Blended

Wordless Wednesday - November 9, 2011 - Wishful Thinking

How to Roadtrip with Six Kids (Just in time for your Labor Day Weekend Plans!)

I have prepared this list of directions in case any of you are planning a roadtrip this Labor Day Weekend.  I am imparting all of the wisdom I have gained during the 6,160 miles my family drove this summer in the extraordinarily exciting states of Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota.  My best advice, actually, is just to take a plane, but if it’s too late to buy tickets, maybe this will help.

How to Take a Road Trip with Six Kids:

1. Choose your destination.  My suggestion is to pick something REALLY exciting, like, say, Disney World, so that you have a good threat if you need it.  “If you don’t stop hitting your sister in the head with that book, I will turn this car around and we will NOT GO TO… DISNEYWORLD!”  See?  That doesn’t really work with “…the next state full of cornfields.”  Pick your destination carefully.

 

2.  Pack.  Each child will need an enormous amount of stuff, no matter where you are going.  Also, they will be bored.  Really, reeaalllyy bored.  You will need lots of things to do in the car, preferably things that will not injure their siblings when they use them as weapons.  Keep in mind that there is probably room for approximately 1/16 of the stuff they actually need/want, so only choose things you are willing to hold in your lap or strap to the roof.  No, you can’t strap the children to the roof.  Yes, there is actually a law that says that.

 

3.  Invest in a portable DVD player if your car does not come equipped with one.  (If you have six kids, what in the world were you thinking buying a car without a DVD player?)  Make sure that any headphones or remote controls have some sort of homing device or can be velcroed to your car…or your child.  Your children will lose these items within four seconds of entering the car, and will continue to find and lose them for the duration of your trip, or until you throw them out the window.  (The remote, not the children, although either one would solve the problem.)

 

4.  Load the car.  Good luck. 

 

5.  Convince the children that this is going to be really exciting.  “You’ll, see, um, cows!/geological formations!/mountains!/corn fields!/tractor stores!” Nevermind. 

 

6.  Give your husband a big kiss and promise that no matter what happens, you will still love him at the other end of the road.  This is probably true.

 

7.  Drive away.

 

8.  Return to your house to retrieve the toys/books/suitcase/cooler/child/wallet that you forgot.  Drive away again.

 

9.  Try to interest the children in roadtrip bingo, sing-a-longs and looking at scenery, until just before you want to scream, throw-up or start drinking.  Make sure you have already Googled and know which states have an open container law.  In some places, if you are not the driver, you are welcome to as much rum as you like.  You might need this.   Once you have given up on the children using this roadtrip as an educational or bonding experience, turn on the DVD player.  It is okay with me if you promise yourself, your husband or your children that later on in the roadtrip you will try the bonding/education again.  But you and I both know you won’t.

 

10.  *For Midwest Drivers:  Make sure you stop every time you see a bathroom.  Most of the time it is about 17 hours until the next one, and I’m sure you know which one of your kids will need to pee as soon as you hit The Middle Of Nowhere. 

 

11.  Make sure to hand out snacks liberally.  Who cares if they eat their dinner or not?  You will be in a restaurant…in a strange town…where no knows who you are and you don’t care if they judge you anyway.  Snacks = Happy Roadtrippin’ Children.  Happy Roadtrippin’ Children = Quiet.  Quiet is good.

 

12.  Make sure to use any quiet you have bribed out of the children (with candy and videos) to chat with your husband!  This is wonderful alone time for you!  If, by chance, your husband is more interested in listening to the Cubs game or Blue Collar Comedy on the XM radio, then just bring a book.  Or take a nap.  Or, if you’re in one of the good states, have a little pina colada.

 

13.  Arrive at your destination!  Give your husband a high-five for making it this far!  In order to truly enjoy wherever you are now, try not to think about the fact that you have to do this all over again in a few days.   Oh !  You didn’t think of that? And as an extra bonus, the kids have already seen all the “scenery” and there’s no exciting destination at the end.  No, you can’t buy the plane ticket now.  Yes, you do have to go back with them.

