Crystal has already posted about our trip, but I thought I might add my two cents.

We had a great time. I always enjoy spending time with my family. I had a medical conference at the Wisconsin Dells, which is the "Water Park Capital of the World". I don't know how you earn that designation, but a can't imagine any place with more water activities. The conference lasted a few hours each day which allowed plenty of time for us to play.

We had to get there first. It was about an eight hour drive, and on the way we stopped for the night just north of Chicago to break up the drive. It was a short drive from there to visit the Jelly Belly Factory Warehouse. We had a great time touring the warehouse in a small train and sampling the various flavors of jelly beans. The kids enjoyed the "magic beans", which I believe have some association with Harry Potter films. These jelly beans have flavors like dirt, earwax, vomit, pencil shavings, black pepper, and the family favorite - booger. I should clarify, the family favorite refers to those in the family under 7 yrs old. For the record, Faith did not think the booger jelly bean tasted like boogers, and she is a connoisseur of such things, much to her parents chagrin.

The kids travelled fantastically. We have a portable DVD player that we put in the car for long trips, and it usually keeps them focused on something other than being tired of driving for several hours.

The water parks were also great. We had several different waterparks to choose from and we went to a different one everyday. It was in the single-digit temperatures outside, but inside it felt like the middle of summer. The best thing for the 5/6th pale part of our family is that we didn't need to put on any sunscreen. This usually takes 30-45 minutes of applying goop prior to any extended sun exposure, but alas, not in an indoor water park. The kids loved the children's areas which consisted of shallow pools and things they can squirt at each other. They also enjoyed the waterslides, the "small ones and the medium ones, but not the big ones".

Physically, it was was a thrill, but exhausting. I actually heard words I've never heard uttered by my children, "I'm tired", "I'm sleepy", and my absolute favorite, "I'm ready for bed". The kids had been sick prior to leaving with a respiratory virus. Experience has taught us that public water parks are the best remedy for illness. The amount of chlorine in these pools will not only cauterize your conjunctiva, but will sterilize every mucous membrane as well. A few dunks in the water and a little aspirated pool water will cure what ails ya, not to mention the waterslide chlorine colonics.

I believe Faith consumed a bit too much chlorine. She had an upset stomach the last night we were there and on the way home. This seems to be a family tradition for us, a child getting sick on long trips. Our kids associate different states we've traveled to by who got sick where. For instance, Texas is not the land of my father's childhood, it is where Faith puked. New Mexico is not where my sister's live, but where Luke upchucked on our visit there. Grace stakes her claim on the floor of my parents old house in Missouri. So, when I reference the house that Grace and Faith spent many happy moments with my parents in Missouri, I have to clarify that it's "where Grace puked in the closet", to which Grace usually replies, "oh yeah, right after I had pudding!" You get the picture.

So, on the way home, we had the distinct scent of "illness" in the air, lofting throughout the van. Let's just say the vomit-flavored jelly beans that were enjoyed on the way to Wisconsin were left untouched on the way home. I bought the 2 1/2 hour edition of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" with Dick Van Dyke for the trip home, which occupied most of there attention.

We stopped on several occasions to stretch our legs while Crystal nursed Hope. Often we would go into a local store to walk around. The importance of articulation cannot be emphasized enough to Faith and Luke. The movie has a quite catchy tune about a car - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. However, when walking through the store with Faith and Luke, both of whom have yet to master the hard "CH" sound, and resort to the more French sounding version, the sound of them singing this song is extremely vulgar. I received several strange stares as my children's chorus rang throughout the store's aisles.

We made it home after an eight hour drive and virtually collapsed. We had a great time, but to be honest, a Monday at work never looked so good!

We've been deep in the winter for some time now. The last couple of days we have had some bursts of sunlight peeking through the clouds to remind us that Spring is coming, at some point.



Last week was a particularly interesting winter excursion. Crystal decided to take a "mental health" morning and catch up on some things at home, including sleep, last Sunday. I took the three oldest children to church. The temperature had peaked at just above freezing for the first time is several weeks and it was raining. This rain was falling on rather deep ice that had accumulated the previous weeks.



