So recently we decided to take a family vacation, like crazy people... All 7 of our crazy circus plus 12 dogs.
Actually, it started out 7 humans, 12 dogs, and a bull and we came home with 7 humans (we double counted just to make sure), 10 dogs, a chicken, and 12 chicks... But we'll get to that part.
Partner #2's family was having a bit of a reunion so we decided to take the whole fam-dam-ly. Make a do of it. This thing was a camping trip reunion though and we didn't want to camp, so knowing that the kids were going to be disappointed, we scheduled plenty of other fun things in an attempt to lure them away from their family. (Wow that makes me sound like a kidnapper...)
Maybe I will just break our gong-show of a week down for you day-by-day so you may participate fully in the madness. I was thinking of ending this blog with a "And the moral of the story is..." but I think in reality this blog is going to be the introduction of the memoir I am going to write when I am finally admitted to a mental institution... Many more family road trip vacations, and that joke is not far from reality....
Day 1
Taking a vacation when you live on a ranch is damn near impossible. Aside from all the animal's food and water needs, you have to make sure that their fencing is adequate enough that they wont escape when you are gone. Because really, who is going to fix that for you? We decided to take all but one of our dogs with us so she could guard the house, so fill up a giant dish of food and a trough of water, and check! dogs are taken care of. Our biggest concern was our garden. The same garden that we have had so much trouble getting started in the first place. We finally get it to the point where it is all happy, and healthy, and producing beautifully, and we decide to leave it unattended?! Are we crazy?? If you hadn't gotten that impression by now then the answer is yes, yes we are.
So we asked our neighbour for the biggest favor ever. After spending a substantial amount of money on irrigation equipment, we got our garden set up so that all one has to do is throw a switch inside the house and the whole garden is watered within an hour or so. Seems pretty straight forward, but you are forgetting about the guard dog. Our genius plan? Prepackage frozen hockey pucks of ground beef for our neighbour to chuck at the dog while she makes a mad dash the short distance to our front door... Very Acme villain. Like I said, biggest favor ever.
So we left the house, biting out nails, praying that our garden didn't dry up and die, our animals didn't escape and die, and our neighbour didn't get attacked and die.
Yay! Commence vacation! Let me just interject here with a little fact about myself: Loud noises freak me out, well stress me out, set my anxiety a-fire lets say. Not 2 hours down the road, I am having a major anxiety attack because 6 people and a dog crammed into 1 vehicle is more noise then I can handle. Partner #1 left the day before with his truck and stock trailer, a bull, and the rest of the dogs.
Partner #2's mom is the greatest. In a recent email to my friend I said "[Mother-in-law] loves me because I love her cooking, and love telling her how much I love her cooking, so she loves cooking for me". So although I had just driven 5 hours and my nerves were completely fried, she saved my sanity temporarily with her awesome cooking. I'm so easy to please.
Day 2
This was family reunion day. This day held it's own unique blend of anxiety, because it was to be one of the first times we have really been out publicly as a weird poly family unit. The fact that it was all family (some of whom openly don't approve) just added to the fun.
And in that regard it turned out alright. Everyone was polite and friendly with nary a pitch fork or torch in sight. I call that a win! Though after we left, who knows?
The kids had the greatest time. We had a hard time pulling them away, in fact. Pretty much every kid there had a bike or some sort of riding implement so they just bombed around everywhere, like a miniature biker gang.
Then it was back to Partner #2's mother's house for creamed spinach and some of the most amazing ribs I've ever had. In all honesty, I think I could write an entire post on how much I love her food. Maybe I should write a sonnet...
Day 3
This day we had every intention of leaving Merritt early, and partaking in some fun in Kelowna. However, Partner #1 had needed to get some work done at our ranch down there (part of that being dropping off the bull) and in typical ranching fashion every thing that could go wrong did. So we didn't end up leaving until late, and only made it into Kelowna in time to show up at our friends house for dinner.
Now imagine rolling up at your friends house, which is built for 4 people to live snuggly-buggly, with 7 people, 9 dogs (because we were down to 9 at that point), your mini van, and your miniature semi truck and 30 foot stock trailer...
I was really hoping at that point that they knew what they were getting into.