Also, whatever you do, DO NOT LOOK IN THE BACKSEAT.  I can already tell you what is there:  Gum is squished into your carpet.  Chocolate is smeared all over your leather seats.  All the headphones, the remote and most of the DVDs are broken and/or lost.  Every item you packed is strewn about the car, and there is probably something gross stuck to your ceiling.  You can deal with all of that later.

 

14.  Try to remember why you decided to do this in the first place.

 

15.  Know that someday, your kids will thank you for this!  Hopefully, that and your leftover rum is enough to get you home again.

 

16.  Have yourself certified completely insane.  That is the only way you would consider this fiasco anyway.

 

Copyright © Jody Hoffman 2011

Wordless Wednesday - August 31, 2011

 

The Return of Chaos

Chaos has returned to the Bunch Home – with a vengeance!  Bill and I drove to Missoula, Montana with his three kids to pick up my three kids from their Dad.  They’ve been with him in Seattle for the past seven weeks – the longest seven weeks of my life!  (In case you need help with the calculations, that means that Bill and I spent 22 hours in the car with three kids and then 22 hours in the car with six kids…all within 5 days.  My car will never be the same.  I may need therapy.)  I also realized something around the third hour in the car ride home – my “no” button appeared to be broken. 

 

Mom, can we stop for ice cream even though it’s 10am?  N…Yes.

Mom, can we listen to that awful rap station on the radio in the car?  Really Loud?  N…Yes.

Mom, can I have a cookie for lunch?  N…Yes.

 

So here’s the deal.  I’m apparently racked with mom-guilt over being away from them, even though it was out of my control.  Also, I’m not above buying my way out of it.

 

On the first night we were all together, we played a game called How-Many-People-Can-Talk-At-The-Same-Time.  It lasted about 3 hours days. The kids were all tripping over their own tongues to tell each other about all of the excitement of the summer.  I don’t think they were really listening to the actual words of the other people – it was mostly just mutual admiration of their ability to fill the air with noise.  I wish I had made a recording of it to play for myself next time I’m feeling sorry for myself because my house is too quiet.

 

After the little kids had been put to bed, the big kids were still yapping away, soaking up each other’s voices.  Hannah asked if she could speak to Bill and me in private.

 

I am a sixth grade language arts teacher.  One of the units I teach is on persuasive writing.  Hannah has obviously never participated in my class, but apparently she has been going through my lesson plans, because she presented organized point-by-point reasoning in an emotionally controlled persuasive speech which was impossible to rebut.  (Even if my no-button had been working.)

 

Unfortunately, the speech was entitled:  “The Five Reasons We Deserve to get Hamsters.”

 

Oh Qwap.

 

After saying yes, because we are spineless idiots, Bill and I were treated to our reward:  three squealing, shrieking 9-year olds who “love us SOOOO much.”  Then we were awarded, “Best parents in the WHOLE WORLD!”  The prize for this award turned out to be 22 hours in the car with 9-year-old girls shrieking and squealing about hamsters… 

 

So that is how I ended up at the pet store when it opened on Tuesday morning with four little girls (because Gabby wanted one too and at that point we had completely given up trying to keep any sort of handle on the situation).  I announced to the man behind the counter that we had come to purchase a cage and four hamsters to live in it.  The man surveyed the situation, including the squealing, jumping children and the bags under my eyes and decided he’d better hop to it before his store got “Blended.”   (Think birds flying, puppies running and fish flopping…)  He led us to the room where the hamsters were kept.  This is when I had a horrifying realization.  Hamsters are rodents.  They are kept in the same room with the mice and rats.  They stink!  What had I done?!?!?!

 

Realizing that the punishment for Worst Parent Ever was probably worse than the “award” for Best Parent Ever, I sucked it up and bought the freaking hamsters.  And the cage.  And the food, bedding, waterbottles, toys and tubes.  $200 later, our family now included two toddlers, three nine-year-olds, a 12-year old, two dogs, four hamsters, a mother with a broken No-button and a father on a business trip in for a big surprise.  And it was still too early in the day for rum.

 

Back at home, I spent 45 minute on the “Easy to Assemble Cage,” while the girls offered helpful advice like, “I think that yellow piece isn’t really that important,” and “The picture doesn’t look like what you made,” and my personal favorite, “Wouldn’t it be better if you were doing that faster?” 

