It's the most wonderful time of the year

We're off.  We are leaving our menagerie to our good friends and trusty pet/housesitters (good luck with Natani, guys, and sorry) and hitting the road.

she is up to no good
and has recently decided carpet is the same thing as grass
so an appropriate place to pee.
We have agreed to disagree on that one.

Alex is coming along on the Mother/Children Road Trip this year. I think he feels the need to keep an eye on me, make sure I don't bring home another dog.  I wonder if he's going to cramp my style.  He better not demand I find a Starbucks in the middle of the Tetons like he did a few years ago.  If he pulls that crap, I am making that man walk home. I SAID GOOD DAY, SIR.

The trip is long and winding through the Western U.S. as always, only this time I will have a co-pilot who is going to make progress challenging with his requests to stop every twenty minutes to "just have a look around." He is the king of turning a 12-hour drive into a 24-hour drive.

Forgive my Alex anxiety.  Alex is my life partner, my companion on the journey, and I love him.  But since I've usually done this trip with just the kids, and we have a well established system and agreed upon ways of doing things (such as taking puppies out of deserts) I'm a bit wary.  I keep saying things like, "You understand we wake up every morning before sunrise because our favorite rides happen at sunrise, yeah?" and he responds, "OK, just as long as we can sleep in!" I don't think he's hearing me.

The road trip is my baby and, sadly, Alex is not its daddy.

In other news, the school year finally ended.  Welcome to the End of School Year Paper Explosion --

I don't like the day the teachers tell the kids to clean out their desks and take it all home to mom. Trust it, mom doesn't want it.  That recycle bin is looking awfully lonely in that classroom corner, though.

There's a giant Dora doll in the picture.  Lucien's class had pajama day during the last week of school and were told they could bring in their favorite stuffie to complete the look.  Lucien doesn't have a favorite stuffie anymore so instead dug through Coco's toys to find "something funny."  He chose giant Dora and carried her under his arm all day at school.  He got the laughs he was looking for.

In scary news, Dora had an accident later that day when she apparently fell down the stairs while home alone.  I found her like this.  She's going to be OK, thankfully I got there in the nick of time.

So we'll be gone for awhile.  Maybe I'll update this blog along the way.  I hope so.  Road Trips are always such interesting things -- and now I'll have the added excitement of fighting with Alex over the radio knobs.

Apologies for this brief post.  I wish I had more time to spend on it but that RV isn't going to clean and pack itself.  I would have paid a bazillion more dollars for one that did.

Good luck with all our crazy animals, friends.
MJ