Road Trip: Monday Morning Photoblogging

A family trip out to my uncle's on Saturday, with the nephews in tow. We ended up splitting into two cars - somehow I got the kids while my brothers took the dog.



That's Michael's arm reaching out the window to pet the dog in the next car. He was absorbed in a video game pretty much the whole trip, which left me to entertain five-year-old Daniel. I tried to teach him the "alphabet game," but it didn't quite work out. He decided that we could acquire letters off his bag of Skittles and the can of pop his brother was drinking, rather than looking for them on road signs. Then he decided he'd found an "S" on the Skittles bag, so instead of competing with me to get through the alphabet, he'd just kind of park there and wait until I caught up. Meanwhile, he occupied himself by trying to get truck drivers to honk at us. Of course, I generally try to discourage truck drivers from honking at me, as I find it as annoying as the "hey, baby" shouts from construction sites. Now, I've got this kid asking them to bring it on. Grrreaaat.

We got there in the early afternoon and got settled in with snacks. It's a nice place, very secluded and they've done some awesome landscaping.

I caught Ellen making a gin and tonic in the kitchen. I made her mix me one, too, just as a game of Bocce ball broke out:







Basically, the "adults" carried the balls and various alcoholic beverages around the yard and saw how close we could get to winging the house, cars, or one of the dogs. But we did manage to get our own personal referee and ball fetcher:



So that's why people have kids. . . .

To be fair, the kids did get their revenge, to some degree:




And not just on the adults, the dogs also got it:



Wanna know what happens when a preschooler and a lab puppy both decide to grab onto something and say "mine" (each in their own language)?



The ninety-pound puppy wins. Of course, Daniel tried the "throwing myself down on the couch and crying dramatically" tactic. I told him if he could get himself to produce real tears, I might be able to get him a good part onstage. I'm such a mean aunt. Or I would be, if he hadn't immediately decided that might be a good idea, and started trying to show me that they were real tears and he could so cry on cue. I may be creating a monster.

At the end of the day, we had a bonfire:



Daniel the pyro:



The kid tried to put the entire logpile on the fire at once. I wonder where he got those tendencies from . . .