Friday, concluded.

2:30 PM:  Leave for Old Navy

The plan - Drop Julie at Old Navy at Concord Mills.  We would wait in the car while she made the returns, then head over to Lowe's for mulch and flowers.  Head home and work in the yard for a little bit.  Simple.

It has been my experience that "Simple", is not, and "Quick" is a word slipping from the Wagner vocabulary.

2:45 PM:  Arrive at Old Navy, let Julie off.

Zoe and Zane wanted a drink.  Not usually a demand that would warrant an immediate response from us on a "quick" car trip, but it had been since somewhere in Carowinds that they had a drink.  They were due some nourishment.    I ran over to Burger King and got a couple of juice boxes and waters.  On the way back over to Old Navy, Zoe proclaimed, "I have to go pee-pee."  Zoe is potty training and with 3 kids in diapers, it is something that we are strongly encouraging.  So ... stroller out, Zadie out, Zane out, Zoe out, Zack out ... us in ... to Old Navy we go.

Old Navy was having a sale ... 30% off everything!  I realized it might be few minutes (hours) before we saw Julie again.  I was glad that we came in.  When we invade a store, it can be quite a scene.  And I am becoming one of "those" parents.  You know the ones that I am talking about.  You see them at the mall, at Chick-Fil-A, at church.  They seemingly have no control over their hootin' and hollering kids who are all over the place wreaking havoc and causing a big ruckus.

Then there are the collection of singles and parents of only children with looks of disdain and disgust that "those parents" refuse to control their children.  And further more, "if they couldn't control their children, why did they have so many?"

Believe me, I know, I used to be one of you.  I can assure you, it is an organized chaos and it is working for us.  Now I realize that it is a feat of sanity to let your kids run a little crazy, when there are so many. Anyway, I guarantee that my kids are having more fun than those kids that are tethered to their parents hip and really isn't that what matters.

But I digress.

3:45 PM:  Leave Old Navy - decide to see if we can find some work shoes for Julie

We started at the Sketcher store.  Couldn't find the right shoes in the right size.  Head over to The Shoe Dept.  Julie found some things she liked, but was having a tough time making decision.  The Shoe Dept., in their infinite wisdom, are trying to make a little profit by selling various type of balls, that reside in a bin in the center of the store.  I can tell you they might be rethinking that method at the Concord Mills location right now.  Zack thought it looked a lot like a basketball hoop and was seeing how far from the "hoop" he could be to make a shot.  He missed more than he made, so on top of having him running a jumping all over the store, you also had various types of balls bouncing this way and that.  Zane enjoyed basketball also, but him and Zack also had a side game of take-away going on.  So, Zane was running near Zack, Zack would try to take the ball, Zane would run away screaming.  Good family fun.

The kicker is, after about a half hour of this, we left the store, only purchasing about a dollars worth of caramel candies, after all, it was snack time.  Though the employees smiled as we left, I have a feeling we were talked about when we were gone.  

Back to the Sketcher store.  Turns out, that they will order shoes for you and send them directly to your house for no charge.  The shoes just have to be at another store and that was going to take some checking on the part of a store clerk.  

Did I mention that we bought some caramel candies?  They kids were now past the "wound up" phase and entering "crazy phase".  Before I could process what was happening, Zoe, Zane and Zack were running as fast they could, circling the store, playing tag, screaming in delight the entire time.  The Sketcher store has shelves and aisles that are about 4 feet tall and a few feet wide respectively, throughout the store.  This means it's like a maze and two of our children could not be seen (only heard!), unless they were in the same aisle.  As you can imagine, it took a few minutes to curtail the game.

Where's Zane?  Could not find him.  Looked all through the store, no sign of him.  Walked out into the mall.  There he was.  About fifty yards away, heading toward a "Deal or No Deal" video game.  I caught up to him, just before he got there.  Picked him up and brought him back to the store.  I looked away for a second and he was gone again.  This time he decided to run to the video game.  He made it before I could catch him and he thought that was hilarious.

Time to move them.

4:30 PM:  Take kids to Nascar Speedpark (an arcade, go-kart, mini-golf place)

I figured if they are running crazy anyway, why not take them to an appropriate place to do so.  We had been there for a little bit, when Zoe came up to me, crying, saying "me go pee-pee".  Notice that was not, "I have to go pee-pee."  I looked behind her and saw the trail running across the carpet that led to the conspicuous dark spot next to a flashing token game machine.  The kicker to this was that since we were just coming in for a "quick trip" (2 hours ago), I did not have the diaper bag.  No change of clothes, no panties, no diaper.  Luckily, my quick thinking bride remembers the tutu we had just bought for her at Old Navy.  And luckily the tutu came equipped with bloomers to act as underwear.  I even found an extra trash bag in the bathroom to put the wet clothes in.

To end the night we decided that it would be fun to ride some go-karts.  We needed to get some food first and surprisingly, there is nothing to report from dinner, except for the fact that Zadie is really craving some solid food at this point.

We head back to Nascar Speedpark and quite a line has formed for tickets to the attractions.  Lines?  Lines are not something we do well ... so we decide to split up.  Zach gets Zane.  Julie has the girls and I wait in line for tickets.  Now I am in line for 5, maybe ten minutes, when Julie comes up to me to check my progress.  A moment later I ask her if she has seen the boys and before she could answer I saw one of the funniest sites I have ever had the pleasure of seeing.  (There is no way I will be able to do the description justice, but here goes).  From somewhere in the rear of the arcade, I see Zane running as fast as he can, barefoot and red faced from laughing so hard, trailed by a determined Zach with Zane's shoes in his outstretched arms, trying to keep up with his little brother.  They came from behind a bank of skeeball machines and disappeared behind the front retail counter.  Turns out that Zane had been trying to lose Zachary for a few minutes and finally came up with the bright idea to take his shoes off and throw them in the opposite direction of where he was going to run. When Zach went to retrieve them, he took off.

Well, I finally got the tickets.  We rode some go-karts and then headed home.  We finally made it home at 8:53PM, over twelve hours from when we had left home.  We were totally exhausted, but made some great memories.