Anyway, off we went to church. We walked across the parking lot and Faith commented that "it's like walking on a slurpy". Indeed it was, with sloshy, watery snow ankle deep. No problem for Luke and me, but the girls had their Mary-Janes on (I think that's what they're called). "Slurpy" puddles have the same force of magnetic attraction for children as rain puddles, just much colder. Upon entering the church, I saw that all three kids were saturated to their mid-calves. No worries, I figured they would be dry by the time we got home and there would be no need to mention this to mom.



My plan had worked, and approximately 2 1/2 hours later, we were headed out of church. Needless to say, we had to cross the "slurpy" parking lot to get to the van, and again, they were saturated. (I would probably end up having to explain this after all). Unfortunately, now the three kids were cold, tired and hungry. Any one of those variables occurs on a pretty regular basis nowadays - very manageable. Two of those variables results in an elevated level of stress, comparable to an "orange" on the Homeland Security Terror Threat Scale. The problem was I hit a three for three, definitely not a good percentage and I knew I was in trouble. If I could just get home, I knew we would be alright.



Naturally, that is where the problem arose. On the road to our house there is a slight grade or incline. Normally, this is not a problem at all (unless you are on you way home from a 2 mile bicycle ride by yourself with three children under 5 years old and your wife said it might not be a good idea to go before you left and you insisted that everyone would be fine and.....that's a different story.) Anyway, ice and rain make for a pretty interesting combination when it comes to driving, especially up grades.



Our van did its best impression of the "Little Engine That Could", except, of course, it couldn't! We would go barreling up the incline only to progressively slow, careen, fishtail, spin and ultimately stop. It wouldn't have been so bad except it didn't end there. Eventually gravity kicked in and our van would slide backward down the slope. I attempted this pass five times, and every time we ended up sliding back down the incline, sometimes more interestingly than others. On two occasions, we did spinning 180 degree maneuvers while sliding down.



All the while, the children were getting more agitated as they could tell gravity, ice and rain were having more of an effect on our van than it should. "This never happens when mom drives". In addition, the trifecta of hunger, cold, and fatigue was in full force at this point. Grace, in particular, is sensitive to these variables. Her blood sugar is inversely proportional to her "drama factor". She cried, "I'm never going to see mom again!"



After the fifth attempt at scaling the ice, I decided to make lemonade from the lemons, more like lemon slushies. I called Crystal and told her we couldn't make it home and that I would take the kids out to lunch. In fact, we made an afternoon of it. Once Grace was fed, and the "drama factor" subsided, I took the three kids to a VeggieTale pirate movie at our local movie theater.



I sat between Luke and Faith. We had seen this movie once already. I was sitting in the theater seat when my condition kicked in. Now, many people may have heard of narcolepsy, or the uncontrollable occurrence of randomly falling asleep. I have acquired a condition, in large part due to having an infant at home that is not sleeping through the night, I refer to as "darkolepsy". This condition results in the inability to stay awake with any exposure to darkness or subdued light. (Crystal has an even more serious condition I call "ortholepsy", where she falls asleep with any recumbent posture. This has resulted is her seeing the beginning of innumerable movies at home on the couch and never knowing how they end.)



Faith took it upon herself to "treat" my condition by tapping my shoulder every few seconds to prepare me for "the good part that's coming up". I don't know exactly when she realized the futility of her efforts and stopped, but the combination of the darkness, the cushioned seat, the harmonious munching of popcorn by three kids resulted in me succumbing to my condition. I awoke sometime during the closing credits with Luke yelling in my ear, "Let's wah dat again!"



We headed home again, hopeful for better results climbing our incline. Sure enough, a road crew had come during our 3 hour diversion and salted the road and we had smooth sailing home this time. We ended up having a great day. The kids got to see a movie, I caught a nap, and Grace got to see her mother again after all!