 

Finally assembled, the cage was ready for the hamsters.  I picked up each of their little boxes and opened them.  Inside each one, I was delighted to find a medium sized hamster…and about 50 little bugs.  Super.

 

The lovely man at the pet store explained when I called him that these were mites, and were “harmless” and “no big deal.”  I’ll show you “no big deal” you derksace.  All I needed to do, he explained calmly, was bring the hamsters back to the store and he would treat them.  They would be fine tomorrow.

 

Great!  So you mean all I have to do is wrestle the hamsters away from the children, load everyone back in the car, drive back to the pet store, herd six kids down the sidewalk into the shop while holding a cage full of bug-infested hamsters and then figure out how to console the hysterical children who just had their “life-long wish” of hamster ownership granted and then smashed within an hour. Then I can return home and scrub the children’s rooms and the children.  No problem.

 

The kids were troopers.  Of course, they are also spoiled rotten – it seems the hamster fiasco had done even more damage to my already-suffering No-button.  Chocolate Chip Pancakes for dinner?  N…Yup.

 

The next morning we retrieved the rodents and brought them home.  The children played with them nonstop for about four hours and then promptly forgot they existed when the television’s force field erased their brains. The only trouble with that was that they forgot about the hamsters who were travelling around the house in the little plastic ball.  Unsupervised. 

 

Note to potential hamster owners:  The plastic hamster balls are NOT hamster-proof.  If left unattended long enough, hamsters CAN and WILL figure out how to pop the lid. 

 

“MO-OM!   My [gasp] hamster [sob] is [sniffle] GOOOOOOOONNNNE!”

 

Oh Qwap.

 

For the rest of the evening, it was my esteemed pleasure to look underneath every piece of furniture we own and inside any crack, crevice or cabinet that was large enough for a hamster to squeeze through.  No luck.

 

Around 2am, long after the children had given up and gone to sleep, I still hadn’t found the stinkin’ hamster.  I started Googling:

 

Google Searches I preformed:

-Find lost hamster

-Hamsters climbing ability

-Hamster – smallest opening fit in

-Where do hamsters hide?

-Fooling nine-year-olds with replacement pets

-Therapy cost for children lied to by their parents

-Where to buy a hamster at 2am

-Where to buy rum at 2am

 

At 3am, I finally gave up and went to sleep, after scattering flour in every doorway so that we might “track” the hamster’s nighttime movement. [shudder]

 

We haven’t found the little critter yet, but we keep finding bits of food and the flour is still getting scattered, so thankfully he is still alive (!) and wandering unattended through my home (?).  I’m sure he will turn up at a very convenient time like when I’m serving lunch to my grandmother, or in the middle of the baby shower I’m hosting next month. 

 

I’d welcome any ideas on how to find a lost hamster.  I’d also welcome anyone who wants to reassure me that I’m not the only one who gives in to ridiculous requests because of mommy-guilt.  And if you know of a way to fix a broken No-button, please help me.

 

Help.

 

I’m living in a houseful of children and rodents running rampant and I’m out of rum.

 

Copyright © Jody Hoffman 2011

 

 

Wordless Wednesday - August 17, 2011

A Year in Review

We made it.  We aren’t newlyweds anymore.  Our first anniversary was last weekend.  So here’s a recap of the last year:

 

August 2010:

            We woke up married on the first day of August.  After our families left town, we settled in to life of happy - chaos, and went to the grocery store every single day.  We signed the kids up for soccer and started spending every Saturday at the fields.  I started my new job and realized I actually liked teaching sixth grade, even though it was an enormous change from elementary school and some of the kids were taller than I.  I went to my very first county fair, picked up meat from a packing plant (where I was surprised to find an actual cow!) and was introduced to my new country girl life.  It was quite the adjustment!

 

September 2010:

            We took our first family vacation to the Black Hills of South Dakota.   While there, we made our first trip to the emergency room when Levi fell off a picnic bench and bit his tongue in half!  When we returned home, I upped the craziness factor by volunteering to be the Girl Scout leader for the big girls.  At our first event, rollerskating, Emily broke her arm, sending us to the ER for the second time that month.  September also brought my birthday, our first Jewish holiday away from my parents, and Brady, our new Golden Retriever. 

