Friday, August 30, 2013

so we went back home and traumatized a few of our kids


the husband and i are from california. i think you know that. since moving here to the midwest, we've not gone "home". and even before that we had the deployment and other things that got in the way from our visiting. so we made the trek, BY CAR, this summer. we drove all 30 hours straight through. he took the first overnight shift, i took the all day shift, and then he took the late night shift till the early morning. we left late thursday (10pm ish central time) and got to san diego saturday morning (1 am ish pacific time)
we had to stop for the kids and us to walk around a little and have breakfast lunch and dinner and bathroom breaks. BUT we did excellent on time non the less! during the week we spent most of our time at the beach/pool. my kids love water.
after 15 and a half years of marriage we are still feeling super blessed and lucky that we made that commitment to each other. it was pretty special going back together to where we got hitched and to show our kids that this is where mom totally tricked dad that she wasn't really that crazy before he knew any better and got married for time and all eternity.

we did a total of 4,000 + miles round trip throwing in disneyland in-between seeing all my family and all of his family. 
this was the kid's first time at disneyland they enjoyed it very much...i may have made the mistake of starting off with space mountain as our first ride of the day. the two younger ones were a little on the frazzled side. oops lessons learned. they eased into the swing of things after a couple more slower rides. hands down everyones favorite ride was the Matterhorn. with splash mountain a close second. (minus the girl she didn't go on matterhorn, she liked splash mountain the best)
all in all the girl got mickey ears, the boys ate junk, mom and dad fulfilled their duty of getting them to disneyland.
 while i was in los angeles i was able to go back to close to where i grew up (and very close to where i went to elementary school and art school) to the uber cute fabric shop called sew modern.
 i was able to teach the kaleidoscope quilt class. and i had a blast getting to know all the wonderful women in that store. what a wonderful place to be. if you are in the area check it out, it's right off the 405 freeway.
we ended up not going straight through back to iowa. we went to utah for a total of seriously less than 24 hours but we did make sure we got to see his family, and of course get cafe rio.
and i'm pretty sure the only thing that tastes better than cafe rio, is cafe rio after you haven't had it for so long. iowa you need a cafe rio. just sayin. oh and you need to learn that your version of "mexican food" is totally wrong okay fine...different from the costal mexican food. we did make sure we had what jake and i call "real mexican" food. and of course seafood. (just me everyone else could care less about the seafood)

but i must also mention that during our time we ended up going to the san diego zoo.
and of course it wouldn't be a V and Co. vacation with out some sort of traumatizing experience.
all went well till we got to the chimps. 
would you like to hear a story? 

it was a pretty nice day we had taken the bus around the whole zoo right off the bat because well, why not, and this way we could see the "hot spots" we wanted to hit up. my kids all have their special animals they obsess about but because they mainly spent their impressionable years by the monterey aquarium, we were out of luck on the REALLY obsessed over animals, like penguins, dolphins, sharks, and otters. but the two younger ones were happy with the second tier of loved animals like turtles, bunnies, and bears. aaaaaand monkeys. the monkeys were cute i must admit. the way they look at you like grumpy old men and then they scratch their bum, or pick their nose and eat it? that's like prepubescent and teen humor all rolled into one. add the cool factor that they can totally swing around and dangle from one branch to another = awesome. so my kids were totally loving the monkeys. the husband was a little more like "oh look another monkey, this one slightly larger by say a couple of pounds, and with white hair sticking out from his ears. can please move onto the panda bear i heard there's a baby."
wikipedia stock picture

okay so perhaps the husband was a little right. there were a lot of monkeys, and orangutans, and different kinds of apes, and then there were the chimps.

when we got to the chimps my kids were finally thinking "okay we can go see other kinds of animals now." so we checked them out for a little bit they were cute and funny. most of them were just like "what are you looking at" but two where "playing around."

i started laughing cause the two reminded of me and jake when he pokes at me to try to get my ticklish spots. and me swatting his hands away.
seriously the boy chimp was like "i'm going to get your ticklish spot." and the girl one was like "seriously stop, im trying to not be tickled right now."  i went to move and tell jake. i turned to him and  right when i do i hear our third noise maker say really loud "look they are tickle fighting!!!!"

