Those of you who have been following this blog over the years know that we take a family vacation to Walt Disney World every September. (Except for one time we traded September for December.) This year’s WDW vacation starts this Saturday when we leave home, and lasts till next Saturday when we come back.

We’ll be driving this year — it’s a 10-12 hour trip. We drove for our first family time at WDW, 5 years ago, but then after that we flew each year. The combination of expensive tickets and ridiculous airport security has made us decide to try driving again. We have a DVD player, various Disney movies, Nintendo DSs, and some travel games to entertain the boys. We’ll have packed snacks and lunches, but we’ll still stop several times to at least get out and stretch. I’d like to stop for meals, but I’d rather get to the resort sooner rather than later, so we’ll eat on the road. We plan to leave first thing after waking up, (probably 6 a.m.), so we should be in WDW by 6 p.m.

I’m partially looking forward to the drive, the experience of the long family road trip. I remember taking long road trips as a kid with my family, and our boys are now old enough that they’ll remember this excursion. But I’m also dreading the drive, the looooooong monotonous sitting in one place for hours. We drove to the Great Wolf Lodge back in March, but that was only 3 hours. This coming drive will be 3-4 times longer. I’m feeling some trepidation.

This year, both boys are tall enough for all the rides, and they’ve both said they want to ride all the rides. In past years, Calfgrit7 was too small to ride some, and even the ones that either boy was tall enough for, they weren’t adventurous enough to try. Was kind of disappointing. But this year may be more fun in that regard. Also this year, we’re going to the water parks. They enjoyed the Great Wolf Lodge slides, so I think the Disney water parks will be a hit. I know I’m really looking forward to the water fun.

Well, this will be the last post for me until after we get back. So now . . .
TO THE MINIVAN!

I have Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You on my iPhone. I’ve always thought Dolly’s version from The Best Little Whore House in Texas was better than Whitney Houston’s version from The Bodyguard because in the movies, Dolly’s character has had a years-long relationship with Burt’s compared to the days-long relationship Whitney had with Kevin. So Dolly’s version just seemed to have deeper feeling than Whitney’s; Whitney’s seems shallow.

Anyway, listening to the song the other day, I wanted to watch the scene from TBLWHIT again. I haven’t seen the movie in many years, but I remember that it was pretty good. So I searched YouTube for the scene.

While I was watching that video, an ad popped up for “Find Gay Men.”

That cracked me up. I know some Google ads are determined based on browsing history, but as I’ve never searched for gay men, (especially not from my work computer, where I watched that video), I assume there is something inherently gayish about the video itself for that kind of ad to come up as relevant. So that means, somehow, there is a Google algorithm that equates a musical movie with gay interests.

Bullgrit

Wifegrit saw this jeep in the parking lot of a local park.

Bullgrit

Is it just my kids, or is this normal?

There were a couple of goldfish crackers on the kitchen floor. I asked the boys who was eating goldfish, and was told Calfgrit7 was. I asked him to come pick up the crackers and put them in the garbage. (Yes, I could have picked them up, but they need to clean up their own messes, even minor ones.) So CG7 starts walking towards me to pick up the crackers off the floor. Satisfied that he was going to do what I told him, I walked away.

A few minutes later, I walked through the kitchen and noticed the crackers are still on the floor. What the hell? When I left, CG7 was three feet from them and closing on the crackers. But somehow he missed and didn’t follow through. I had to call him back and stand over him to make sure he actually picked them up and put them in the trash can.

Later, the kitchen table was covered in plates and bowls. I asked who put all the stuff on the table. Calfgrit7 again. I told the little guy to please clear the table of his mess. So he walked over, picked up a plate, took it and put it on the counter, then ran off to play again. I called him back, “CG7, that was just one thing. Clear all your dishes, please.”

“Oh,” he said. He picked up one bowl and put it away. Then he ran off to play again. There were still  two more bowls, a spoon and a butter knife on the table. (What he had been doing with it all, I have no idea.)

“CG7!” I said, “clear everything away.”

He threw his hands up, “I didn’t know that’s what you meant!”

We both got into a frustrated argument over what “clear the table” means.

Calfgrit11 is also blind to stuff like that. We can put a laundry basket of clean clothes in the middle of his room floor, and he’ll play around it all day. When we ask him if he’s put away his clean clothes, he says, “What clean clothes?”

I have even put the basket in his doorway so he can’t go into his room without moving it. He pushes it to the side, and still, later he asks, “What clean clothes?”

If either boy is missing a tiny piece of a toy, on the patterned den carpet, they can find it in a few moments. But a non-toy or a chore sitting right out blatantly in front of them, it’s invisible. Is this normal?

Bullgrit