October 2010:

            We finished soccer and started basketball, overlapping for one completely insane Saturday.  We celebrated our first family Halloween. Gabriella decided that she absolutely HAD to be corn.  Corn?!? After scouring every available option for purchase, we ended up making the costume ourselves – and then she won the costume contest at the mall.

 

November 2010:

            In November, my kids went to their dad’s house for our first-ever holiday apart.  Bill’s kids would also spend Thanksgiving with their mom this year.  The Bunch celebrated Thanksgiving early with our new “family,” friends we’d made since moving to South Dakota.  Then, on the real Thanksgiving, Bill and I took our Honeymoon trip to Jamaica!  Five days of rum punch and beach helped ease the pain of being away from our kids on Thanksgiving…

 

December 2010:

            My kids taught Bill’s kids about Hannukah.  Bill’s kids taught my kids about Christmas.  We celebrated the twins’ birthday with a Rock Star Diva Party.  In short, it was present-palooza.  We attended 6 holiday concerts and baked cupcakes for 4 school holiday parties.  We prepared for our first airplane trip!  We planned to take the kids to New York for 5 days to celebrate the New Year with my East Coast Family.  Our trip was delayed by 3 days because of a humungous snowstorm, which increased the ever-growing insanity as we made our way across the country.  We vowed never again to travel in the winter with six kids. 

 

January 2011:

            After giving the kids a whirlwind tour of NYC, we flew home again in time to resume school.  We started ice skating lessons – chaos on ice – and archery.   We got more and more snow and the temperature in our town never once got above zero.  I started collecting scarves and mittens.   The kids stopped thinking that snow was fun.  We couldn’t use our front door for the whole month because the snow covered it.

 

 

February 2011:

            We celebrated our first Valentine’s Day by sharing pink chocolate fondue with all six kids.  We added Volleyball to our list of activities, causing us to have to move to a larger calendar in order to keep track of everyone’s daily events.  Nana and Pop came to visit and we sent the icicle versions of them home a week later. 

 

March 2011:           

            In March we celebrated Gabby’s 5^th birthday with a Cowgirl Birthday Party and Sam’s 11^th with an “I’m-to-cool-for-a-theme” Party that involved pop and Cheetos getting ground into the playroom carpet and several preteen girls on cell phones in our living room.   Bill’s parents surprised us on a day that was both “National No Housework Day” AND “National Beer Day,” which turned out kind of funny.  We took six kids to the circus. March also marked the second time the kids left for a week to visit their dad.  This time there was no Jamaica to distract me and it was just plain hard.  March was also the start of the Girl Scout Cookie Sale, which took over my life for about a month.  We ate more than we sold and I threatened not to be the leader next year unless someone helped.  Bill threatened not to be my husband next year if I tried to do it alone again.  I started blogging and wrote the first chapter of a book.  Bill decided I had officially lost it. 

 

April 2011:

 By April, basketball and ice-skating were over, so we signed the kids up for language classes.  They learned to count to 10 in French, Chinese and Spanish, and that’s about it. We celebrated Passover and Easter as only the Bunch could.  Things started to calm down, or maybe we were just getting used to the chaos.  By the end of the month, it was almost possible to go out of the house without a down parka and insulated ski mask… but it hadn’t stopped snowing yet.  

 

May 2011:

In May, we celebrate Brianna’s 9^th birthday with a Minute-to-Win-It Party, Levi’s 4^th birthday with a race car party, and the last day of school by starting to pack for our summer adventures.   It was weird to end school while it was still sweater-weather outside, but we were happy to have made it through our first year of school in a new place!

 

June 2011:

 We took another family vacation – this time to stay at my parents’ house in Massachusetts for a month!  The kids had lots of adventures and spent some quality time with Nana and Pop. We went to the Mayflower, Fenway Park, The Science Museum, Cape Cod, The New England Aquarium, Codzilla and the Swan Boats.  We coined the term: “You Got Blended,” and used it frequently.  I put my three children on a plane with their father and said good-bye for the rest of the summer, before flying back home with Bill and his three. 

