Road Tripping

"Please don't put doughnut in your ears!"

This week I had it in mind to write a blog about love. In fact, I had gone so far as to begin composing it in my head. It was going to be great. And then I went on a road trip this weekend. So, I decided to blog about the road trip instead. For pictures to accompany the narrative go here.

The impetus: The Lego company held a Grand Opening for their Murray, UT store.

Aiding factor: The girls' had no school on Thursday and Friday.

With the stage thus set I found little reason not to cancel classes on Friday and hightail it out of town. I evenly blatantly told my students why I wasn't going to class. They seemed highly amused; some even asked me about it today. Pre-road trip preparations involved a trip to the library for music (nothing worth mentioning...I know disappointing), and Trina doing most of the packing. She's a trooper.

6:20 a.m. Friday morning. I wake up, shower, and pack the rest of the gear needed for the weekend in the car. Miraculously, Anna is already awake and gets dressed. The other children complain little. Amazingly, we are packed up and...

7:00 a.m. ...actually leave on schedule. The drive goes well. We eat breakfast in the car. Two stops and almost four hours later we stop at the Lego Store. Originally our plan was to drive straight to Provo, visit people there, and return to the grand opening festivities on Saturday. However, we have time so we stop.

10:50 a.m. We arrive at the Lego Store at the Fashion Place Mall. The wait to get in the store is an hour and a half, more time than we have at the moment, but there is no line to help build the 8-foot Hulk sculpture so we help create a line.

11:00 a.m. The build officially begins. The children and I each build a block that is a 4:1 scale larger than a traditional 2x4 brick. We throw these in a pile with other finished bricks and get our certificates for helping out. Mine will join my Lego diplomas on my office wall. We look at the store, but don't go inside.

12:00 p.m. Arrive at Grandma's house; lunch at a pizza buffet. Yum!

2:30 p.m. We visit our long-time friends and allow our children to play. They've known each other since birth. Best friends since diapers.

5:00 p.m. Arrive at my brother Mike's apartment. We grab him, my oldest brother (James), plus my only nephews on this side of the family and head to dinner. We also bring along Trina's cousin Jenna. The location: our favorite Chinese restaurant in Provo, The Lotus Garden. Dinner is fantastic. The conversation is great. A good time is had by some.

7:30 p.m. Return to my brother's place and play a game of Fluxx while the children play Uno.

8:30 p.m. Return to Grandma's to put the children to bed. I also catch the end of the BYU football game. A full day, but a fun one.

9:30 p.m. I go to bed early for good reason, but I don't sleep well.

Saturday

5:00 a.m. After a night of tossing and turning I get up, get dressed, and drive back to the Lego Store. They've implemented a ticket system to keep the store from being over-crowded.

6:00 a.m. After briefly waiting in line behind twenty or so other early risers (and their kids!) I got tickets for my family to enter the Lego store with the first group when it opens.

9:30 a.m. The entire family arrives at the Lego Store where we wait for 30 minutes until the store opens. The children are remarkably good natured about the wait.

10:00 a.m. We are let in the store. It's chaos. Even with limiting the number of people in the store it is still crowded. Trina is a champ and controls all the children at the "Build a Mini" station while I do my shopping. It's so crowded I don't feel comfortable browsing. I spot what I want and grab it off the shelves making my shopping short and sweet. The only exception to the "no browsing" was the longing looks that I cast at the Winter Market Village. My early morning adventure means that we are in time to earn a free Exclusive Lego set. It's a mini model of the store. Anna loves it.

11:00 a.m. An IKEA trip. This is the part of the trip that is for Trina. The children get happily dropped off at the playland; Trina and I shop happily by ourselves.

12:00 p.m. Lunch at my sister's.

1:30 p.m. Family trip to the zoo including almost all my siblings (sorry Emma!) and all my parent's grandchildren. It's one of the rare time all the cousins are together. I enjoyed the Polar Bear. He was putting on a show.


5:30 p.m. Return for dinner. Pasta and salad!

7:00 p.m. Put on "Night at the Museum". It's the first time I've actually seen the entire movie. My wife and I enjoy our favorite Ben and Jerry's Flavor that we can't get at home: Peanut Butter World.

9:00 p.m. Bedtime for the children. The end of another non-stop day.

Sunday

7:30 a.m. Trina and I wake up at approximately the same time to find Anna watching us while she rocks in the rocking chair. Creepy.

12:00 p.m. Lunch before loading up the car and the kids to go home. They cry. They really enjoy being with their cousins. Fortunately, no plans on Sunday and they had the entire morning to play with each other. It's a sad departure.

1:00 p.m. Arrive at the Lego Store for the third and final day of the Grand Opening celebration. Mostly, I just want to see the finished giant Hulk sculpture. It's not finished. I make it back into the store for some last minute shopping. I'm still early enough to get a free Limited Edition minifig set. It contains a race car mechanic, a cook, and a computer guy who looks just like me. It's serendipity.

2:00 p.m. We held build the hulk sculpture again before leaving for home. It's still not finished at that point, but we can delay no longer.

4:30 p.m. After our last stop to get gas Sam received a doughnut. In true Sam fashion he ate his fill and then crumbled the rest in his seat. A short while later I see him in the rear view mirror putting doughnut crumbs in his ears leading to the exclamation that started the blog.

6:00 p.m. We arrive home, unpack, make dinner, and crack into our Lego sets. Successful trip.