Trip? or.... Trip!

           There seems to be this strange "family curse" or whatever that affects our family. It's not entirely clear whether it's rooted in the McCarthy or vanVeen side (Dutch + Irish = it's own curse??) but what is clear is that it affects everyone in our family. It seems that the most random things, (or whatever possibility CAN happen *will*) happen to us. Did you read 8 Crazy Hours? Would you believe that when my sister flew back home, one of her bags was rolled over by the "luggage train" on the tarmac and crushed to death? Because of this incident, the bag (and 20% of it's contents) was not returned to her until 24 hours later and then it was in a body bag and in pieces....
           The above episode followed a fall my mom took at a hotel we stayed the weekend in. Since she ended up spraining her wrist, I let her borrow my wrist brace that I was wearing because I sprained mine a few days before. (Did I mention we're also accident prone??)
           Christmas Eve was probably the most memorable for my Mom and sis. We were all sitting around the tree, taking pics of the kids after we let them open one of their presents. I was so excited (and curious) that I wanted to join in the revelry too, so I asked if it was okay to open the gift my Mom almost got arrested at the airport for. My bro & future sis-in-law gave my Mom our gifts to take along with her. Apparently, there was "over 8 ounces" of fluid in the wrapped one for me. Oops. The security guy kindly let it slide since it was Christmas, but not before arguing with my Mom about having to confiscate it. Anyways, we were all *dying* to know what was in the mysterious package. So, I unwrapped it. It was a white box. As I was sliding my finger in the seem, I caught it on a staple. Needless to say, I learned my lesson about opening gifts early and am now scarred for life. Please, if you send me a gift, use a gift bag and tissue paper. (They got me some Bath & Body Works hand soaps, a snowflake wallflower plug-in and scented oils for it!)
           Sure, there were "good", sane moments, like wrapping presents to raise $$ for charity at Wal*Mart (though I did end up getting my fingers stuck to a package...) and visiting the "Grandmas & Grandpas" at the local nursing home (where I forgot a few verses to a favorite Christmas carol and my line of thinking was "they won't notice if I just start singing 'dah-dah-dah'" but they did...oops).
           I don't say all this to get a "aw-I'm-so-sorry-for-your-seemingly-bad-luck-I-pity-you". I'm just stating facts. We don't pity ourselves or get depressed when something goes wrong-we find the humor in it and laugh (or write blog posts). Now, I had started writing this post before my Mom left last Friday. Due to scheduling conflicts, I was unable to go with her on the long drive to the airport, so I entrusted hubby with her, her luggage, and the boys. After my Mom arrived at her gate, she called me. Apparently they had left so early that they had time to stop at a nice restaurant for breakfast. This allowed hubby to officially become a vanVeen. *Somehow* he spilled his entire cup of chocolate milk all over my Mom. Welcome to the family, hubby!
           Well, it was an exciting-memory filled trip, and we had our family pics done with my Mom & sis  no one died. You can check out the shoot here.

Comments

  1. Once when coming home from hubby's parents, we missed our flight. Now we weren't running late or any thing, no, we were sitting right there and watched the plane pull away! Turns out the reader board didn't show our stop, so it wasn't our fault. But it made for some very frantic moments once we finally realized our lugage left without us! Incidentally we beat our luggage back and waited two hrs for it.

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    1. oh, wow! we had a similar incident a few years ago-we arrived in (Midland airport, i think) for a stop, only to be informed that flights to Philly were cancelled due to snow, so we had to beg for a flight to Baltimore (Mommy did not pack enough diapers for an overnight stay @ the airport) & the airline was so backed up, we didn't get our luggage for 2 days! (then this reminds me of the time we had the kind of tickets where you only fly if there's room {family worked @ the airline-I didn't understand how this all worked until we got stuck} and we couldn't get on the flight {we literally ran down the tarmac to the plane b/c there were 2 seats, but when we got to the plane, there was only one available} so our luggage got shipped w/o us) needless to say, we try to cram all our stuff into carryons....I know this stuff doesn't happen to everyone, just us, lol

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  2. Hi, I'm Michelle's mom! I'm the one on the bottom of the pile of kids and the one that had chocolate milk spilled on her right before my flight home! I love my family and with all the "mishaps" still wouldn't change families for all the money in the world and you can quote me on that!

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