 

July 2011:

Bill and I spent quality time with his kids who now have a wonderful week on/week off schedule between our house and their mom’s.  We were able to take trips back and forth to all sorts of very exciting places – like Broadus, Montana, and Riverton, Wyoming.  We put 10,000 miles on my car and saw 10,000,000 cows, and not much else.  We came back home to spend our first anniversary together in our own home.  With no kids, we had a lot of free time that day and came up with the following numbers to describe our first unbelievable year as a family.

 

This Year In Numbers:

 

-Miles we put on my Honda Pilot:  18,000

 

-Towns we drove through with population less than 1000: 74

 

-Emergency room visits: 5

 

*Facebook - 5 hours in the urgent care, one Payless-Zebra-print-high-heele​d-wearing-googling Nurse and a great big giant shot later and Hannah's infection is under control. Just a disclaimer: I have nothing against Payless OR Zebra print high-heels. Neither, however, inspired confidence this afternoon...

 

Times I’ve embarrassed myself in front of the neighbors: 3 (that I know of)

 

Photographs I’ve taken: 9,000

 

Photographs I’ve scrapbooked: 9

 

Times I’ve said, “Shhhh”: 8,947,216

 

Times I’ve glared at strangers for saying, “Shhhhh” to my kids:  298

 

Dates: 15

 

Family Vacations: 3

 

Vacations alone with Bill: 1

 

States we’ve visited: 9

 

Foreign Countries visited: 1

 

Family Sick Days: 22

 

Times we actually got dinner on the table by 5:00: 46

Birthday Parties: 6

Sporting events we’ve watched:  321

Number of gates at our airport: 1

 

Number of times I’ve walked through that gate: 8

 

Visits from the tooth fairy: 16

 

Gallons of milk: 300

 

Cartons of eggs: 64

 

Grocery Store Trips: 104

 

Chances we would trade any of it for the world: 0

 

Copyright © Jody Hoffman 2011

 

 

 

 

Wordless Wednesday - July 27, 2011

Copyright © Jody Hoffman 2011

Flyin'

Sometimes when I’m loading three to six kids, 875 suitcases, eight carry-ons and my husband onto a plane, I have trouble remembering why we moved in together.  It certainly was easier to fly across the country by myself…

On the way to Boston at the beginning of June, I flew with my three kids out of the Minneapolis airport.  They are nine, nine and twelve, and have been flying since they were born, so they are pretty good at it.  They understand the basics – just do as you’re told, keep track of your crap and don’t worry, mom packed enough toys, books and snacks in your backpack to last six months.

I can settle them in with whichever electronic game/music device/dvd player they haven’t lost yet and spend the next two hours reading, writing or drinking $7 cocktails from a plastic cup.  I know if I yell “run” in an airport, they will run.  They have been known to make it all the way through an airport in four minutes.  I know if I say “hold it.” They will hold it.  If I say “jump,” they say, “how high?”  If I say “shush,” well, they are kids, right? 

Bill’s kids have not traveled nearly as often, so I was a bit concerned about their journey to the East coast two weeks later.  They have only flown a handful of times.  Each time, they were excited and happy, but not quite as independent…or quiet.

Bill’s excitement started the night before.  He called to say that Brianna had chosen a dinner location in Minneapolis inside the Mall of America.  I told him I was sure that she was just really excited about crepes and that her decision probably had nothing to do with the gigantic amusement park in the center of the mall…

About two hours later, Bill called again.  He sounded half dead and I could hear the kids screaming behind him.  It seemed they were staging a mutiny.  “I broke my flip flop,” he said.  He sounded like he might be slowly dying inside.  “I don’t know what to do.” The Mall of America is a wonderful tourist attraction, but it is completely useless for locating the one item you actually need – especially if you are trying to do it with three kids who are hyped up on sugar and roller coaster rides.  I politely suggested that perhaps he could visit one of the 95 thousand available shops in the Mall of America, but he was in no shape to try things on or make fashion decisions.  I googled his favorite kind of sandals and found them at the DSW in the mall.  I called over there and got a friendly saleswoman on the phone.

“How can I help you?”

“I’ve made a tragic mistake…I sent my husband and three small children to the mall and I fear they won’t make it out, forget about finding what they’re looking for.”

 “Oh, honey!  How can I help!?”

I laughed, gave her the item number for Bill’s favorite flip flops and asked her to see if she could locate a pair in his size.  She came back to the phone a few minutes later, successful and still laughing.

