Road Trip: Take 2

Two of my friends from college (Matt and Kerrie) are now married and residing in London. They have three kids ranging in age from 6 to 12. The family rented a large house in Orlando and had a few extra rooms they weren't using. They decided to share the space with old friends so they could reconnect and enjoy the Disney World parks together. Unfortunately, those old friends weren't available at the time. So, Matt and Kerrie contacted all their other friends to see if there was any interest in sharing a house with them and going to Disney. Their plan was to go during a week when most kids are in school, though, so every friend they asked was forced to turn them down. Desperate to find someone to share the week with them, Matt and Kerrie put an ad on Craigslist and offered to pay any family to stay with them in Orlando that week. Even homeless families. But there were no takers, and after exhausting every possible avenue, the couple reluctantly asked us to join them in Florida. Without a moment's thought for her educational future, we decided to pull Grace out of school and immediately began planning our drive down. Like it or not, the Liebenow's were crashing their Disney party!!

So, I needed a plan for potentially long days walking around the Disney parks with no access to my Vitamix to make my meals. I decided to store all of my breakfasts and a couple dinners in Blender Bottles. The rest of my meals--the ones I'd be eating in the park--would be Real Food Blends. The day before we left, I spent a couple hours preparing my blends. The breakfasts were a mix of hard boiled eggs, sunflower butter, almond butter, frozen mixed fruit, goat yogurt, and green tea. The dinners were leftovers from a chicken, radish and carrot meal I'd made the night before, along with the rest of my frozen fruit. I filled up all of my blender bottles:

Blender bottles are the perfect size for my meals

The bottles were packed in a couple small coolers. I also packed my Vitamix for the other dinners we shared with Matt and Kerrie plus clothes, meds, and my suction machine to clean errant drool out of my mouth before bed--ah, how I miss the days when I only needed one small suitcase for a trip like this. I threw Betsy' and Grace's crap in an old grocery bag (because this trip was all about Team-Brian; who cares what they packed??) and we set out on our journey.

This is the beginning of the trip; that's why she's smiling

Just for fun, we took her to an abandoned warehouse and told her it was Disney World

We set out in the afternoon on Friday. The plan was to drive down to Katie's ("Hey Brian, watcha doin") house in Atlanta, spend the night, then drive the rest of the way on Saturday. The drive down was perfect! No traffic AT ALL. I've never had such an easy drive in my life!!!

Or maybe it looked like this. I'm trying to repress those memories.

Yeah, we were stuck on the Interstate for a few hours and I saw an old man with a walker race by our car. Since it looked like we wouldn't get to Atlanta until late, we decided to stop at a Wafflehouse so Betsy and Grace could eat and I could get one of my blended dinners.

The restaurant was way too crowded, so I told everyone I had Ebola (too soon?)

Fortunately, the next day went pretty smoothly. I got up, had my breakfast blend along with some coffee, and we hit the road. The drive was about seven hours. Halfway down, I had a Real Food Blend at a gas station along the Interstate.

It's much more fun when I do this while I'm driving

We reached Orlando in the afternoon and picked up Grace's older cousin, Julie. She had Monday off from school and her parents (Betsy's sister and brother-in-law) asked if we could bring her to Disney with us for a couple days. Grace was extremely excited that Julie would be joining us!

They began bickering shortly after this photo...they never stopped

A few words about Julie.

Julie is a genius.

I don't mean 'genius' like when I tell people I'm a genius after I've figured out how to put together a piece of Ikea furniture. Sure, it's an achievement. But needing five hours to realize I had it upside down the whole time probably doesn't mean I get to join Mensa.

No, Julie is an actual genius. She recently had her IQ tested and she's up there in the 145 range. She goes to a special gifted and talented school. She is, for all intents and purposes, a smarty-pants. That's what makes the following story so intriguing. Is 'intriguing' the right word? Frightening? Bizarre? Stinky? You be the judge.

When we were living in Colorado, we took care of Julie for a few months in 2007. She was a cute, little two-year old girl doing cute little two-year old things.

What an adorable little angel!!! (Julie's kinda cute too)

She was still sleeping in a crib and we had a hell of a time getting her to lay down for naps during the day. Normally what we ended up doing was put her up in her room then close the door for a couple hours of 'quiet time'. She would just play in her room and no one had any delusions she was doing any sleeping.

Then, one day, I guess she got bored or decided to branch out with her artistic talents. We walked in to find this:

Wait...where did she get mud? What's that awful smell?? Oh my God!!!

No, that's not mud on her crib. The little angel decided to use all material at hand for her art, including the clay-like substance she produced in her diaper. We walked in to a God-awful stench with poop all over the crib, in every conceivable hard-to-reach spot, on the walls. She even climbed out of the crib to decorate the rest of her room. We stood there, stupefied, and tried to take in the sight, the smell, the shear magnitude of the cleaning job in our near future. Julie, just stood and smiled proudly, looking over her handiwork with pride as though it was a quilt she'd been working on that she could finally show off to the rest of the family. She softly uttered one simple word:

"poop"

Part of her handiwork included rubbing feces on some of her toys. Julie had a little dollhouse with dolls representing Aunt Betsy, Uncle Brian, and little baby Julie. I noticed that Aunt Betsy and baby Julie were completely clean while Uncle Brian had poop smeared all over him; as though Julie took particular satisfaction in dousing her dear sweet Uncle with her own excrement.

.

Poor, poor Uncle Brian

What did we learn here? What's the lesson to take away from this story? Geniuses need an outlet for their creativity, and they obviously need sufficient materials or they'll be forced to devise their own art supplies with less than desirable results. We've also learned that my sweet, angelic niece would like nothing more than to rub shit all over me. Don't believe me? Just take a look back at Uncle Brian up there. A good, long look.

Like staring in a mirror--a grimy, crap-filled mirror

So, we finally made it to Orlando, got into our beautiful house, and met Matt and Kerrie's awesome kids. Grace and Matt's youngest child started playing outside and didn't stop playing until they were thoroughly exhausted and needed to come inside for bedtime.

Or maybe they just sat on the couch and played Minecraft

We were ready to start our Disney adventure! Then, that night, the most astounding thing happened. Every person in that house in Orlando came close to death, met alien life forms, and had the most amazing experience that anyone has ever gone through in the history of our species. It all started when--

To Be Continued...

(I've always wanted to do that)