You won't believe what I'm recommending this time

So, it was kind of the off season on our little family vacation the last few days. Michael had a work conference at Lake of the Ozarks, and we all joined him. So he sat in meetings all day while the boys and I wandered around looking for vacation-y things to do. Miner Mike's is only open on weekends. No putt-putt or race tracks. We really felt worried when we noticed that even the Burger King play place had been taken down.

So we went to Blockbuster. As the boys looked for movies to play on the hotel television with our car DVD player, I talked to the lady behind the counter. Tell me there is something fun to do with three boys in this town in October. She told me about a park just past "the bowling alley." That was when I really knew I was desperate. "A bowling alley? Do you think it's open?"

But we didn't end up bowling after all. We found a McDonalds play place and shopped at Osh Kosh and watched our movies and got ice cream. It worked out. Then on Friday I took them to a movie. High School Musical 3. (I know.  I mean, I really do know. But I'm telling you -even the Burger King play place was closed, and I'm just not that into movies about little dogs who talk.) And I loved it. A movie that glorifies all the good stuff about high school and none of the reality? And breaks into song and dance numbers every few minutes? I'm there. And it was not cruel and unusual punishment to take my sons there. They have basketball scenes and - you know - an old truck and stuff. And anyway, this one's big people. One show-stopping number after another, and I actually did love it.

Don't take that as an official review or recommendation. Not unless you're at Lake of the Ozarks during the off season and you're so thrilled to be anywhere that even driving one place to another feels like an event and your two-year-old sleeps on your lap in his brand new Osh Kosh clothes while you breathe in the scent of his hotel-shampooed hair. And you also need an excessive love for song and dance and pink, glittery sorts of things. Plus, you should probably know that I have an achy, feverish cold and couldn't wait to sit down in a cushy theater chair for two straight hours rather than do anything that actually required energy. If you go into it similarly easy to please, then by all means, take it as an official recommendation. And then when you like it too, you'll understand why my new slogan is from the movie's finale:

I hope the rest of my life

feels just like

a high school musical.

I truly do.