Woolsey Family Chronicles

Our ambitious week long trip to Monterey for a few days and then on to our favorite San Luis Obispo destination was shortened to just a few days in Monterey. We have had the toughest few weeks with illness and other interesting personal dilemmas, which led me to enter Chris's office a few days ago in tears. I didn't want to go on the exhausting road trip that sounded like too much work. Chris and I have been through the ringer this winter and our "vacation" just sounded like more work.

I anticipated a long and miserable winter and that is what was delivered to me. A self fulfilling prophesy perhaps, or just the way life is when you have four kids five and under who get sick all winter. Chris says I should just call it like it is, a Whale's a**hole, whatever that means. So I asked Chris what the heck that expression means and it actually has a fairly funny and interesting answer. Apparently the whale's anatomy down under is grossly undersized for the amount of food ingested by a ginormous whale, which would cause pause and wonder as to why the whale wasn't given a bigger area for excretion. The answer to the riddle? It is just the way it is.

We have four kids who are all little and need to be taken care of at each waking hour of the day, and sometimes into the night. It is winter about four months out of the year. We are destined to be ill three of those four months during the winter. I am destined to be miserable for those four months. It is just the way it is. Then the sun comes out and we emerge from our cave and put on our bathing suits and play in water all summer; a much better collection of months for the Woolsey 6.

So Chris came up with the best idea I have heard all year long. We will only do the Monterey portion of our trip which the kids will enjoy the most, and then we will head home Tuesday. This is where it gets really good: Chris and I have booked a night at the Sonoma Fairmont Mission Inn at the end of the week where we will drink, eat, sleep and partake in the bathing ritual at the hotel. Bliss.

We are in the car headed for San Juan Bautista to see my Aunt Jill and Uncle Robert. They have five cats, two donkeys, and a few roosters on their property and the kids are going to love getting up close and personal with the animals. We are leaving for our hotel in Monterey today around naptime and starting tomorrow we will have two days of Aquarium madness.

Traveling with Ava is pretty simple at 5. Traveling with three 2 year olds is more complicated; they still need binkies, blankets (2 each), sippy cups, strollers, small utensils, cribs, diapers, wipes, their special stuffed animals, etc. It is a lot of work but at the end of the day, it is an adventure and an experience that the kids may not remember, but will perhaps help shape them and give them a few life lessons to learn from.

Until next time, the mothership is signing off.