“Thank you so much,” I gushed.  “Please keep them at the front desk for him.  He’ll be the one who looks like he just took three kids to the mall and his life might be over…”

I texted Bill that his shoes were waiting from him at the DSW and gave him the exact mall location.  Judging from his grateful response, I’m pretty sure he had been ready to give up and was planning to fly across the country barefoot.

Bill's mall adventure with the children left me more than a little concerned about the upcoming cross-country flight, but the next morning he seemed to be off to a pretty good start.  He texted about two and half hours before his flight,  “In a strange turn of events, we are on the shuttle to the airport…wait for it…wait…30 minutes early!” 

I texted back in awe and received the following response:  “Hopefully we will have everything when we get there…luggage, toys, kids, limbs, eyes, noses…you know, the essentials.” 

Me: “LOL”

Him: “Holy $#!% Batman!  Through Security!  Hotel to gate in less than 30 minutes!

Me: “Woah! I’m impressed!”

Him: “Phst…ain’t nothing, just 10 minutes per kid.

Then, a few minutes later…

Him: First lost item: Levi going to the bathroom realized he doesn’t have any underwear on.

 Oh well, at least he had the “essentials.”  The good news is that when I packed Levi’s carry-on, I had included several extra pairs of underwear…

A few hours later, Bill looked absolutely exhausted as he approached the baggage carousel in Logan airport, but he had managed to make it with all three kids intact.  He stood by as the kids clamored around me to tell their stories about their travels.  Loaded down with the kids’ backpacks, stuffed animals and snacks, he looked like he had been through hell. 

He related to me a story of spilled drinks, flight-attendant-button-pushing shenanigans, spilled crackers, broken DVD players, lost toys, delayed flights, spilled legos, bathroom emergencies and noise-barrier breaking screams.  I promised him that when he and I flew home with his kids two weeks later, he wouldn’t be quite so outnumbered.

I'd tell you the story of our flight home, but I'm still repressing the memory.  I'm not 100 percent certain that Frontier Airlines will let us fly with them again.  I'm not 100 percent certain that I want to...

I’ve flown with all six kids, with my three, with his three and just with Bill.  There are benefits to each one, truly – with all six you get pre-boarding.  With Bill I get an extra tray to hold my drinks.  But alone, flying is the most relaxing thing I get to do, ever.  I am completely unreachable.  It doesn’t matter if you have spilled your milk, lost your favorite toy/cd/electronic device, or if your brother just smacked you.  Someone else is in charge – Mama’s flyin’.  

© Jody Hoffman 2011

 

 

Broadus, Montana

Happy Fourth of July Weekend!  We're on a roadtrip to Bill's hometown for the 4th and also for his 20th reunion, so I thought you'd like to read a little something I wrote last year after visiting Broadus for the first time.  It was about 4 days after I moved to the Midwest and I still thougth MY town was tiny!  We were less than a month away from our wedding day...

 

In An Effort to Prove that Our Town was Actually BIG:

*Facebook 7/2/10 - It is official. I live here - and I have the cowboy boots to prove it!

A week after I moved to South Dakota, Bill decided to show me just how BIG our small town is.  He took me to his hometown: Broadus Montana, “The Wavingest Town in the West.” Population: 393. I have heard many stories about growing up in this wonderful town, and couldn’t wait to see it with my own eyes. 

But first we had to get there.

*Facebook 7/2/10 – I can’t believe we are getting in the car AGAIN!  After a three-day drive across the country and then a 10 hour drive to the Minneapolis airport and back to drop off the kids, I don’t know if I can handle another 10 hour round trip!  But Broadus, Montana – Here we come! 

*Facebook 7/2/10 – No worries, Bill says there is TONS to look at on this drive…

*Facebook 7/2/10 - We are in Faith, SD - home of Daisy Duke. But, alas, I've left my short shorts at home.

*Facebook 7/2/10 - There is not a lot to do on the drive from South Dakota to Montana and I don't know if you've noticed, but I've spent a lot of stinkin’ time in the car lately. New game: Bill is pointing out deer and I'm naming them like hurricanes. Hello Orville, Penelope and Quentin.

