We spent the Thanksgiving holiday with Mike's family in St. George. His family has 4 boys ages 5 and under. And 4 boys ages 5 and under can be...tricky. One at a time they are each adorable and cuddly and sweet but once you put them all together something happens. It's like the collective energy causes each of them to transmogrify into something half-human, half-animal, half-wanna-be-superhero.
And suddenly you're no longer at Mike's mom's house. You're in the American Gladiators arena and you have to get to the platform on the other side without being knocked off the obstacle course by the flying Nerf balls being shot at you. And if only the Nerf balls were really Nerf balls and not little boys flinging themselves at you with limbs akimbo and destruction in their eyes. And the littlest one uses teeth!
If you are victorious and make it to the safe zone, you better be sure you had used the bathroom before you left the platform, otherwise, you have to go back through all over again. And no, Mike, I am not stopping to help if you somehow get pulled down and swallowed by the mountain of bodies and batman toys. I'm sorry. I just can't risk it.
As the weekend went on, we got better at the game. Without even blinking, Flam! my arm blocks the punch to the stomach. Zing! Mike's leg deflects rocket headed straight for us. We think we have beat them at their own game. And then, one looks at us with sweet eyes and holds his arms out to be hugged. So we give in. But, lo, it's a trick! Instead of hugging, they're pounding on my leg and scratching at Mike's head.
Well played young ones, well played.
We took a few pictures, but none of the boys' photos illustrate this well enough. They are all cute and smiley in their pictures. It's like when you take a photo of Big Foot and you go back to the dark room to develop the pictures and somehow, mysteriously, they are all blurry and you can't see a thing. There is some kind of power there.
So, I'll post these two pictures of Mike's sister. Her face pretty much sums it up.
I don't know how Mike's sisters and parents do it every day. They deserve major kudos.
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On Sunday we headed back to SLC. And it was the worst storm we had encountered in our 10 years of driving to St. George. I think the fastest we went was about 38 mph, at that was only for a brief time. There were cars and trucks, even a Highway Patrol Sheriff stuck in snowbanks off the side of the road. In what is usually a 2 hour trip from St. George to Fillmore, it took 5 hours. It was starting to get dark and the snow wasn't letting up so we decided to stay for the night.
We had the choice between the Comfort Inn and the Paradise Best Western. Comfort sounded nice, but Paradise is better, right? So we stayed at Fillmore's "paradise."
And you know, it wasn't paradise, but it wasn't bad. When we were checking in, I noticed that the name of the hotel restaurant was "The Paradise Garden of Eat'n." I said the name out loud and started laughing. The woman behind the desk looked at me, cocked her head and said "isn't that cute?" I choked down my laughter and nodded.
Turns out the Garden of Eat'n isn't so bad. Especially after sitting in a car for 5 hours.
We finished the drive to SLC Monday afternoon and finally made it home.
I think we slept for about 13 hours that night.
