I have this bi-polar thing when it comes to planning stuff. I either obsess and map out every possible detail down to its neutrons (examples: Girl Scout camp, my sister's bridal shower). Or I do nothing at all and things don't go as well as they possibly could have if I had just taken a second to think, "hmm what's the best way to do this?" An example of this? 4th of July, 2006.
We've always spent this holiday with my in-laws. The hitch this year was that we spent it at our house instead of theirs. And it would have been awesome if we had planned a little more and went to a beach for the day. But the way traffic over the Bay Bridge is nowadays, you have to be on the road by 5am or you'll sit on Highway 50 for hours. Monday evening, no one really wanted to be up at 5am or sit on Highway 50 for hours to be at a crowded beach.
So we'll go to the gym's pool! And here's where any amount of planning would have helped. I mean how hard is it to pick up the phone? (Stupid phone phobia...) Greg and I have free guest passes on our memberships but there was some confusion on whether we had 2 or 4 (in-laws=4). Nevertheless we arrived at the gym and the outdoor pool was packed. Like sardines. There wasn't an unclaimed pool chair or spot of concrete to be found. But the kids were so excited to be at the pool that they didn't care. Pool! Water! Pool!
And yeah, Greg and I only have 2 guest passes all together. $20 each for the other 2. Hmph... Change of plans!
Oh the gnashing of teeth, the wailing, the tears. And that was just my in-laws. *winks* (No really, it was the kids and you would have thought that we were torching their favorite stuff animals and sending them to child slave labor camps.)
Here's where Toys R Us saved us all! We shoved everyone back into the van and drove to everyone's favorite store. My sister-in-law and I ran in and bought a slip-n-slide (last case of them in the area according to the sales clerk) and one of those thin plastic molded 9' pools. Total cost: $20.90 Score!
Of course the kids still weren't thrilled with this. You could buy the whole world for them and they'll complain that they didn't get the moon as well. *rolls eyes* It took them awhile to agree that just maybe having their own kitchen, bathroom, and an entire uncrowded backyard to themselves was worth not swimming in chlorinated pee water with hundreds of other kids. I have pictures as proof! (Zach was shopping with Greg and brother-in-law for Boy Scout camp supplies when I took these pictures. He did get a chance to play, I was just too busy making and drinking margaritas to take the camera back outside then. *winks*)
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Oh yeah, we did see some fireworks at a local community sponsored show. Other than an @sshole teenager in a pick-up truck blaring his horn exiting the parking lot ("dude, there are a hundred cars all exiting the same small parking lot, it's going to take a few minutes") and my excellent navigating from the back seat that saved us several minutes of sitting in traffic (everyone was trying to turn left into a long, long line of cars, we went right, took the next right and were home before "pick-up boy" could manage a left out of the parking lot), the firework show was nothing to write home about. Or blog in my case.
Currently Greg and Zach are at Boy Scout camp (theirs is overnight, they'll be home tomorrow), the in-laws are back safe and sound in Ohio, and the other kids and I are doing, well I wouldn't say nothing exactly but "not much" would probably be accurate enough. Next week? More "nothing." I love camp, I love company, but I also really like "nothing."
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