*Facebook 7/2/10 - Whose job is it to change the sign when the population changes from 204 to 205 in Nisland, South Dakota?

*Facebook 7/2/10 – Just crossed the border into Montana.  This is now, officially, the 14^th state Bill and I have visited together!

 It was the 100^th anniversary of the town and the all-class reunion, so just about everyone who had ever lived there was coming back for July 4^th weekend. 

It seems that not much had changed in Broadus since Bill left there 19 years earlier.  Everywhere we went there were memories to be shared and people to meet.  In Broadus, like Cheers in Boston, Everybody Knows Your Name.  And surprisingly to me…everyone even knew my name!  My Mother-in-law-to-be had arrived a week earlier so she had seen to it that everyone in Broadus was already prepped on the whole situation.  I’ve never received such a warm welcome in my whole life!

The first night, as we drove into town, it was necessary to slow down to a crawl.  The streets were overflowing with old classmates and family members talking together.  There are two bars in Broadus, one on each side of the street and the party flowed seamlessly between them.  Our car was mobbed by Bill’s family and friends and we had to fight for the chance to park and get out. The partying and memories didn’t stop all weekend.

I would have a very clear picture of Bill’s whole pre-college life, (including all his high school girlfriends) at the class of 1991 reunion planned for one afternoon.  Cheryl, who grew up in Broadus with Bill, became my good friend as an adult, and introduced Bill and me last year, held the reunion at the house which once belonged to her grandmother.  Since there were only 25 kids in Bill’s graduating class, the reunion was on her front porch.  Drinks and conversation flowed, and I learned all about how my husband-to-be had been voted both Most Athletic and Homecoming King in High School!  Who knew I was engaged to such a big deal?!

I watched Bill’s high school teammates play a softball tournament on the field where they had played since they were Little Leaguers.  His buddies asked why “Little Billy Hoffman” wasn’t playing today.  When I questioned him about this nickname, Bill admitted that after his first American Legion game in Miles City, the coach said in an on-air interview, “I was really impressed with Little Billy Hoffman’s playing.” Since there was really only one radio station that could be picked up in Broadus the whole town heard it!  Humbly, Bill added, “Who wouldn’t be Impressed with me?  I hit for a cycle and played awesome defense that day!”  (I don’t know some of the words in that sentence, but it seems impressive to me…)

When we went to the “100 Years of Fashion in Broadus” show in his high school auditorium, I not only heard about the amazing clothing adventures of Broadus residents over the last century, I also heard, from Bill, about all of his “adventures” in that school.  In the interest of protecting the “innocent,” I’ll just leave it to your imagination.

The Fourth of July parade was like a step back in time, watching all of the old cars and tractors go by, the kids running into the street to pick up suckers and tootsie rolls.  Bill pointed out each person as they walked or rolled by.  He knew everyone, and everyone knew him.

On Main Street, there is a store advertising antiques and espresso in a mural painted on the side of the building.  Obviously the idea of shopping and coffee drew me in, but I was not prepared for what I found.  Inside this building was a fascinating store called Copper Moon, filled with wonderful little trinkets, gorgeous home décor and garden accents.  Different from the stores I was used to on the East Coast: Everything in the store was unique and appeared to be one of a kind.  There I found three things:

1. An amazing hanging decoration that was so perfect for our wedding even Bill agreed (and bought it).   
2. A salesperson, about my age (so a few years younger than Bill) who said when I introduced myself, “Bill Hoffman?!?!” [swoon] “Ohhhh.  I know who HE is.  He was senior when I was a freshman….Is he here?!?” 
3. A sign that reads, “Too Blessed to be Stressed” which now hangs in our kitchen.

The weekend was filled with activities I’d never done before, stories about Bill I’d never heard before, and more, “Oh, Jody! I’ve heard so much about you”s than you can imagine, usually accompanied by a hug.  This town loved Bill, so they accepted me by extension.  Although I was still getting used to the change from Boston to our small South Dakota town, somehow I could even imagine myself living here.  For what this town lacks in chain stores and stoplights, it more than makes up for in heart.   Bill says his best memories came from Broadus and it will always be “home” to him.

*Facebook 7/3/10 – Goin’ to a country dance and pitchfork fondue in Broadus Montana! Yee haw-got my new boots on.

