The one time utter chaos manages to pay off

A week ago, my husband got news that he was headed to Germany this week for work.  Unfortunately, it also meant that due to an acute lack of child care, that I wasn't going to be able to attend the Casual Blogger's Conference this weekend.  After a suitable period of mourning, I decided that rather than spend all week staring at the walls and going stir-crazy alone with my three wild children, that I would pack them all up in the van and head down to my parents' cabin in Torrey.  Better scenery, two extra adults to help corral the crazies, and a change of pace would be good ideas all the way around.

While I was nervous about the drive alone with them, everything went relatively well, until we hit the tiny town of Bicknell, UT, about 5 or so miles from Torrey.  Max, who had adamently refused to nap the whole trip, decided that he was done.  Done with the carseat, done with our feeble attempts to entertain him, done.  And then he commenced the shrieking. 

Then Ashlynn decided she was done listening to Max scream, and decided to start screaming at Max to stop screaming.  As you can imagine, this was incredibly effective.   Then Abby started yelling at them both.  More effectiveness.  I started chanting "Five more minutes, five more minutes," in my head.

Then I looked up to see red and blue flashing lights in my rearview mirror.

After uttering a minor four-letter word, calmly and cooly pulling over, the very nice Wayne County Sherriff approached my window.  I very honestly had no idea what I had done, but guessed that I probably hadn't been watching my speed. 

Sure enough, the very nice officer had clocked me going 11 over in the middle of Bicknell, and then trailed me for a few miles.  *gulp*  I was obviously paying very close attention to my driving!

Lucky for me, this is the one and only instance where the Armaggedon going on in my van actually worked to my benefit.  I explained to the officer that I was a little distracted by the screaming which Max was so generously still demonstrating.  Ashlynn, who has a terrible fear of police officers, had stopped yelling and was cowering in the backseat.

The officer chuckled when I told him about my two screamers, and then took a look and said, "And you have one on the way, you must be a glutton for punishment. You probably are just anxious to get there and get out of the car,"  I laughed at that, agreeing whole-heartedly, despite being slightly horrified that at 12 weeks pregnant, I'm showing enough for a perfect stranger to comment on it! 

He took a look at my driver's liscense for a second, then handed it back to me, and said "Just make sure you watch your speed from here on out."   I was a little surprised that he didn't even run my liscense, then realized he probably went home to tell his wife about the crazy lady in the red minivan with the screaming kids that he pulled over.  For once, I was glad to have someone feel sorry for me.

I'm proud to report that I didn't go a single mile over the speed limit all the way to Torrey. 

And now, for some gratuitous cute Torrey pictures.

This is the first trip we've had where Max hasn't been incredibly scared of the four-wheelers.

I even took him for a little 5 mph ride around the property.  Don't judge.  He loved it.  And this is Wayne county, where not teaching your child to ride a four-wheeler is considered child abuse.

Falling in the giant mud puddle was not so much fun, however.