Snapshots from Our Vacation

No literal snaps, unless Alex sends them...What with college in our lives, family vacation has gone from a week to two days. From a cottage on a lake to a hotel room near the airport in Rhode Island. The 5 of us jammed into a 1 bedroom Homewood suite that really should have been one room.

BUT. Listen. It was great. You should be sad you weren't us.

Highlights:
--I don't get why that fire thing is so cool even when it's entirely cheesy and we joined the army of tourists crowding along the shores to watch. But the smell and crackle of the fire and the new age music and most especially (this is the important part for me) the silly chandeliers under the walking bridges all work perfectly. Yes. Thumbs up.

--A festival featuring Bolivia? Um. Columbia? Somewhere. We stumbled across something in the dark that featured a lot of dancers in glittery costumes and red underwear. Also big slabs of meat and empanadas sold from trucks. Two thumbs up and pass the napkins. Oh, and everyone who can say TDBANK! got a drawstring bag. All five of us said TDBANK! and we haven't even lost one of our new bags yet.

--The zoo. We'd taken the guys when they were little, of course. But little kids look at the animals and aren't amazed, I mean, jeez, the whole world is funkadelic to them. (look mommy! a car!!) My guys looked at the giraffes and could not believe them. I mean WTF. Giraffes. Those tongues? And the emus. The giant cockroaches. Whoa.
So many obscene jokes to be made but not when lots of small kids are around, boys, I mean it shut up with those jokes. 

Plus no one had to be carried up hills. Anyone who whined could be ignored, although no one did, come to think of it. AND the serious rain started after we left.

-- The Culinary Arts Museum. We've been to the maple museum and the marble museum, so we consider ourselves experts. This was actually more of a museum. With interesting things. I hope the picture of the guys posing with the giant Mr. Potato Head worked.

--Impulse shopping at Stop and Shop and watching Blade Runner at the hotel instead of going to a movie theater. Eh, a small highlight but that counts.

--The hotel pool. The size of a big bathtub yet it still worked as a place to try to drown each other, especially when no one else staying at the hotel ventured in. I didn't swim. I did watch for entertainment's sake.

--The mall. Today there was a huge rainstorm that had no intention of moving on, so the plan to walk around Providence was scotched. And anyway, the museum we wanted to see was closed. Instead we went to the mall armed with two goals.
1. to buy a present for one of the other five of us (name drawn from hat. Dog added as name at last minute, so one of us [me] had two names.) gift to cost less than $10

This worked well, although I'm not sure what the middle guy is going to do with the lacy leopard print thong his brother picked for him.

2. to make a list of mall tropes spotted during the 1 hour shopping trip. Whoever discovered the greatest number of tropes won. Since I was the only one who really took that part of the outing seriously, I whupped ass. Here are some we found:
new car in middle of mall
twins in side-by-side stroller
enormously pregnant woman puffing along, with many small kids in tow. 
serious mall walkers ignoring everyone else
two stores in a row with push-up bra displays.
woman threatening son with violence
swarm of teenagers, loitering
6x back to school! displays
fat mall security cop
women dressed in black with immaculate make-up (elegant and scary varieties)
groups of retirees hanging around the food court
groups of special needs types on an outing.
many Bieber displays
three jewelry stores on three corners of an intersection.
a store with 'n in its title

Then we ate scary mall food, because it was too rainy to go anywhere else, and we drove home. Naturally being an internet savvy sort, I wouldn't mention being away from home until we came back. None of you scary internet peoples can crash here any more. We have our dog back and we're all off in different corners of the house. We don't have to share a bathroom or a raather tight space any longer.

2.5 days works well for togetherness.