Now That Its Over, It Was Great!

Its pretty much always better in retrospect.

Quite a while back, well almost 3 years now anyway, Jeff and I decided that in order to have some family experiences with four kids that we'd just have to brave it. Our thinking was that the kids will remember the good times. They remember the places we went and the things we did. Jeff and I would remember how much the trips actually sucked.

So we went for it. We did a family camping trip when the twins were 4 months old. I have no idea how old that made Holden and Oliver... 5 and 3 1/2? It was hard, but not impossible. We sure packed a lot of stuff. Giant tent, 2 pack n plays, baby accoutrement's...we did it though.

We camp at least once each summer, we try to make it to Tahoe to see snow during ski week. Its not always easy. It often is incredibly awful. But when its all over we're always glad we tried it.

We decided to go to Safari West for Thanksgiving. ( http://www.safariwest.com). We looked into Bolinas, Mendocino, anyplace nearby where we might play in tide pools and spend a night away somewhere. But nothing was available. If it was available they'd be happy to charge us for an entire week. Um.. no, thanks. So we decided we'd try Safari West and we'd spend the night in an African tent.

I anticipated that the food would be bad. I accepted that before we got there. I made pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins, cranberry orange sauce. I am going to have some food that is good on Thanksgiving. I just am. I packed coffee, tea, hot chocolate, crackers, pretzels. I had paper cups, wine, champagne, sparkling apple juice.

We hit horrible traffic on our drive north. 10 miles an hour through Novato and into Petaluma. The kids didn't care. They are usually pretty good in the car.

We finally arrived and had to park waaay down in a lower lot. Other people began to arrive. They were armed with mom jeans, safari themed vests, jungle print clothing. Uh oh.

We checked in and walked around a bit. I started getting nervous about our lack of warm clothing.

Dinner was buffet style. Buffet style means disaster in our family. We had assigned seating. They called our table. I went up and collected 6 heavy plates and attempted to pile the top plate with as much as it would hold, while balancing 6 rolled napkins filled with cutlery. Oliver had a fit that I'd left and ran screaming and crying to find me, narrowly missing being badly burned by the freestanding heat cylinders.

The man behind me noted my plight. " I have been wondering how you are going to manage that." He offered.

" So have I!" I replied.

I teetered back to our table and tried to cut turkey and dole out portions of bad cornbread and gummy stuffing.
I tried to go back to get salads. Oliver freaked out again and came tearing through the dining room shrieking. We were a hit.
There were no beverages for children other than soda. We requested milk. They brought 3 milks for our 4 children and that took about 15 of the longest minutes ever. Laurel spilled hers. Of course. Griffin whined and cried and moaned.

The staff then started doling out pie. Apparently we were not to be given choices. Some people got dry apple, some got institutional pumpkin. I asked for a candle for Holden's, since it was his actual birthday. He was half way through his pie when they showed up with a candle. Everyone in the room sang, which Holden secretly LOVED.

Griffin whined and cried and moaned.

Oliver waited for his chocolate cake. And he waited. There was no birthday cake???? What???

Oliver SCREAMED

Oliver YELLED

Oliver SHRIEKED

There were tears and snot and resounding echoes and yet no cake appeared.

Oliver loudly sang to himself " Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Oliver, happy birthday to you. Oh my cake! CAAAAKKKKE!"

Oliver was distraught. People at our table laughed. Well, one woman glared, but the others all laughed.

Finally the wretched dinner was over. We grabbed our bottle of wine and began the maneuver through the dining room and around the freestanding danger heaters.

Griffin whined and cried and moaned.

We headed back to our tent. It was getting dark. And cold.

Somehow it never occurred to me that luxury African tent = freeze your butt off. Canvas walls aren't known for their insulation. It was COLD.

Griffin whined and cried and moaned.

Jeff and I drank wine in Dora Dixie cups while we waited for staff to arrive with our futons. The staff was surprised that we had 6 people when we are only allowed 5 in a tent. I assured them that I had told them when we made our reservations. I had, they had said it was OK. The futons didn't really fit in there but we shoved them on either sides of the beds. We figured the kids would be warmest sleeping together and if they fell off the high beds they'd fall on us. Perfect... kind of.

Listening to the animals was pretty amazing. Something kept me up all night and I have no idea what it was. Some musical sounding beast from the Savannah. Holden awoke around 3 am.

" I'm just a little worried about the animals right outside our tent".

I assured him they would not be coming in. Animals aren't allowed in tents.

Eventually everyone shivered themselves into fitful sleep and we all awoke to our usual game of musical beds. We all kind of shift around for a while until its clear that everyone is in fact awake, and has been for a while.

It was too cold to get dressed so we layered more clothing over our pajamas. Griffin whined and cried and moaned. Soon enough it was time for the buffet. More screaming and protesting and yelling and near burn misses. Trails of chewed on English muffins and 1/2 eaten croissants, 1/2 tubs of yogurt, unfinished fruit salad, congealed oatmeal, and unfinished lukewarm apple cider remained in our wake as we left the buffet.

We went on a tour of the animals again. Griffin whined and cried and moaned. They were giving the porcupines their breakfast. The porcupines ran to the handlers. Running porcupines are funny.

Griffin whined and yelled and screamed and refused to come with us.

We visited the lemurs. They screeched and yelled and hollered and we told Holden they were singing happy birthday to him. A man nearby concurred that that was in fact lemur for happy birthday. Holden looked proud.
" Monkey!" announced Griffin, briefly pulling himself away from his whining.

"Lemur" we corrected.

" Weee mur" he concurred.
Then he returned to his protesting and whining.

We visited the small fox creature. " A mouse!" Laurel cried with delight.

We visited some other bizarre creature that was intent on licking small fingers.

Griffin whined and cried and moaned.

We went to see the giraffes. There was a large giraffe near the fence. Oliver smiled. The giraffe bent down. The giraffe nuzzled Oliver. Nuzzled Oliver. Oliver fed the giraffe a leaf. A handler came by and told us not to let him do that and not to get too close. I did nothing. This was fascinating. Oliver fed the giraffe again. I took pictures. Oliver was soo happy.

We stayed with the giraffes for a bit then headed back to pack up our stuff. Oliver ran out of our tent. " Want to see giraffe!"

Well, he told us. Thats huge. We bribed him back to our tent with pumpkin muffins which gave me enough time to pack up our things. Then we went to visit Oliver's friends again. Oliver found some choice leaves for his new buddies.

Eventually the giraffes went further into their pen which allowed us to go check out. Griffin screamed and moaned and yelled.

The drive back wasn't too horrendous.

Looking back on it I remember this fantastic adventure in which Oliver somehow drew giraffes to him. An adventure in which my children fed giraffes. How amazing is that? I almost forgot about the cold and the whining and the tantrums. These family adventures are wonderful in retrospect. They are just not so great while you are experiencing them.