Sunday - Day 147 - Patience to Bang Snaps

When things do not go as planned on vacation, it would be extremely easy to get upset and let it ruin the entire day.  Another option is to look at the problem as a minor inconvenience and have confidence the day may unfold differently, but by no means will it be dictated by the issue at hand.  

 
We needed to pick up our crazy cool mini van today to haul all our kids through four United States, however the car rental place was not cooperating.

We had a long line to wait in and was told, by the very apologetic gentleman, our car was not on site and it would be an hour until it was ready.  An hour turned into over three hours of waiting and returning to the care rental office two more times.

John, our fearless, fatherly leader, set the best example for our kids.  He did not get upset and was not angry, he was polite and cordial, and we made a conscious decision to make the best of the unexpected turn in our day.  We took time to go window shopping and stopped at a coffee shop.  Ty threw a water bottle, knocking over John's coffee which spilled onto Marcella's leg.  Her only pair of pants were now wet and stinky.  Marcella was having quite the day.

Even with the tiny bit of chaos, we enjoyed our time together.  Ty ran around the car rental place, the kids waited with patience and did not once complain while James played with the free brochures.

We were compensated generously for our inconvenience, our little silver lining on our minor delay.  We went on to hike a couple of miles in Muir Woods National Park.  It was totally worth the wait.  And although parking was a beast, so late in the day, it became a game of who would we chase down for their parking spot.  And we poked fun at how long people took to change shoes and finally pull out of their parking space, "TODAY People!"

The hike was beautiful and we spontaneously took a family photo by one of the trees.  We would always remember the happiness we felt that day and how close we were as a family, chatting and being silly on our hike together.  It was a good day and when we thought the day could not get any better it did.

 In Muir Woods

We rode down Lombard Street, the crookedest road in the world.  There was an enormous amount of traffic and John became a true New York style driver, aggressively staking his claim to his place in line.  It was entertaining to watch, especially in our fierce mini van.  

Driving down Lombard street was totally worth wild.  We were in many home videos as Ty waved from his car seat, yelling "Hi!" to everyone on the street walking down.

We took the kids to Chinatown for dinner and they ate like starving children, not one morsel of food went to waste.  The lazy susan in the middle of the table proved a successful addition to our family of seven's eating ritual.

We window shopped a bit, grabbed a little chinese dessert and a few boxes of bang snaps, (poppers) for our walk back to the crazy car.  I'm not sure who liked those little snappy things more, James or Ty.  Ty cracked up with each snap.  James was throwing them on everything and anything he could find. The older kids enjoyed the novelty just as much, especially Jack.  There is nothing like a few bang snaps to entertain our children of all ages.  

Our day may have started rocky, but upon reflection it unfolded exactly as it should have.  My fortune cookie said it beautifully, "Patience will remedy any problem."