Wild Boy Vacay!
Hola Wild Boy followers. The few, the proud, the several of you who actually diligently read the blog...I appreciate you!
Here I sit, checking in after a little improvised get away with the Wild Boys this week. The cop went immediately from graveyard shifts to training down in Monterey, and I decided that we would join him to keep him company in the evenings (translation - the cop had a paid room in my all time favorite beach town and there was no way I wasn't crashing that party). Being as we head to this town quite a bit (like, enough that waiters at our favorite restaurants know us and Yelp actually thinks I live in Pacific Grove) I thought we'd totally mix things up this time to keep it lively.
Epic mistake peeps. Epic mistake.
First off, we usually stay in the same hotel every time which has family suites. The Wild Boys have become accustomed to a manner of travel that will necessitate them either getting well paying careers or marrying well. Because when they were told they'd be sharing a hotel room with me and the cop, and in fact sleeping on an air mattress, panic ensued. One room, one bathroom, and (GASP) one television...They weren't entirely sure they were going to make it. I pointed out there was a great heated pool and free cookies. They decided they would give it a try.
So after a few hours of pool time we walked down to dinner at our favorite teppanyaki joint overlooking the water. During which time the whole wild family went four for four on catching food in our mouths flung at us by our chef, thus shaming the family sharing a grill with us. They may not have been shamed immediately, but our high fives may have pushed that issue a bit. Oh well. Practice more at home people. We come to win.
After dinner the Wild Boys begged off some beach time. They absolutely promised they wouldn't be getting their clothes wet. Lies. But it was no surprise which is why I had invoked the sacred "pinky swear" that there would be no whining on the way back to the hotel. They held true with that. But that's where we fell apart for the evening.
Here I'd like to offer a brief, historical interlude. Readers, meet Peter Freuchen, Danish explorer and badass extraordinaire.
This dude explored the Arctic by dogsled. He got caught in an avalanche once and had to tunnel out of his icy tomb with a shank he made out of his own feces. He lost a foot to frostbite, and was willing to do the toes himself with pliers while waiting for treatment. He actually ANSWERED the $64,000 question correctly, wrote and starred in a movie about himself, and won AWARDS for it. He's epic, look it up. All this, and my kids couldn't make it ONE NIGHT on an air mattress.
I'm not kidding. The beauty of this is ONE hotel room means nobody sleeps, especially since we tracked in a layer of sand from our beach excursion which, when pinned between the air mattress and hard wood floor announced loudly every move the Wild Boys made, as if they weren't already doing it themselves. Then Gavin actually managed to make himself motion sick from tossing on the mattress. After several hours of nausea and crying we traded spots, he on the bed and me with Gabe on the air mattress. I'm a fool. But day one, survived.
Come the next morning, three hours of sleep later, and I was a very sore, very old fool. Who had already promised the Wild Boys we would bike around Monterey for a change of pace. It has literally been over a decade since my last bicycle ride. Turns out riding the bikes with them is a lot like walking with them, but faster. This means they basically get right in front of me, realize they absolutely have to tell me something right that second, and slam on the brakes (this, after an unfortunate incident where they realized they couldn't just turn their heads to yell at me on a crowded bike trail...but we apologized to that guy. Profusely. And he looked okay-ish when we left him...). All of this means that I literally rammed and ran over each kid several times. I stopped apologizing when I realized how much more I was getting injured then them. Regardless, we ended up biking nearly ten miles, and when I panicked about the blood all over Gabe's leg he assured me it was just chocolate (truth). Day two, survived.
The final day we decided to kick it in the park while waiting for the cop to get out of class and drive home with us. Turns out as awesome of a park as they have, it does NOT serve Bloody Mary's at the snack bar, and the mom's there are really judgy if they hear you ask about it. Mental note made. Fine. I realized if the ride home was going to be tolerable we'd have to get out a ton of energy first, and so we decided to try the pedal boats.
Only two people can pedal these boats and the boys SWORE they were up to it. That lasted five minutes (if that), at which point we steered to a hidden cove to switch operators since we weren't allowed to stand on the boats. They shouldn't stress that so much, because we were 100% capable of the standing switch. But in hiding to get in done we may or may not have run aground. Not as important...nobody needs to know... We ended up switching twice more, rotating everyone around and letting mom do the bulk of the pedaling for 90% of the time until we had about five minutes left, and both boys took control again with a new mission: to run down the swans.
I know, you think I'm a monster for allowing this. But hear me out. I was relatively sure they weren't going to catch them. I had also been chased by one of those stupid friggin' honkers the day prior on my bike. And lastly, I was pretty sure the geese could defend themselves. All of this was true, and we would have been fine, right up until a foreign family who had forked out the extra cash for the swan shaped pedal boat started our direction. At which point Gabe screamed something about his arch-nemesis and pointed, and he and Gavin started frantically pedaling full speed at them preparing to ram.
I don't know for sure what language they spoke. I know it wasn't English, and I know they had no idea what he yelled, but the intent was clearly translating just fine if their looks of panic were any indication. Wherever they were from, they were quick when they started pedaling for their lives. I eventually managed to take control of the steering and we returned the pedal boat. The other family, like the poor man on the bike trail, looked okay-ish. We seem to have left a large wake of that this trip.
We rounded out the day with Wild Boy style play in the park, before loading up and making the trek back home. Day three, survived.
And now we're back in La Casa de Testosterone, tired, sandy and happy. Until our next adventure, happy Wilding!
