Spontaneous outings with four young children is not easy to come by. Maybe a quick trip to the local mall or shopping… but almost certainly not a vacation. Well, almost.

Lois had a particularly tough time with the kids this week and was planning on driving an hour and a half this past Saturday for the second day of a homeschooling conference — and drive back the same day. Well, after a tough Thursday, I urged her to take some extra time. As providence would have it, I had a bunch of hotel points so I was able to book her a room in a hotel near the conference for both Friday and Saturday nights. She took up our 2mo Calissa, leaving late Friday morning.

Well, late Friday night she and I were talking on the phone and I was asking her what her plans were for after the conference on Saturday. To make a long story short… after much waffling, we very spontaneously decided to treat the rest of the kids to little one-day “hotel” vacation in Modesto, CA! The next day, after a morning with the three older kids at a “A Day Out with Thomas” train event in the Santa Cruz mountains, I drove nearly three hours to Modesto.

Memories of our trip, which turned our wonderfully:

• About 20 minutes from Modesto, I made a last-minute stop at the home of a family whom I hadn’t seen in months and whose youngest baby girl was born just two days after our youngest! Had a wonderful visit with the two older kids and their dad, and all the kids enjoyed a short playtime.
• Matthew loved the pool at the hotel. As a speaker highlighted at the conference, this is why kids love vacations. Pools at hotels. See video at bottom of this post.
• We enjoyed a relaxing and fun dinner with the family mentioned above, who drove out to Modesto (again, last minute!) to see us.
• We had a wonderful time worshipping on Sunday morning at Central Valley Evangelical Reformed Church. A very warm fellowship with a very refreshing love for God-honoring music, liturgy and teaching of the Word. Not to mention a family-integrated worship service which was also a tremendous encouragement.

When we talked on the phone Friday night, we were ambivalent about my driving up the older three kids (remember: ages 1, 2, and 4) and maybe not getting enough rest, cranky, etc. But God was kind and we all had a great time.

Oh, and the promised video:

You know, maybe we’ll do this “spontaneous” vacation stuff again!