Traveling Kings

The view from the back porch.

Vacation Days start slow.  Every person wakes up according to their own clock.  Ellery got up around 7 and Mallory didn’t come upstairs until nearly Noon.  Judgement-free zone!

While everybody was stirring and getting their conscious thoughts in order, several of us broke out an “Evens Only” game of Phase 10.  Marissa has not always been the biggest game player in our family, but we are committed to her participating this year and being miserable with the rest of us.  Way to go, Marissa!

Phase 10 for breakfast.

High on Stephanie’s list of things to do while on vacation was to make jerky.  So we hauled our dehydrator and 20 pounds of venison on our trip.

KK and Stephanie using precise measurements for jerky.

Miles running the jerky cannon.

Mallory gets her turn on the jerky cannon.

Marissa assists Erin making the meatloaf for dinner.

Any time you stay in a strange house, it is easy to find a few things that seem odd.  This house is no different.  Our home for the week has a bathroom on the first floor that has been dubbed the “creepy bathroom” by Mallory.  It gets this name because of a window that is 5 feet off the ground that looks out onto the front porch, and the window does not have any curtains or treatments on it.

The view from the toilet in the Creepy Bathroom.

The shower in the downstairs bathroom is green, and it is one of those models that is all shower from ceiling to floor.  After Miles took his initial shower in it, he commented that he felt like he was in a submarine.  It is an experience!

The homeowners got a great deal on this shower, I am sure.

Prepare to Dive!

Scott loved this homemade No Smoking sign.

Today was the least scheduled of our days on this trip.  Stephanie and Marissa went into town to make a visit to the store, and spent an hour in Fred’s Super Dollar Store.  It was so good that Stephanie texted KK about it, and he showed up shortly thereafter.

KK and PK went for a walk and that was such a good idea that Scott, Ellery, Mallory and I also went for a walk around the neighborhood.

Stephanie and Ellery.

Vacationing.

All these toys and we want to play with the colander.

KK and Stephanie make Venison Jerky!

This family eats meat.

We wrapped up the day with another game of Mexican Train Dominos while watching bowl games.  One of the games was the Motel 6 Cactus Bowl, which featured commercials voiced by Tom Bodett.  Stephanie proudly told us that Tom was from Alaska, which Scott then fact-checked and found out he was not from Alaska.  Naturally, whenever we got to talking about somebody else later, Mallory piped in with “He’s from Alaska”, which brought lots of laughs.

(As a counterpoint, Stephanie likes to point out that Tom Bodett did live in Alaska for several years, and is a firm believer that she is correct.)

Vacationing is hard, but we are surviving.