Worst Vacation Ever

Well maybe I shouldn't say "ever" because there is always the possibility that a vacation in the future will be worse than this one. I'm going to intersperse pictures with the story just for fun. :-)

We went down to St. George, UT for the weekend- expenses paid by the UTNG (Utah National Guard)- because Jaime was attending a Senior Enlisted National Guard conference. I had some fun plans in mind that I thought the kids would love to do while Jaime was at his meetings. Dinosaur tracks to explore! Mini Golf! Go Carts! Swimming-Swimming-Swimming!!!

Alas! This was not to be. Saturday morning I woke up to the horrible sound of Elise throwing up. I thought to myself "she's probably just hungry for real food because all we ate all day yesterday was snack food." Nope. She was sick; the worst stomach sick that I can ever remember.

My poor, sweet Elise! She was so miserable and nothing was helping! She's such a trooper too... I had to drag her and the other children across town because St. George must have some law against conveniently locating their grocery stores... she complained very little, was pretty patient with the cabin-fevered Cameron, Kaitlin, and Nora - who were going wild in that tiny hotel room, just yearning to be free. She even agreed to go sit down by the pool so that they could swim and get some energy out. We didn't get to stay long: E threw up in the rocks just after some other people came down to the pool; kind of had to leave after that.

So other than the 30 minute excursion to the store and the 30 minute trip to the pool we stayed in that 210 square foot hotel room ALL. DAY. LONG. I'm pretty sure I went slightly insane a couple of times that day.

Things perked up a bit Sunday morning but I could tell that E still wasn't 100%. In fact she threw up so much that her stomach muscles were sore, so sore that when she laughed she'd cringe in pain. So when the conference was over at noon we packed up and headed for home, stopping by the temple on the way out. Just incase you couldn't tell, this is where all these pictures came from.

Back into the car for the four hour drive home. Things went well until we were passing through Nephi. It had been lightly sprinkling and then we hit the center of the storm. Rain was cascading out of the sky, the wind was wicked, and there was a TON of water on the road. There was so much water on the road that 1) you could no longer see the lines and the road reflected the sky, 2) it looked like the road was boiling, and 3) you could see the waves in the water that the wind was making. I've driven in terrible weather before so I was very confident though I did take precautions by slowing down and giving myself reaction time with the cars around us. Then a huge gust of wind rose up and it felt like it just picked up the car and pushed it to the side. This was my first experience with hydroplaning. I was not in control of that vehicle; my wheels were pointing right and we were going left and there was nothing I could do about it; I was gently applying the brakes/not applying the brakes in the hope that the car would just lose momentum but we were not slowing down. I'm telling you that there is no doubt in my mind that it was a direct blessing from God that suddenly no cars were around us and that the wheels caught the road just before we smashed into the cement barrier dividing traffic.

I regained control and continued to let the car coast down to slower speeds and about 5 seconds later we were hydroplaning again. So we pulled off in Nephi to wait out the storm and that is where these pictures came from:

Me and my newest b.f.f. and a power cord.

I'm happy that we went down to the conference with Jaime; I just wish things had turned out better for my b.f.f. Elise. I'm also very thankful that we made it safely home; my family is the greatest joy in my life.