'Vacation, all I ever wanted'

My family and I returned home from our vacation to Disney World, in Florida, on Sunday afternoon and, I got to tell you, my kids could be the poster children for the (insert name of national airline)’s next commercial.

I can see it now. Let’s say Southwest wanted to shoot a new commercial. The first shot would be the inside of our Trailblazer:

Olivia: Owww! He’s pulling my hair!

Ean: Heh, heh, heh!

Olivia: STOP IT!!!!

Ean: WAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

Olivia: He won’t stop crying! He’s hurting my ears! WAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!

Ean (louder): WAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

Kelly: BOTH OF YOU BE QUIET RIGHT NOW! ONE … TWO …

Both kids (even louder): WAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!

Me (thinking): I need a drink.

You get the idea. Just seeing it for 30 seconds before some catchy Southwest slogan, you would have already made up your mind to fly. Either that or buy massive quantities of Benadryl. Lucky for us, we traveled at night so the kids slept some of the way.

But at least I escaped from my job for a week, so I couldn’t complain too much. Besides the fact that our little stopover in Destin to play at the beach turned sour with 50-degree weather and high winds. That and the heated pool was not so heated.

Upon arriving at Disney World, the cold weather followed us for a couple of days, which led to us freezing in high winds while waiting on the bus to get back to our resort once Epcot closed.

But then the weather cleared up and we actually had a good time over the next few days, taking pictures with Disney characters, watching Olivia’s face light up seeing Cinderella’s castle for the first time, and me ripping my pants trying to get Ean onto the Grand Prix cars ride. Yep, it was a dream come true.

Well, until we tried to get our laundry done at the resort before our trip home that is. Finding which washing machine worked was like being on a mystery-quiz game show and we gave up on the dryers after $10 and three hours of each just flipping our wet clothes around with no heating element. This led to us hanging wet clothes up on every available space inside our hotel room like Maw and Paw Kettle.

The next day, we started back on the road and did just fine, amidst a little more screaming from the kids, until we got to Baton Rouge. When we stopped for dinner our headlights went out on the Trailblazer, leaving us no option but to drive with our high beams on and follow ten feet behind diesel trucks so as not to blind oncoming traffic.

But even with all this, I still say it was all worth it. To totally forget about my job for an entire week made the entire trip worthwhile.

And I even got a picture of me with Goofy to prove it.