Here I sit, checking in after a little improvised get away with the Wild Boys this week. The cop went immediately from graveyard shifts to training down in Monterey, and I decided that we would join him to keep him company in the evenings (translation - the cop had a paid room in my all time favorite beach town and there was no way I wasn't crashing that party). Being as we head to this town quite a bit (like, enough that waiters at our favorite restaurants know us and Yelp actually thinks I live in Pacific Grove) I thought we'd totally mix things up this time to keep it lively.
Epic mistake peeps. Epic mistake.
First off, we usually stay in the same hotel every time which has family suites. The Wild Boys have become accustomed to a manner of travel that will necessitate them either getting well paying careers or marrying well. Because when they were told they'd be sharing a hotel room with me and the cop, and in fact sleeping on an air mattress, panic ensued. One room, one bathroom, and (GASP) one television...They weren't entirely sure they were going to make it. I pointed out there was a great heated pool and free cookies. They decided they would give it a try.
So after a few hours of pool time we walked down to dinner at our favorite teppanyaki joint overlooking the water. During which time the whole wild family went four for four on catching food in our mouths flung at us by our chef, thus shaming the family sharing a grill with us. They may not have been shamed immediately, but our high fives may have pushed that issue a bit. Oh well. Practice more at home people. We come to win.
After dinner the Wild Boys begged off some beach time. They absolutely promised they wouldn't be getting their clothes wet. Lies. But it was no surprise which is why I had invoked the sacred "pinky swear" that there would be no whining on the way back to the hotel. They held true with that. But that's where we fell apart for the evening.
Here I'd like to offer a brief, historical interlude. Readers, meet Peter Freuchen, Danish explorer and badass extraordinaire.
This dude explored the Arctic by dogsled. He got caught in an avalanche once and had to tunnel out of his icy tomb with a shank he made out of his own feces. He lost a foot to frostbite, and was willing to do the toes himself with pliers while waiting for treatment. He actually ANSWERED the $64,000 question correctly, wrote and starred in a movie about himself, and won AWARDS for it. He's epic, look it up. All this, and my kids couldn't make it ONE NIGHT on an air mattress.
I'm not kidding. The beauty of this is ONE hotel room means nobody sleeps, especially since we tracked in a layer of sand from our beach excursion which, when pinned between the air mattress and hard wood floor announced loudly every move the Wild Boys made, as if they weren't already doing it themselves. Then Gavin actually managed to make himself motion sick from tossing on the mattress. After several hours of nausea and crying we traded spots, he on the bed and me with Gabe on the air mattress. I'm a fool. But day one, survived.
Come the next morning, three hours of sleep later, and I was a very sore, very old fool. Who had already promised the Wild Boys we would bike around Monterey for a change of pace. It has literally been over a decade since my last bicycle ride. Turns out riding the bikes with them is a lot like walking with them, but faster. This means they basically get right in front of me, realize they absolutely have to tell me something right that second, and slam on the brakes (this, after an unfortunate incident where they realized they couldn't just turn their heads to yell at me on a crowded bike trail...but we apologized to that guy. Profusely. And he looked okay-ish when we left him...). All of this means that I literally rammed and ran over each kid several times. I stopped apologizing when I realized how much more I was getting injured then them. Regardless, we ended up biking nearly ten miles, and when I panicked about the blood all over Gabe's leg he assured me it was just chocolate (truth). Day two, survived.
The final day we decided to kick it in the park while waiting for the cop to get out of class and drive home with us. Turns out as awesome of a park as they have, it does NOT serve Bloody Mary's at the snack bar, and the mom's there are really judgy if they hear you ask about it. Mental note made. Fine. I realized if the ride home was going to be tolerable we'd have to get out a ton of energy first, and so we decided to try the pedal boats.
Only two people can pedal these boats and the boys SWORE they were up to it. That lasted five minutes (if that), at which point we steered to a hidden cove to switch operators since we weren't allowed to stand on the boats. They shouldn't stress that so much, because we were 100% capable of the standing switch. But in hiding to get in done we may or may not have run aground. Not as important...nobody needs to know... We ended up switching twice more, rotating everyone around and letting mom do the bulk of the pedaling for 90% of the time until we had about five minutes left, and both boys took control again with a new mission: to run down the swans.
I know, you think I'm a monster for allowing this. But hear me out. I was relatively sure they weren't going to catch them. I had also been chased by one of those stupid friggin' honkers the day prior on my bike. And lastly, I was pretty sure the geese could defend themselves. All of this was true, and we would have been fine, right up until a foreign family who had forked out the extra cash for the swan shaped pedal boat started our direction. At which point Gabe screamed something about his arch-nemesis and pointed, and he and Gavin started frantically pedaling full speed at them preparing to ram.
I don't know for sure what language they spoke. I know it wasn't English, and I know they had no idea what he yelled, but the intent was clearly translating just fine if their looks of panic were any indication. Wherever they were from, they were quick when they started pedaling for their lives. I eventually managed to take control of the steering and we returned the pedal boat. The other family, like the poor man on the bike trail, looked okay-ish. We seem to have left a large wake of that this trip.
We rounded out the day with Wild Boy style play in the park, before loading up and making the trek back home. Day three, survived.
And now we're back in La Casa de Testosterone, tired, sandy and happy. Until our next adventure, happy Wilding!
You deserve a day at the spa after that. Tell Chris to take the wild boys for a day so you can get in some spa time!!
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