Gribble Family Vacation
At the end of July, we headed out on a long road trip to Ohio to spend a week with our old friends Jennifer and Lee. We used to spend Thanksgiving together, but it’s gotten too difficult to travel that far for such a short holiday, so we postponed last year’s get-together until this summer. Fortunately for us, the Otts have a house on Lake Buckhorn, so we had a great destination. On Friday, July 24, I started my vacation by accompanying Phoebe on her class trip to Big Time. (The school always calls it Big Time Fun, but Phoebe pointed out that the sign on the building just says “Big Time.”) It’s a big building with jump structures everywhere. We arrived at lunchtime, ate our sack lunches, and the kids jumped and played for a few hours. Many of them fell asleep on the bus on the way home. After school, we met up with Dave and Benjamin, had some dinner, and strapped everyone into the car for what turned out to be a 25-hour trip, counting all the potty trips and a couple of meal stops. I listened to “Serial,” by This American Life while I drove during the night. It was totally fascinating! I was almost sorry when we got there on Saturday evening because I wanted to finish the podcast.
We got to the lake house while the Ott family was still driving home from a baseball game, so we got to make ourselves at home in our luxurious guest bedroom with attached bathroom. All the kids were pretty tired and went right to sleep. Dave and I stayed up chatting with Jennifer and Lee. It felt awfully good to lie down in a bed to sleep after a night of driving!
The next morning the Gribbles slept in a little bit. Then Alexander, Phoebe, Kaitlynn, Benjamin, and Alexis got acquainted, with all the requisite shyness. Our kids got dressed in regular clothes and ate breakfast, then had to change into their swimsuits. We didn’t know the protocol for vacationing at a lake; the next few days we got “dressed” straight into our suits! Somehow it took almost an hour to get ready to walk the 100 feet down the hill to the lake, but we weren’t on a schedule, which was such a wonderful change! I, for one, was much less stressed out when the kids didn’t have to be cajoled to do anything at a particular time.
By day two, the Gribble kids were finally comfortable enough to try “tubing.” (I put that in quotation marks because I was naive enough to believe the tubes would be…well…tubular!) Turns out you hook this humongous inflatable sofa to a powerboat and pull the kids behind you. Dave and I each got to try, too. It’s pretty fun! In fact, the whole week was incredibly fun. Lazing around on the dock, floating in the lake, tubing, riding in the boat, waking up late, eating every meal outside, reading books to kids in an air-conditioned house, hanging out with old friends…no wonder so many people flock to the water for vacation. On Tuesday morning, Lee and I went for an early run. All three of us are training for half marathons on September 26. We circumnavigated the lake—it’s a perfect 5 miles. I had the advantage; there’s so much OXYGEN in Ohio! I have to admit I was the annoying runner turning around to cheerfully say “almost there!” halfway up a hill.
On Tuesday, we got dressed in a less leisurely way and ate some breakfast. Then we loaded up Chocolate (Dave’s car) and the Otts’ van to drive the hour or so over to Matt and Erin’s house, where we were also joined by my parents and my brother Nathaniel. Unfortunately, Phoebe threw up twice on the way there (curvy roads); fortunately, Jennifer had a size 6 dress in the car and Uncle Matt had a washing machine and some upholstery spray. Lion had been thrown up upon, poor thing. At Uncle Matt’s we saw the animals, ate lunch and dinner, and played some outdoor games: sprinkler, badminton, general running around. It was great to see everyone, and the Ott kids adopted my parents as secondary grandparents.
On Wednesday we took the boat over to the beach across the lake to play in water that wasn’t full of plants and eat a picnic lunch. Dave and Benjamin joined the rest of us by kayak. Jennifer and I went to the coffee shop in town to get away from our mommy duties for a while. (Dave and Lee had done the same earlier in the week when they went to get groceries and coffee.)
Thursday was full of more time at the lake, of course. The kids tried the other tube, and so did Dave and Lee…Jennifer drove the boat and was able to fling off the dads, to the delight of the kids. The dads also tried water skiing. Dave was able to stand up briefly! That evening, knowing it was our last, I took Alexander’s kayak out to the lake as the sun set. I had already spent half an afternoon reading a book; the solo kayak trip was icing on the cake of a wonderful, relaxing vacation. (I did manage to fall into the lake trying to get into the kayak without getting my feet wet. Oops.)
On Friday, we reluctantly said our goodbyes and packed up Chocolate to head home. We made a stop at Grandma Hoot’s house in Michigan to spend a few hours with Grandma and Aunt Vickie. It was great timing, since we could drive all night on Friday, arrive home on Saturday, and relax for the rest of the weekend before going back to work.
I’ve been trying to get videos of Benjamin saying a few of his very cute phrases. His language has exploded lately, and he often speaks in sentences. Like all toddlers, he can be pretty bossy: “Mommy, sit down!” “Daddy, get my shoe!” “Phoebe, go outside!” Two of my favorites are below: “No way!” and “I don’t know!”
Benjamin Gribble adorable phrases:
