had to say our good byes; too soon for us. A weekend isn't much time for a reunion. But we did have a wonderful time.
Nicole wrote three postcards herself and sent them off. She is becoming so capable; it's amazing to watch. The trip home was uneventful. Unless you count the spilled cookies or a box falling out of the back of the van when we opened the door (it had shifted, pretty common).