now, keep in mind, i'm not looking at them any more but i am facing my family. slowly the faces of my family members and the people around them go from smiley or nonchalant faces to:


i immediately knew something was up just by the looks of everyone's mouth's starting to hang open like in mid thought of "what the hel......"

my 11 year old noisemaker speaks first "UH that's not tickling." the 13 year old looks at me and says "yeah that's NOT tickling anymore."
the 9 year old and 6 year old don't believe them and are pretty sure they are still tickle fighting. people around us are snickering at our conversation. in the corner of my eye i see other parents are quickly moving and ushering their children away in crowds.
mind you this all happened in like 30 seconds or like a minute or something like that but it literally felt like i was in slow motion...
i turned around and sure enough the turn of events went from subtle advances of tickling to full on "brown chicken brown cow..." cue in porn music.

my mouth is gaping wide open.

my husband says " well it looks like the one on top is winning."

we quickly usher the kids away and the husband then finishes by saying

"tickling got us 4 kids."

true story.

we're glad to be home.
and well now i don't have to have the talk about how babies are made.

35 comments:

Snickerdoodle Stew said...

OH! I love reading your blog! SOOO hilarious!

Three Birds Inspired said...

That happened to us at the zoo in Seattle. Let's just say the orangutans took the whole porn thing to the NEXT level. I was traumatized! (Not to mention the 12 Girl Scouts standing near us!!)

V and Co. said...

oh my gosh suzan!! that's horrific and hilarious!

Phyllis @Around the House said...

It sounds like you had a wonderful vacation, I can't imagine how different the weather is in the midwest, I am afraid the humidity will kill me...lol...I am happy the kids loved seeing the ocean again,,,Come on over for a visit,,,love to have you..Phyllis

Melanie @ Whimsical Creations said...

LMBO! Looks and sounds like you had an adventure. :D

Krista said...

I snorted out my coffee reading this!!! ha ha ha!

We experienced a similar thing with the brown bears at our zoo this summer, but I think the fact that they're huge and hairy and not so people-like made it a little less obvious? Although my older girls sure knew what was happening. The animal kingdom has no sense of privacy I guess.

Gretchen said...

Whenever we go to Lowry Park Zoo, there are multiple gopher tortoises "giving piggy back rides". I swear, we've been 3 times and every time there are a couple pairs getting it on.

mom2three said...

Almost the same thing happened to me when I took my oldest to the zoo. She was about 2 or 3, and we went into this enclosure where the tortoises lived.... and the noise that they were making.... let's put it this way, I've had 3 kids and never heard anything quite like that noise. Luckily 2 year olds are distracted by EVERYTHING, so we moved on really quickly. A day I'll never forget!

Glad to hear you are home safe and sound :)

Pinspot said...

Hilarious! You are right about midwest Mexican food- it's crap. Don't trust anyone who tells you otherwise. I can say so because I'm from San Diego, and my adopted sister is half mexican. :)

Anonymous said...

Okay, I am at work reading your blog because I really do not want to be at work at all....and the chimp story totally made me smile and I have to thank you for that!! You and the family PACKED a lot into your vacation.

Tami
tamiquilts(at)att(dot)net

Jackie said...

Zoo monkeys can't be trusted. Your story reminds me of something I read on the Crappy Pictures blog.
http://crappypictures.com/sex-education-at-the-zoo/
If you are not familiar with Amber, she blogs about her family and life and draws pictures using Microsoft Paint to illustrate what happened.

mascanlon said...

Hilarious! Snicker...think the best comment award goes to Jake this round!

Barbara said...

OK - where did those 2 noisemakers in the back row come from ? wasn't it only yesterday that they were half that size ????

all these years your blog remains at the top of my daily reading list V for many reasons. Thank you !

Ashley W. said...

We saw turtles going at it one time. My daughter (3 at the time) thought they were wrestling. We had to walk away when an older boy near us said quite loudly, "They're not wrestling! I know what they're doing!"
Being turtles, though, I imagine it wasn't nearly as active as the monkeys.

