Boxed Wine & A Bucket of Chicken

A few summers ago, some girlfriends and I had the stellar idea to spend an evening at the beach. Complete with boxed wine and a bucket of chicken from KFC. Laugh all you want, but people thought we were brilliant when they saw that we removed the bag of wine from the box and placed it into the sound to keep it chilled! It was such a fun and relaxing night, even if we had to pee in the woods. We vowed to do it annually.

Fast forward to circa now. Well yesterday to be exact. The kids and I head down to the beach to meet my Sister Wife for our fun filled evening of chicken, boxed wine, and park playtime. Easy right? Wrong!!! This particular area has recently been upgraded to a spray park with a nice playground, which I have never been to. We park and wait for wife to show. Turns out we parked in the wrong spot, far away from where we needed to be. Literally over the river and through the woods. This is important to remember as I continue on with what unfolded over the next 5 minutes, which felt like a mini lifetime.

Girls start to fight because they are stepping on each others shadows on the sidewalk. One spits on the other. I do nothing about it because I am mid text to Sister Wife trying to figure out where she is and where we need to be. Random passerby stares because Leah let out a Gremlin grunt. It's past feeding time for all of us so tensions are starting to rise and I felt a kid meltdown coming on if I didn't let their grimy little hands into that bucket of chicken ASAP! Just as I figure out where we need to be, I see two ladies walking my way in long skirts and I just know......

Skirts- "Hi there. We are with the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."

Me- Loooooonnnngggg silent pause. Like LLLLLLOOOOONNNNG pause. Not to be rude, I just thought they were going to continue on with their spiel. They didn't. We stared for a minute and finally I just said. "Oh, that's nice."

Skirts- "We would love to discuss the word of Jesus Christ and invite you to hear more about it."

(Leah grunts, and Kaelyn starts tugging on my arm. I hear her say Mommy, I don't feel good.)

Me- I'm sorry but we are running late for dinner and my daughter just said she isn't feeling too hot,  so we have to go.

Skirts- "Well we just wanted to inform you, and invite you....... " They were suddenly cut off by my kid.

Kaelyn- "Mommy I think I'm going to throw up!"

We start walking away. I really don't believe that Kaelyn is sick since she was fine all day prior. I thought she was just doing me a solid with the skirts and saw the hunger in my eyes, knowing I needed my hand in that bucket of chicken ASAP as well. The skirts start trailing behind me, man these chicks are relentless! That's when Kaelyn puked. I didn't notice at first, because I was trying to get over the river and through the woods to my dinner. Then she puked again. So there we were.... A manic Mother figure, a Gremlin, and a puke walker. All being stalked by the LDS skirt girls. If the big man was going to throw down a bucket of chicken and some baby wipes for clean up, maybe their conversation could've continued on a bit longer. But sick kids and hunger trump sidewalk chats about religion ladies.

We finally reach our destination, and the kids magically decide they aren't hungry. How sweet of them. They play around for awhile and we are all finally relaxed and having fun. It starts to get late, but its summer so who really cares?! Not this mom. Everything is just grand, then the security guard comes to lock up the bathrooms for the night. This is another thing that's important to remember. Shortly after he leaves, someone shouts that there is poop on the slide. We inspect and assume its mud. Rule #1- never assume. Just like rule #1 in my dating blog post. Rule #1 will always apply to both men and trying to decipher bodily functions. Still thinking its mud, I grab some wipes and clean it up. As im walking to the garbage the wind blows and I get the whiff. So much for thinking it was mud. Bathrooms are all locked up now too. Crap. Not even 5 minutes later Kaelyn has to pee. Again, bathrooms are locked up. So I take her behind a tree and teach her how to squat like a lady in the woods.

So there ya have it.... All we wanted to do was relive our lovely boxed wine, bucket of chicken evening from summers ago. But when you add two kids in the mix, you get a little puke, a whole lot of chaos, and 2 generations of ladies squatting to pee in the woods.