Day 4
If you have been reading my blog for a little while you may have come across my post "When Roosters Attack!", and so you may be aware of my lack of fondness toward the male poultry breed. Well our friends "rooster situation", lets call it, has kind of gotten out of control. I believe it is just because they haven't gotten around to dealing with the unwanted things as of yet. Which, whatever, we all get busy. So four am every morning 8 or 9 roosters start having a macho cock-o-doodling pissing match, trying to outdo each other, until the long hours of the morning/early afternoon, everyday...
By the time we left the next day, Partner #1 was offering to shoot, slaughter, and gut all of them. He is such a generous man.
It was also Partner #1's birthday and we met up with his parents to celebrate in a pretty awesome park in Kelowna. Following this, we managed to pawn off the baby with the Grandparents for the duration of our trip, which I would later come to realize, was a god send.
That afternoon was when the magic happened, my favorite part of the trip anyways. The part where we left all the kids with our friends kids and went on a wine tour! It even started off at my favorite winery from the days when I lived there. Five adults, all half cut, playing tourist, it was perfect. We followed this up with a really delicious Mediterranean dinner and then a soak in the hot tub. Perfection right?
Day 5
We took our show on the road again. Left our friends to recover. I felt like we came in, dropped a bomb, and then left. We should have left the box of wine we acquired on our tour as a consolation prize...
Instead of them getting a parting gift they actually gave us one - a whole dog kennel full of chicks, and one hen on loan! With all those roosters around, our friends really did not need any more chicks. We wanted more but really don't have the set up for them, but we aren't ones to turn down anything free. So into the van they went! Sure made for a cacophonous drive home.
And we went to the waterslides! I learned something new about Partner #1 as well; apparently, he is a watersliding machine! He was putting our kids to shame, just nonstop go-go-go! It was pretty awesome.
A little piece of advice for your future watersliding adventures, follow the rules! I have discovered that their rules are not arbitrary, they are implemented on a basis of experience. If the signs say you must remove your eye wear before riding the slide, you should probably remove your eye wear.
I can offer this advice because I spent half of day 6 of our vacation acquiring replacement glasses after scoffing at the rules and promptly losing my eye wear... The water park employees were nice enough to shut down that particular slide and allow me to search to no avail (Kind of hard to search when you can't see!) and when I mentioned to the life guard "I never thought that actually happened in real life!?" he said it happens damn near everyday... Serves me right for being cocky.
After the waterslides we made our way over to our friend and fellow sheep farmer's house for a night. For probably a year and a half now, this friend has been talking up a sushi place in one of the smallest and dingiest towns I know. Needless to say I have been a little skeptical, but he did say that if we were ever there he would prove it to us. So not 5 minutes after we arrived, Partner #2 and I were in his truck, having left all our exhausted kids and Partner #1 behind, to go try out this amazing sushi place. And oh my god it was good. So good. Since moving to Quesnel I have more or less given up on finding a half decent sushi place. Whereas once upon a time, top notch sushi was almost a weekly occurrence for me, it is now a treat enjoyed maybe once or twice a year. So having my yearly sushi treat be so unexpectedly fantastic just added to the treat-factor.
Another piece of advice I can offer because I have experienced it, if you ever get a chance to try Goma-ae, do it. Don't ask questions, just trust me.
Day 6
Spent the morning emptying my bank account for a new pair of glasses and visiting old friends. Then back tracked, picked up the family and headed home. We met Partner #2's mom in Kamloops to get our baby back, who was thoroughly convinced that we were going back to Grammy's house or oddly enough, the water park. No amount of trying to explain would weaken her resolve and periodically she would scream GRAMMY HOUSE!! or WATER PARK!! for the entire duration of the drive home.
By the time we got to Williams Lake, so about an hour from our house, I think she finally started to realize that refusing to believe something isn't true, doesn't make it any less true and she proceeded to have a level 9000 melt down. I'm talking on a scale of 1 to Chernobyl, she was Fukushima.
Needless to say, we were all very happy to get home.
Once we got home, we took stock of the place and watered everything that looked a little droopy. Our garden looked great, sheep stayed in their pen, only a couple things died, and our neighbour is still in one piece! Pretty successful as far as I am concerned.
So all-in-all I suppose it wasn't that bad, maybe not on the brink of being committed bad; however, I do want to make mention that I left several things out in an attempt to not sound like a complete grumpy, old, vacation ruining, wet rag.
Now I am home, in my own bed, there are no roosters competing to be top cock out side my window, and I have a box of various wines to bring me back to sanity!
That's how all family vacations should end - with an abundant supply of alcohol.
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