The Lengths We Go...

For an extra long chili cheese cony, that is! We had heard that they built a Sonic about 3 months ago in Puyalup(the city right by Mt. Rainier), which is about an hour away! Some guys Marvin worked with said they went on its opening weekend and waited 3 hours to get a spot to order food. We thought that was a bit much and thought we'd give it a chance to settle in and get boring for people. We miss Sonic greatly from SC and were chomping at the bit to figure out a reason for us to drive that far just for food. It just happens that we were needing to drive the Q train over to this side of the water. Perfect, it was ONLY 25 minutes out of our way! Perfectly logical to drive all 5 of our small, tired, hungry children 25 miles out of the way to get food...right? Marvin had duty Friday, so he wasn't getting home until 11:30. If we were going to eat lunch an hour away, we had to get in the car and head out as soon as he got home. Therefore it was my job to get the 5 munchkins dressed and ready and pack snacks, drinks, and clothes for an all day trip. We were going to check out a waterfall near Mt. Rainier while we were there(Marvin had never seen one before!). The kids helped get everything done.

Sarah's attempt at helping me by getting herself dressed!
Notice her jammies still on, dress backwards and one arm through the neck!

At least these guys are dressed correctly!

We left promptly at noon. The girls fell asleep on the way to Sonic(PERFECT!). That is about where the perfection ended, however. We were all so excited to eat Sonic, talking about it all the way there. We found it and drove into the parking lot, behind a line of about 4 other cars. The place was FULL, but we figured 4 cars wouldn't take too long. There was a woman sticking post it notes onto our windshield as we pulled up and she directed us through this little dirt path. When the path opened up, it allowed us to see a holding area where I kid you not, there were at least 20 other cars lined up in ropes and orange cones. It was CRAZY!!!!!! Crazier yet...Josh was in real underwear! Yep, I am COMPLETELY crazy! So, I took a couple pictures of our crazy predicament and took all three boys to the potty. We then just hung out in the car until it was finally our turn to move. Which was not as long as I had expected it to be!

The post it we got when we pulled into the parking lot...1:22pm

The organized holding area we found when the path opened up...

The inside of our vehicle wasn't anywhere near as organized...
Maybe I should take some pointers from the Sonic traffic crew!

The clock when we pulled into our slot to order...30 minutes...not too bad!

After we ate our food and got our ice cream(it was Sonic, after all), we set the GPS to what was listed as Victor Falls under Tourist Destinations. We drove 30 miles on these tiny winding, beautiful yet completely terrifying roads. At one point Sam yelled," Look, I think I can almost touch the sky!" I think he was right...but I was not scared at all, really. We got to where it said was our destination, but instead of Victor Falls, there was a housing development! It did have a fountain...to which Josh proclaimed, "There it is, I see it!!!!!!!!!!!" While excitedly pointing at the beautiful, yet not quite as grand as a waterfall fountain! I so wish I had had the presence of mind to take a picture! Priceless! Oh well, we turned around, and made our way back to the main road on our trip to the Q train.

We got there after lots of road songs and "fun" times. With 5 kids that were ready to run! They were all excited to see their old home away from home. They went straight for the toy box and touched everything in it, you know, before spreading each and every toy ALL over the camper I had spent hours cleaning before we parked it last winter! They played some and ran a little and just were generally excited to be unrestrained while I moved the car seats over and Marvin hitched the van to the back. Then, it was back on the road. It was getting ugly until we turned the mid drive movie on and Bambi kept everyone quiet the rest of our trip home. We had never been to the storage place, only talked to them on the phone. The brochure says, "easy access to highway, away from major streets for privacy". Sounds good, right. What they mean is, "drive up one lane roads over steep, curvy hills and hope you make it here alive!" Once we got there, we were just happy to be there. Parked it, transferred seats back into the van and fed my starving children cookies for dinner at almost 8pm while I filled out paperwork and paid for our spot. Somehow even the simple things become adventures for our family. I guess that is just the way we roll!

Abby was in slight shock after our adventure...
she looks about how I felt!

...but we are still smiling!