Well, this is my initiation to blogging. Crystal has asked me several times to write something, but I have procrastinated.
After reading the previous post by Crystal, I am flattered. She is truly the best and far too kind to me. I had no idea that helping her shower after giving birth would have such an affect on her. So, no longer will I buy gifts and flowers, but intend to offer more bathing experiences for her. But I digress and have to remind myself that this is a family blog.
I had an experience with the three oldest Briden kids over the weekend that Crystal thought I might share to give some perspective of the day in the life of our family.
We went to our local grocery store and Crystal and Hope stayed in the car to take care of nutritional needs, while I took Grace, Faith and Luke into the store to buy ice cream for Grace's birthday. No sooner had we entered the store when Faith said she had to "go potty". Now, I acted like most fathers I know, and ignored her, in the hopes that the pressing need would just go away.
We proceeded to check out with our half gallon of chocolate peanut butter ice cream when Faith reiterated, "I really need to go potty", this time accompanied by a dance, immediately recognizable by any parent that urgent action needed to be taken (so much for ignoring the problem).
Fortunately, the restrooms were right at the exit. In past episodes such as these, I have just taken all the kids into a stall in the men's restroom and taken care of business. However, on this day, as luck would have it, the men's restroom was packed full of men, and no empty stall to be found. I thought of just waiting, but my girls have developed the habit of making a running commentary on everything that presents itself to their five senses. And, since discretion is a noticably absent quality in their running commentary, I thought a men's restroom was definitely not the best place to idly linger. In fact, in the brief encounter with the men's restroom, Faith's hyperolfactory sense kicked in (inherited from her mother) and she responded with an immediate "it stinks in here!" This resulted in several men, perched in mid-micturation, craning their necks around to see who had such a keen sense of the obvious.
We retreated to "no-man's land" between the men's and women's restroom and Faith continued with her modified Irish dance. I told Grace to go with Faith into the women's restroom and "help here". Grace had been six years old for an entire day by this time, so I thought she would be up to the task of taking a four year old to the bathroom (which, in hindsight now, I realize I am still hesitant to do, even at my age). For about two minutes, things were fine as women came and went from the bathroom, and Luke and I pondered the gumball machines.
Naturally, that didn't last (otherwise I would not be writing about this on the blog.) Grace came out of the door and said Faith needed my help. This often happens, even at home, and can usually be resolved with some encouragement, which I proceeded to do from the doorway. Then, the anouncement came that Faith had a more substantial effort than I expected. This, of course, can be traced back to the nondescript term, "potty", which was used. I mistakenly inferred that "potty" meant definition #1, when, in fact, she was implying definition #2.
I told Faith to make her best effort at "finishing" and mommy would help out when we got home (classic father technique, in times of trouble, punt to mommy). She would have nothing to do with that and insisted that I come in and help her. I told her, from the door, that I couldn't go into the women's restroom (all the while, women were entering and exiting). This was quickly followed with a sound resembling a fire alarm, my sweet child screaming for me to help her.
By this time Grace is in a panic and my face has changed the full spectrum of colors of red, encrouching upon the deeper tones now. Women exited the restroom on several occasions and notified me that my child was crying, as though anyone within a four block radium might be unaware. Finally, the last woman that I knew was in the bathroom, other than my Faith, exited the door with a distraught look on her face. Immediately another woman was about to enter and I pleaded with her to wait and watch the door so that I could address the screeching sound in the last stall. She said she would wait and stand guard, and then promptly told me that someone was crying - really?
I went to the stall, and sure enough, it was locked from the inside. Faith would not leave her throne, mostly due to previous instruction at home about not doing such things. (Why do kids always remember what you tell them to do when you don't want them to do it?) Anyway, I asked Grace to climb under the door and unlock it, which she thankfully did.
I finished the paperwork that needed to be done and consoled the poor girl in her first crash and burn solo flight to a women's restroom. We left as quickly as possible to a throng of 8-10 women standing at the door, wondering why a man was in the women's restroom. I would have chosen to leave that a mystery for them and leave right away, but there was no sign of Luke.
I couldn't see Luke and lost track during the commotion. I had to explain to the women why I was in the bathroom, many of which were beginning to do that all-to-familiar dance. I had to look everywhere for Luke as he was not outside the door. I went back into the women's bathroom and, sure enough, there was Luke. He was on the floor doing a commando crawl under all the stalls in the bathroom. I don't think he was going anywhere in particular, but he knew Grace had crawled under a door, so he thought he might try and help. He also had a stream of TP trailing from his knee.
So, the bathroom stop was completed, all three kids were accounted for, and I still had my ice cream in hand. We marched out of the bathroom, as the growing crowd of women poured in, and returned to the van to meet Crystal and Hope. Our quick stop at the store turned into one of my more harrowing experiences. Next time, mom can go into the store and I'll nurse the baby!