We love living in the country. There is only one problem – the lack of high speed internet. Right now we have satellite internet, which is better than dial-up. Most of the time.

The biggest problem is when we have several days of stormy weather, like we’ve had. So what’s an entrepreneurial family with a thriving business  that requires printing postage to do?

Find the nearest wi-fi hotspot of course!

Normally, I pack up my home office (two laptops and the postage printer) and head to McDonalds. It’s about 6 miles from the house, so it’s pretty convenient. But two nights ago, we decided to take the whole family and head into town to get our Christmas tree and dinner. After picking out the tree and loading it into the Hulk, Jim made an announcement.

Jim: “We’re going to have a poetry contest. I’m going to say the first line, and someone has to come up with a second line that rhymes.”

Jim: “Next stop…”

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

Colter: “I know!!! IHOP!”

(To which there was much cheering).

So we arrived at IHOP and took over four tables. We set up the home office on one and proceeded to order dinner.  What does a family of ten order?

Jim: eggnog pancake special
PJ: omelette with cheese, spinach, peppers, & onions, with a stack of pancakes
Colter: 3 eggs, 3 pancakes, 4 pieces of bacon, hashbrowns
Brett: cinna-stack
Emery: 3 eggs, 3 pancakes, 4 pieces of bacon, hashbrowns
Fletcher: omelette with cheese, bacon, and green peppers, side of pancakes
Greyden: blueberry pancake stack with sausage and bacon
Hewitt: smiley face chocolate pancakes
Indigo: stack of pancakes and macaroni and cheese (I know, she’s strange)
Jade: eggs, pancakes, bacon

Since that wasn’t enough food, I ordered 3 cinna-stacks to split for “dessert”. Even then, Colter and Greyden were still hungry and Hewitt wanted an order of broccoli. (Yes, my children are bottomless pits when it comes to food – but they work hard, so I figure they’ve earned it).

After we finished eating, the children all headed to the Hulk. Brett has been reading “The Red Pyramid” out loud to them, and they wanted to do that while Jim and I finished printing postage for the next day’s orders.

While we were working on our computers, our waitress, Misty (who was so helpful and wonderful) shyly asked us a question.

Misty: “So, ummm…, this may sound a little strange, but we can all smell you… in a GOOD way… and we were wondering what scent we were smelling?”

Jim and I started laughing. The children had shared with Misty about Goat Milk Stuff, so she knew we made soap. Apparently some of the IHOP workers were having an animated discussion trying to figure out what scent we smelled like.

We told Misty that we had all been working in the soap room, so it was probably a mix of scents. Someone thought that they were smelling spearmint, and we confirmed that was likely because the boys had unmolded a batch of rosemary spearmint before we headed to IHOP.

So, not only did we get to answer customer emails, print postage for orders, and eat lots of super pancakes, we also got to enhance the fragrance of IHOP.

A definite win-win!