No Tacos But Plenty of Laughs
Friday, January 17, 2014 at 10:41PM I left the church on Christmas Eve with not enough time to go home and then go get my parents and Matt from the airport, but a little too much time to go straight to the airport; the kids and I took a brief Fantastic Lights Tour in a neighborhood near our church and passed just enough time to then get to the airport.
I drove to the terminal and tried to call my mom but it went straight to voice mail, so we just drove around and around until I heard from her. When she called and told me where she was, we just happened to be outside of the building from her and we waved, but had to drive around one more time because I didn't have a place to pull in. I made one more loop and then just pulled up next to another car thinking it would be quick to load them up and then take off.
However, I hadn't put the seats up in the back, and we needed all seven seats. So I took a few minutes to flip the seat back up and make a couple of people mad (Merry Christmas!), and then Christian, Michaela, and Matt informed me from the back that the middle seat belt wasn't functioning properly.
I had forgotten about this problem, since we don't usually have three someones in the back seat. I quickly pulled into the parking deck of the airport and we tried to fix it. Matt tried. Christian tried. My dad tried. I tried. I called Mike and he gave us directions to try. We tried. Failed every time. That seat belt was not going to be fixed. So Matthew sacrificed himself and sat in the dangerous spot.
It had gotten pretty late at this point, and they were hungry, but it was Christmas Eve so we weren't sure that we'd find much open. Matthew really wanted a taco, and I mean a good taco (Hello...Tex-Mex), but again...Christmas Eve. We headed in the direction of our house and hoped to pass a place that we could drive through on the way. When we got close to home I got off of the highway and we discovered, ironically, a Taco Bell with a long line around the building and a neon sign which declared "Drive-Thru Open." We were about the eighth car. We sat laughing about how Matthew was going to get his taco after all, and waited a while before the lead car moved off. We laughed about how they must have ordered one of everything on the menu. And we laughed at how quickly the line moved after that car left.
And then we laughed really hard when we got up to the speaker and waited, and called,"Hello?" and waited some more only to realize that this drive-thru was not, in fact, open.
No taco.
I took off from there on a mission to find them some food, even though it was almost 10:30 now. Our exit was the next one, and just around the corner from my house is a Sonic, so I pulled in there since it was all lit up and two cars were in the drive-thru line there. I wheeled around to the speaker and rolled down my window, and heard a voice say,"Sorry, we're closed." It was 10:34. Matt said, laughing hysterically,"If we hadn't waited in the line at Taco Bell we wouldn't have been too late!" Not to mention the extra 30 minutes we spent at the airport fighting a losing battle with the seat belt.
I mean, I know you had to be there to get how funny it was, but we were all feeling a bit punchy. I rolled out of the Sonic parking lot and headed home, and we scrounged something up there. It was getting really late, but everyone was pretty wound up, as usually happens when we first get together with them.
This was around 1am.
They look like they are planning some midnight mischief. Good thing it was already past midnight.
Eliana velcroed herself to Matt's chest for the remainder of their trip. You think I'm kidding, but I have photos to prove it.
Since we all got to bed so late, our Christmas morning didn't get started until 12 hours later. It was fine by everyone though, and it was a very relaxed morning (folks slept in and Mom fixed a nice egg casserole for breakfast), and no one was fussing about hurrying up and opening presents at the crack of dawn.
It was a wonderful beginning to the day.
Reader Comments (3)
I love the picture you describe of family fun. Those little mishaps and 'adventures' are what make memories to laugh about down the road. Glad you had a happy Christmas!
It sounds like you had a very eventful night! I laughed about the drive through wait. I am so glad your family has so much love in it. What a beautiful thing.
Love the taco story! :)
Your kids are so cute. Looks like they were so excited for Christmas! :)