Things here at the Funkhouser residence have been a little out of control lately. And, by “little out of control”, I mean that I just scraped a peanut butter and jelly sandwich off the ceiling fan, I’m three hairs shy of applying for Locks of Love, and Molly left a note on my pillow last week that read; “THIS wasn’t part of the deal. Peace out.” I found her later gnawing on a bird’s wing in the backyard. I believe she learned a valuable lesson that day – The ear pulling and eye poking may suck, but the extra table scraps are out of this world.

I woke up Saturday morning to my usual alarm – ball bouncing on the wood floor and blaring cartoons. I prefer waking up to “80’s Gold”, but even Blondie won’t get up that early. I crawled out of bed, picked up my littlest of little darlings, whom we have now deemed “The Little Devil” for reasons previously explained here, and headed downstairs.

Then, somewhere between yelling at Sophie to put my tampons back under the sink and Hunter to put his pants on somewhere other than the middle of the hallway, I had an epiphany. All while sitting on the toilet and in the time it took to relieve my newly developed pea-sized bladder, mind you. I’m a multi-tasker.

I’m not sure if it was so much an epiphany as it was my sanity sending out a desperate cry for help, but one way or the other, I got the message. I sent my dearly beloved, who was already gone for the morning, a text message that said; “I’m packing your shit. Get ready to fly”, threw a few clothes in a bag, loaded the kids up, and got the hell out of dodge for the weekend. We were off to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, to spin and puke and eat sugar ‘til the kids are hanging from the ferris wheel at Silverwood amusement park.

This was all fine and good, but I was a smidge misguided in our adventure. I was told Coeur d’Alene is about 3 hours from here. Wrong. Its seven and a half hours, actually, which was discovered at about the 4 hour mark. Take that 7 ½, raise a one year old and then throw a four year old on the table and you’ve got 10. Each way.

Ah what the hell, I was in the mood to spew pink cotton candy all over the place and no one was gonna take that from me. We pulled into our hotel at about 10 o’clock that night, set up shop, and laid awake ‘til 3 in the morning listening to Sophie (who had just taken a good long nap in the car) scream in protest over not being in her bed.

Promptly at 6 am, Hunter decided he would like to put on a show that consisted of singing, dancing, and jumping on the bed. Fuck. Breakfast time.

Finally, despite the now grey sky and sprinkling rain outside, we were off to the park. I held my breath and squeezed my cheeks together all 38 miles from the hotel to Silverwood. Rained out. Fuck.

On the way back to town, we passed a boat dock where it appeared there might be a tour about to happen. I assumed this from the groups of people boarding with fanny packs and Zinka on their noses. I’m very intuitive. Do they serve lunch? Next thing I know, the fam –dam and I are off on a 6 hour boat ride, sitting at a cafeteria table, eating fried chicken and coleslaw. Damn good fried chicken, too.

The ride was a blast, and the mini-golf that followed was one hell of a ride, too. Scott got his ass kicked. No, seriously. The guy playing mini-golf behind us hit Scott in the ass with his balls. Totally inappropriate.

On the way home, we hit up a ridiculously amazing steak house in Grangeville called Ernie’s. Let me tell you, Ernie can cook one hell of a chicken. Back on the road after letting the kids run their little hearts out on Ernie’s lawn.

We finally made it home around midnight. After tucking the kids in and listening to Molly’s several choice words for leaving her behind, I hit the pillow and set my alarm clock to wake up when Blondie did. Bouncing balls and blaring cartoons beat her too it, though. Of course. Home again, home again, jigidy jig.