    Comment from my Manhattan Sister: Pitchfork fondue? Seriously!?

    Comment from my East Coast Mom: Yum - I think.

    Comment from me: Yup, it rocked.

 © Jody Hoffman 2011

 

Our First Date...Revisited

Bill and I had a four-day first date.   When we were both single parents of three, we called to chat with complain to our mutual friend about our situations.   When she was sick of having the same conversation twice everyday, she  “introduced” us.  “Just talk to each other!” she said. “I don’t have time for this!”  So we did.

We began talking on the phone about six weeks before we met for the first time.  We lived 2000 miles apart, but connected so strongly that he bought the plane tickets the morning after our first conversation – which had lasted 5 hours.   He flew to our friend’s house in Connecticut and I drove down to meet him.  Amazingly, there was never a moment of awkwardness or nervousness about meeting for the first time.  We both felt like we had been together forever and were just on vacation.  Since it had been such a wonderfully relaxing and gorgeous first date, we decided recently to take the children on a tour of the places we had visited.  It wasn’t exactly the same…

On our First Date, Bill and I went to Black Point Beach – a beautiful, quiet beach on the Long Island Sound.  I used to go to this beach every summer when my maternal grandparents were alive.  This is what it looked like when I took my three kids there:

This is what it looked like when Bill and I went there on our First Date:

This is what it looked like (after an hour of pleading and a bag of Twizzlers as a bribe) when we took all 6 kids there:

 

 On our First Date, Bill and I went for a walk on a Boardwalk.  He was disappointed when he heard that there was no ice cream stand nearby as he had “imagined us walking on the boardwalk licking ice cream cones.”  Intrigued that this man had been “imagining” us on our date, I also felt disappointed that this part of his vision would not come true.  We pulled into the parking lot of the boardwalk and noticed that they were nailing a sign to the side of what had been an antique store the summer before.  It said, “Gumdrops and Lollipops: Homemade Candy…and Ice Cream Shop.”  What?  As our date and our life continued, we would come to expect these silly twists of fate that worked like neon signs pointing us towards the obvious conclusion that we were meant to be together.   This was the first one.  The ice cream store was opening as we spoke.  Our cones were the first ones ever served there. When we went back the following summer and dropped off a photo from that first date and explained what had happened, the owner exclaimed, “You should get married here!”  This summer we brought them a wedding photo…They remembered us.

This is what it looked like when Bill and I went to the ice cream shop on our first date:

 

 This is what it looked like when we took all 6 kids to the ice cream shop:

On our First Date, Bill and I drove from the ice cream store to Harkness Park, a gorgeous historic estate complete with a mansion, gardens, and a beach.   We wandered around: holding hands, sitting for photos, kissing embarrassingly. It was beautiful.  It was calm.  It was perfect.

This is what it looked like when we went to Harkness Park on our First Date:

This is what it looked like when we bribed the kids to sit in the same spot:

 

This is what it really looked like when the kids were at the estate.

 

 Before Bill arrived for our first date, I had done some research on seafood spots near where we were staying.  (I hate seafood, but he loves it and I was pretending. Plus I was pretty sure they’d have something else for me to eat.)  When I found Bill’s Seafood, I thought for sure I had it right.  He loved it.  I loved him.  They had chicken. It was perfect.

This is what it looked like when Bill and I went to Bill’s Seafood:

This is what it looked like when we took all 6 kids to Bill’s Seafood:

*Facebook  - Sorry, Bill’s Seafood, we didn’t know that the lobster would scare Gabby, causing her to scream in your restaurant.  Also, we understand that the seagulls would rather not have had Levi throwing ketchup-covered French fries at them.  You just got Blended.

After our re-created first date, we drove back to Nana and Pop’s house with exhausted, sandy children.  We put them to bed and collapsed into a heap on the couch.  When we were wandering through the Connecticut shore that April day, we could never have imagined where we would end up two years later.  Our recreated date was definitely not as calm or relaxing as the real first date - in fact it was completely insane.  But it was, just as the first one, exactly what we were looking for.  Our friend introduced us way back then because she wanted to change our lives.  She had no idea.

 

© Jody Hoffman 2011