The ABC Game...

So, my family is hilarious right? Right. Especially when we are all packed into our mini van. Over the weekend we all piled into the mini to take Nicole home to Logan after the last session of conference. We started out all cheery. We were planning on driving up through Snow Basin the "back way" to Logan so that we could see all the pretty fall leaves.

Malfunction #1... I got extremely carsick and almost had to yack on the side of the road. Seriously. I have never been that carsick in my life. So naturally, Mom and the sisters bust out some leftover halloween candy (ya, its not even halloween yet but we like to buy the combo candy bags) and the mini was filled with the smell of whoppers, reese's, almond joys and heath bars. The smell brought tears to my eyes. Such was the extremity of my carsickness. And we were just getting into the "scenery."

Malfunction #2... All the red leaves were gone. They were all dead. The red leaves were going to be the main attraction! They pulled a Lindsay Lohan and didn't even show up on set. (Perhaps they ran away with their lesbian lover.) Anyhoo. No red leaves. Only yellow ones, which were okay I guess. Whatever. It was still kind of pretty. But a major let down.

Malfunction #3... We got a flat tire as soon as we got up to snow basin. Which MEANS we had to pull off on the side of the road and all pile out of the mini in the chilly mountain air so dad could put on the spare. Luckily, we had brought one coat, found a dog blanket in the back of the van (just back from the laundrymat, but still gross) and another quilt so we didn't have to freeze while we waited for dad to do the tire changing thing. Just imagine: 1 tire plus 1 nail minus air plus Dad on the ground minus the red leaves plus 4 Booth girls (minus Tami) plus mom on the side of the road = ridiculous.

While trying to stay warm we learned the following:

1. That huddling in a circle is warmer than being individually wrapped in blankets

2. Mom thinks my deoderant smells like pesticide.

3. One of the Booth girls hadn't brushed her teeth that day (nor probably the night before).

4. Taking a huddled picture with all 5 of our foreheads touching produces a nasty double to quadruple chin effect on all of our necks.

Malfunction #4... we had to drive all the way back to Ogden before we could head toward Logan. It wasn't safe to drive the windy mountain road with the spare tire. So while we were in Weber (Ogden?) canyon, we hear this LOUD series of pops and scrapes and everyone freaked out. But no, we couldn't pull over because we were in the skinny winding canyon. After a few minutes Dad found a good place to stop. While Papa Booth was investigating we sat there in the shoulder watching giant trucks haphazardly whiz past us, missing our van by inches. Once Dad was safely back in the car, we found out we forgot to latch the cord that usually holds the spare tire back in place. So what we heard was the bouncing and dragging of the metal hook. Oops. And then off we were.

After the abismal, 2 hour prequel to our journey we finally made it to I-15 and began our drive to Logan.

Now that it was darkish outside and the leaves were ugly, we were left to entertain ourselves without any visual stimuli. We resorted to a family favorite, the ABC game.

One person thinks of a category, and we go around in a circle naming things that fit into that category starting with each letter of the alphabet. Sounds pretty tame and pretty lame right?

Example:

Category: Animals
Answers: Alligator, bird, cat, dog etc.

Here's an example of how OUR family likes to play.

Category: Things You Don't Want To Find In Your Chili
(Sidenote from Mom: "and it can't be anything ridiculous, like you can't say 'a buffalo' or anything like that. That wouldn't fit in your chili.")

Answers: ants, barf, cat hair, disease-causing bacteria (jackie's), e-coli, fungus, etc.

Category: Things You Don't Want to Step On Barefoot:

Answers: Anchovies, banana slug, cat poop, dog poop, an echidna (apparently some spiky creature. Go dad for being so educated), a fetus. Seriously? Nicole said fetus. She is a horrible person.

Category: People You Don't want to Carpool With

Answers: (I can't remember the first few, but here are some of some good ones) Abba, Bozo the clown, Richard Simmons, Osama Bin Laden, (can you imagine what would happen when you were late?) Nancy Grace, and many, many more.

We went through the entire alphabet for every category. Here are some other categories worth mentioning:

Ridiculous things you could say instead of swearing.
Something you wouldn't want to have as a pet.
Something you wouldn't want to birth. (And for dad, something you wouldnt want to "pass"...)

It was a great time. We are disgusting, but exremely creative and awesome.

Some of my favorite quotes from the evening.

"Kristin, remeber when I got car sick on this same drive? I barfed up tons of whole ramen noodles on the side of the road. "

"Woah.. double chin city!"

Nicole: "You guys are gross."
The Rebuttal: "You're the one who wanted to birth it out. We all wanted to poop it out!"

"Blegh what is that pesticides smell??"