Camp Rock, Ghosts, Prostitutes and a cranky MOMMY!

So, we are on our vacation now....Yesterday we drove about 10 hours to Ocala. We are now comfortable in st. Petersburg at a motel on the beach ..No prob..the kids were great on the way down. Amazing how miraculous 5 headphones and a DVD player can be. Each time a video would end I would cringe because I would hear screams and fighting again. We are seriously on a budget these days. Half way down on the trip Andrew took a picture out the window and caught the picture of a ghost in a field of either a hunter with a rabbit or an Indian with a rabbit or the ghost of a prisoner who had been cleaning garbage died and roams the highway with a yellow construction cap and a garbage bag in one hand and road kill in another.....

We ate sandwhiches for lunch that I had packed, chips and ALDI oreo counterfeits. So by the time it was 7ish we decided to stop for dinner and hotel. First we made it to Denny's. I don't think they see many families like ours in OCALA. We were stared at. If you look in the background of the Denny's picture you can see the area wasn't exactly diverse. We ordered 2.89cent kids meals and I had a pseudo iceberg salad with over fried chicken pieces and fat free ranch that tasted like watery glue. So, Friday night we decide that we are going to try to get one room for all of us the night before we can check into our one week time share that starts on Saturday. First we check out red roof inn. We decide ahead of time that we won't lie about how many kids in our PARTY. BUt we also will only tell them IF they ask us. So, Mark goes into red roof inn..it is $99 but includes breakfast. We needed a room with a fridge and two beds..They didn't have one. So we go across the street to the TRAVEL LODGE. This is a place that can't even afford to get a logo. Andrew says to me (remember he is the one who saw and took a picture of a ghost earlier), I think we better go stay at the RED ROOF INN..this place is really really creepy. If you know me you know that my greatest gift and curse is my optimistic rosy happy attitude. I have taken friends into some really creepy places and totally overlooked and literally not seen the guy following me because i am so excited to be looking at the decor of the chairs. Or I will notice the creepy guy and say "oh but he is probably just lonely...bless his heart." So we go to TRAVEL LODGE..Mark is inside. The kids lock the doors and there is no lighting outside the place with the exception of a ready to pop flouresent bulb in the ceiling of the plaster of the roof that is supposed to protect our car. So, Andrew says with a totally freaked out and scary voice about ready to cry..."Mommy this place is scary lets go back across the street." I say "Oh honey ( can you hear the bluebirds singing) it is fine....we are all going to have a fantastic night." Mark comes out "It is 65 and breakfast is free for all seven of us." I am thinking "Can't beat that." We get into the room which is all the way in the back facing a truck stop. We file out and Andrew runs into the room and says "Hurry up!" My African kids are oblivious and jared says "Cool a refridgerator." And then we inflate our air mattress....kids are crazy...I make microwave popcorn which I try not to set on fire like the time I was in Myrtle Beach. The kids turn on CAMP ROCK on the Disney Channel. I start to hear shouting next door by two testosterone driven truck drivers using the F word. The kids don't hear it. Grace comes to the bed puts her hand on the bedspread and says "ooh mommy something slimy." I notice the blankets a little crusty and pull them off..(It is hot and Florida so just sheets are okay...they look somewhat clean). No one wanted to leave the room anyhow because it was getting late...I went into the bathroom and found one of those 2 foot (okay 2 inches) black cockroaches that you know would sound like one of those popper firecrackers if you stepped on it. I screamed....OH also we all decided to not unpack with the exception of toothbrushes and the airmattress(and our sheets)...so we all slept in our underwear. Camp Rock was over and the lights went out because the kids were literally jumping over and on top of eachother. So we turned out the lights. The kids fell right out at 10pm. Even Mark was snoring. Then the real show began. Doors slamming...truck drivers yelling, and women making deals for 20 minutes OF SOMETHING....I am hearing men chasing the women who have somehow made the guys mad and then what in my mind sounds like METH deals going on as my Disney kids are sleeping dreaming about Nick Jonas...I couldn't sleep. I had just gone to a meeting where our prophetic pastor preached on intercessory prayer. I was praying all kinds of prayers. Eventually around 2am...I fall out. And then at 5:30 the kids wake up so happy "zip a dee doo dah'....and I am ticked off when each of them start to tap on me and laugh and shout. I don't do well with no sleep especially in a drug infested, hotel of ill repute..so I tell the kids repeatedly to be quiet until 7:30...This went on a million times. Eventually, when Jared jumped on Ella (who is just like me and can't function without sleep) and she screamed..I said (after the last warning) you four (Grace, Andrew, Matea, and Jared) will have no swimming today. They immediately stopped the hand jam and cotton eyed joe...they were doing and started to all cry. I said "When mommy is not happy because she hasn't had her sleep NO ONE IS HAPPY!" So, today we finally made it to St. Pete's. I was so cranky all day....I held my own through a million negotiating sessions with the kids and it is now 8:39 (they think it is 9:39 because we moved the clocks ahead at 7pm) and they had to watch today as Ella swam in the pool......Once I unpacked, had a shower and realized I would have my own room with my husband and there are no roaches to be seen (yet)..I was happy. I did have a problem though when the pan I was using to boil the pasta in started to burn and smell up the place so that we had to turn on the ceiling fan. Just about the time this happend the manager MARGARET came in when the room smelled similar to marijuana (that is what burnt pasta smells like). We needed extra pillows...I reassured her it was not what it smelled like but just that I didn't have an appropriate pan to boil the noodles in and that is what she is smelling...right now Jared is asleep but still is suspicous that Darth Maul is going to make his way in our living room from the Star Wars movie an ill informed baby sitter let him see. Mark told him he killed Darth Maul. I told Him that we shouted Jesus' name at him and he died....So far the vacation hasn't been very relaxing but I am hoping day 2 will be the real vacation....tomorrow is the day Mark's family comes to meet the kids FOR THE FIRST TIME.....