My Old Kentucky Home

I think one of the functions of motherhood is to keep you grounded.  Like even though, at one time, you may have considered yourself socially acceptable, cool even, motherhood, among many things, exists to keep you humble.

We returned very late Monday night from our quick trip to Kentucky, which I will get to in a moment.  But that Tuesday morning came very early.  Too early for exhausted bodies who had struggled without their own beds for the past few nights.

I decided to let Ava sleep in a little before taking her to school.  She needed only to be there by 9am to not be considered absent.

Luke's carpool doesn't come until 8:45 so I figured once he got picked up, if I had everyone ready, we could hop in the car and get Ava there just in time.

But the best laid plans always turn to crap, right?

I can't even remember what went wrong.  Ava was crying. Max was in his threadbare Darth Vader costume with a hole in the knee.  This one.

With no shirt underneath and the waist seam gaping so that his toy story underwear was clearly visible.  He also wore his rain boots, on the wrong feet.  And his hair was sticking up.

At the last minute, I agreed to take a friend's two year old while she ran to the dentist for an emergent tooth issue.  Apparently, she was unable to brush her daughter's hair before she dropped her off (not judging, obviously) because that tiny girl had about two extra feet of height just from the bedhead.

And poor little Finn wailed in his carseat in a the same stinky, spit up covered sleeper he'd worn the day before, hungry.

It was with this entourage, in that state, we ended up rushing into the school at 9:05am. Oh yeah, I was in the same striped pj pants and t shirt that I'd worn to bed. But dad-gum it! I was going to get Ava to school that day if it killed me, because avoiding more absences had dictated the entire schedule of our trip.

We flooded into the office, a tired, dirty woman, with too many scraggy looking children, filling it to capacity, as all the little secretaries sat at their desks, in their Ann Taylor outfits and looked at us in wonder.

The attendance clerk had mercy on us, and let Ava go with a tardy.  As we waited to get checked in, I could feel the rays of eyeballs on us, and I tried to go to my happy place in my mind.  Twelve years ago, I never would have seen myself here, like this.  Yes, crystal blue water and white sand, was more like it.

I walked out of the school with the car seat on my arm, Finn still crying, and children trailing behind.  When I got to the van I had to sit there for a moment. What just happened? I remembered a friend long ago explaining how her mother of six, always made it a point to dress smartly when she went to the school so she didn't perpetuate the idea that large families can't take care of themselves. I guess I just blew that one, I thought.

But, Kentucky.  I think I was slightly delusion when I planned this one.  Vacation with a 6 week old, is hardly a vacation.  It's more like extra work in a different location.

My heart has been longing to go there for a long time now.  And I wanted to bring the kids and show them the places that held spots in my memory.  I wanted them to visit Mimi in her home, even though it was not the home of my memories.

I flew out with the 3 boys on Thursday.  Dan and Ava would follow on Friday (a school holiday) so that she would not miss school as she would have if she'd flown Thursday (see why I HAD to have her to school on Tuesday?) and Dan could stand not to miss work as well. He took her on a date Thursday evening to Medieval Times where she had the night of her life!

My adventure with the boys was just that, but not because they weren't almost perfectly behaved.  They were.  Thank goodness.  But after a series of delays and being re-routed, I flew to Houston to wait out another delay only to be told at boarding to Lexington that we didn't actually have seats on the plane. I cried.

But we made it on, standby style, and arrived in Kentucky that evening.  Dan and Ava had a much less exciting trip.

The trip was hard, I'm not gonna lie. Good, but hard. We did get out and see a few of the places that were high on my list.  Each one of these places is like a part of my childhood.

We drove out to our old house.  Hard to see from the road, but beautiful just the same.

And past Champagne Run, where many hours were spent atop horses jumping here,

and here,

Mimi met Finn,

And because the kids kept each other up all night we saw this scene a few times,

Overall, we enjoyed spending time together.

Feeding the geese at the cemetery

Cassius Clay's house (not Muhammed Ali)

Magee's Bakery

It should be illegal to go to Lexington and not visit Magee's.

I came here when it was half the size.  Now it is bigger and serves the best veggie omelet I've ever had.

Natural Bridge

I think this was everyone's highlight.  They all loved the ski lift, which was just the right balance of scary and thrilling. We rode it up and hiked down.

Finn hiked in the sling.

You walk along what looks like an innocent stone path,

Until you get to the bottom and realize you just walked over the top of this bridge,

We knew the kids had a great time because they said so and because they looked like this soon after we got back to the car.

The Kentucky Horse Park

We spent our last day here.

 

I saw the biggest horse I have ever seen in my life.  When the announcer said over the speaker system that this horse was 19 hands tall (6'4" at the shoulder) I thought it was the horse version of an exaggerated basketball roster.  

But sure enough, after the show when you were able to pet the horses, it was easy to see that was no exaggeration!

The boys took pony rides.

Dan took Finn and looked pretty legit as a baby wearing dad.

And Ava and took a nice trail ride. We both had a great time, though I now know the meaning of the words "saddle sore" better than I ever have before and that makes me feel old.

When our ride was over we headed to the airport where we would all fly home together. The trip felt really fast, many people and places still unseen, but we were tired and it wasn't too hard to say goodbye espcially because Mimi was going to ride back to Texas with my mom after they dropped us off.

We had uneventful flights and we got home late Monday night.

    Tuesday morning came too early, as you well know, and we already know how that worked out.