MsMidge said...

Love it!

Sarah said...

Best laugh of my day!!!!!

Jennifer Mathis of Ellison Lane said...

Vanessa, I totally laughed out loud. Seriously. :)

Michelle@factotum-of-arts.com said...

hilarious - great post....by the way I have that wood light in the sew modern shop but the next size up - its a New Zealand designer. Great addition to our house, its nice to see it around here and there.

The whole shop does look amazing.

Jenn said...

That's pretty much what we did this summer, minus the monkey sex...well.... Drive from OK to SD for a family reunion on our 15 year anniversary (at least we were able to see the temple). Sounds like everything else went well!

trish said...

You realize that any time you tell a story about events in your life I read them outloud to my husband and we both get such a good laugh!! Hahaha. Brown chicken brown cow had me in tears! :0)
Oh how I miss the aquarium. I will be in the San Francsco area next month and believe me, living in MS is as far away from real mexican and chinese food as you can get!! I plan to eat both when I get home!! :0)
Have a great weekend. Trish

Barbie Mills said...

Oh my goodness, I couldn't stop laughing. Thanks for sharing this hilarious traumatizing experience. The muppet pictures make it even better.

I'm glad you got some Cafe Rio, the pork salad is my favorite food. Anywhere. I will miss it terribly if we ever move.

Bowbailey said...

Thankfully we have two Cafe Rios in Southern Califirnia- Orange County. And thankfully they're both near my grand daughters home besides! Love your blog and outlook on life��✂

Marie said...

I am going on improving my english, reading your posts. This time I had to look at the dictionary to understand what tickling is... I never learnt that word at school :
Shame on my teachers, and thank you V and Co. Marie

Sandy said...

Great story!! Thanks for sharing!! Some very serious laughing happening here!! : )

Susan said...

True story...OMG! That is hilarious!

Felicia said...

I am so glad to hear that my family is not the only one constantly bombarded by animals behaving 'like animals' at the zoo. Between a monkey that needed to see a sex therapist, a lion 'aggravating' his mate and two groundhogs so into it that his legs crammped up we have all but given up on a normal zoo trip ever!

I love the 'yeah thats not tickling'...
g;ad it was otherwise an uneventful trip.

michelle h said...

oh, I love it. Thanks for the case of the giggles this morning--I needed that. You have the best stories. You crack me up!!! Thank you!!!
michelle h

Clara said...

All LDS churches I see on people's blogs always seem so modern looking. They are quite spectacular buildings. I've not seen one before as there are none where I live.
I have realised lately so many of the quilt blogs I love are written by women who are mormons - do they teach you at church, lol?! It can't be a coincidence surely?? :-D

Karrie said...

BEST Zoo Story Ever :) I'm so glad you shared that with us!

-karrie

www.randomthoughtsdoordi.com said...

I am so glad I read to the end. Fun story and sounds like you had a great family trip. My son and DIL were married at the temple in La Jolla in 1999. Beautiful

bdaiss said...

Hahahahahaha! Oh Vanessa. Your family is the BEST.

Shauna said...

Oh my! Back over 12 yrs. ago, before my husband and I were married (so before kids), we went on a date to the zoo. First we saw the mother ape, after nursing her baby, manually squirt milk all over the place. BUT, then Daddy ape, who was laying close by, started... how do I say it... pleasuring himself, like really getting into it! It was fairly embarrassing and awkward, as we hadn't been dating too long. At least we didn't have kids along to have to explain it to! Hilarious! Shauna

Amy said...

oh the joys of the zoo...we got to experience a "tickle fight" at the Saint Louis Zoo in the gorilla exhibit...my children are scarred for life! :)

Anonymous said...

Love your sense of humor. SD is one temple I haven't visited in the west. I lived in AZ until 2005, so there's no reason I didn't make it. Now I've gone from a 30 minute trip to a 4-hour trip! It sounds like you had a wonderful family time, memory-making time. Thanks for sharing your adventures. Some of them. =)

Mel said...

Yeah, that got me and my husband 4 kids too.... LOL

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