A Week of Friends and Cousins

Phillip mowed for a family in our ward at the break of dawn (at least to him) as a service. We rushed home dropped Philip off and nabbed Amelia and Evelyn. Evelyn met with Stephanie at 9:30 for a medicine check. Amelia had an MRI on her hip at 11 am. The van windshield got sprayed with irrigation water last week on a spicy hot day, the water marks seemed permanently etched into the glass. A car wash only lightened the residue. Drives me crazy when the windshield is splotchy. I tried two car washes to no avail. Amelia was slightly claustrophobic during the MRI, she noticed the machine noise often synced rhythm with the music piped in for her “enjoyment.” Then off to grocery shop, that long interlude I love to drag out as long as possible. We worked hard to finish cleaning the loft while I cleaned the office. 

Dustin, Sara, and Carson enjoyed a short trip to Six-Flags in Valencia, CA for Carson’s 16th birthday surprise. They drove the 14 hours there Tuesday, went to the park on Wednesday, drove back home on Thursday! Talk about a whirlwind trip. Ambree, Logan, and Oliver spent three days with us while their family was off galavanting. Sara said she swore on one of the rides! Carson came back stoked over his trip AND getting his first phone! He was very surprised. I was gone Tuesday morning for counseling with Nina, Phillip, and Evelyn. I had a sudden fit that the garage needed cleaning. We had an hour to spiffy up the garage between lunch and dental cleanings. The garage feels quite roomy with all the stuff put away. Amelia drove herself, Phillip, and Everett for the cleanings, I finished up the garage project. I took a pack of kids to DI to donate stuff and browse inside. Ambree loved the Asian store! We stopped there for eel sauce and pho. Everett really wanted some tape to create a cardboard fort. Our last stop was at the Dollar Store for duct tape. Oliver was feeling quite sad by dinner, Sara and Dusty have never left their kids before! Turns out Oliver was hungry, he perked up nicely with spaghetti in his belly. He was thrilled Everett decided to use his precious duct tape to secure Oliver to a large sheet of cardboard! The boys had Oliver tightly taped within minutes. Josie hung her stinky feet over Oliver’s face. He was thrilled with that game. Everett exclaimed that taping Oliver was better than silly string!

Julie came for Fergus’ last training session. She reviewed all the commands and then did leash training. We went on a walk while she showed us how to train Fergus to keep the leash loose. Julie showed us a game with cups and treats to do brain stimulation with Fergus. Wednesday the kids mostly played and relaxed. I worked to get my blog updated. Fergus ate through the internet phone cord around 5 pm. Took me a while to realize the problem. The kids were almost unhinged there was no WIFI. I let the situation brew, it’s good to experience no WIFI. After a few hours Logan discovered the internet was working at his home, it was all over by then. Justin went on an almost mythical journey to find an old school phone cord to replace the one Fergus gnawed through. 

Thursday we worked to get the house cleaned up, it was mostly in order just needed the normal spiffy up.  The kids did their assigned chores then we managed bedrooms and the loft again. Evelyn and Oliver had a fun time up there. I took a group of kids to Walmart for FSY snacks (they had to provide their own) and sunblock. Jana pulled up at 7 pm! She stopped in Ogden to get my Blessing flute I ordered through Jeremy nearly a year ago. Yulia arrived 3 minutes before Jana, so the exchange was seamless. Thank you so much Yulia. Jana also brought Lia up so everyone had a buddy to hang out with. Yay!

We went to Roaring Springs for the day with cousins. It worked out perfectly! The kids all had a buddy to play with and explore the park. I packed a yummy lunch and dinner of Italian chop sandwiches, fruit, veggies, chips, candy, and drinks. We left the park twice to eat picnic style out of the cooler. The park opens at 11 am so the travelers had a slower morning, which was nice. Somehow the bottle of sunblock in my van was removed, the sunblock from the swim bag went poof, we arrived without sunblock. I got everyone inside the park and rented a locker. Jana went with the little ones, I left the park to grab sunblock from Walmart across the street. No way I was paying $14 for a tube of sunblock, got 3 bottles at Walmart for the same price. In the time I was gone Jana scored a lovely sunburn that only worsened throughout the day, the damage was done so no amount of sunblock stopped the burn. Everett kindly let Jana wear his swim shirt for a couple hours. The little girls braved a group ride and a long wait for the ride. Hannah, Evelyn, and Rachel were all scared to go down this particular ride even thought it was rated safe for 4 year olds, the blackened tubes made them nervous. We made it down with some screaming and lots of laughter. Jana was ready to go home at 5 pm, she lasted until 6 after some dinner. Rachel was melting around the same time so they left a bit early. The rest of us made it until the 8 pm close. Lia and Hannah were done at 6 but we all soldiered on! Everett, Hannah, Evelyn and I did fun solo rides on the toilet bowl ride, my favorite attraction. We were all exhausted!

Saturday morning the boys had to be at the church by 7 am for a fun rafting trip down class II and III rapids on the Payette river with the YM and YW. Amelia stayed behind because Lia could not go, wise move. I had two photo sessions starting at 9 am one with a large extended family (really 3 sessions in one) and then a married couple with their foster-to-adopt newborn. The baby’s dad is the foster mom’s uncle who is in his late 60’s and now in prison, the mom is drugged out in her 20s. The baby was a gorgeously perfect redhead, loved completely by her new parents. That was love in action. It was a humid, warm morning, I came home drenched and excited for the photos. Jana left all the girls with Justin, who expressed feeling a bit like Ms Hannigan. Amelia and Lia left as well for an excursion to the mall to do teenager things like stop at Starbucks, shop at BoxLunch, and the new Japanese store. I got home to find the little girl gang strung out watching Bluey and Ladybug. I put the Kibosh on that…gave the girl’s their extensive list of things they wanted to do with cousins. We started with a fight over which team would serve the other team for a “restaurant” lunch. I ended up as waitress, cook, and server. The menu was strawberry lemonade, cantaloupe, and of course rainbow noodles. We had mermaid noodle colors that matched Rachel’s PJs perfectly, purple, pink, and turquoise. Rainbow noodles taste a million times better than plain old beige noodles. The appeal was lost when topped with clashing spaghetti sauce, just close your eyes for regular tasting. Then Evelyn showed Hannah the FSY line dance, “running away from love.” They got plenty of exercise doing that 4 times in a row. While Rachel napped I took the 3 girls on a fun shopping trip. We stopped at Claire’s to browse the expensive chintzy stuff and dream of colorful cute things. We decided to ditch Claire’s in favor of the Dollar Tree, where the girls could each get 4-5 things instead of sharing 1 item at Claire’s. Good choice. We had a blast loading the cart with crafts, nifty chintzy things for a chintzy price. I promised the girls we would try Boba so that was out last stop. We fawned over the cute croc charms stuffed full of fun characters like squishmallows, Bluey, and princesses. I called Amelia who turned green with envy once I showed her the charms. She and Lia arrived a few minutes later for Boba! Hannah was not impressed with her vanilla flavor, she did like her popping bubbles. I had a lovely peach with peach popping bubbles. Jana was concerned we were gone a few HOURS, we were just girling around! Fun, fun. Amelia and Lia spent a chunk of time making macarons so they could watch the new Ladybug and Cat Noir movie just released on Netflix over at Sara’s home. I hear it is REALLY good. Evelyn desperately wanted a cousins photo session with Hannah. I had matching white baptism dresses (Evelyn loved hers so much I found the next size up on clearance). I curled hair, did a touch of makeup, then bam! We had a photo dance party in the suffocating hot garage. The kids wanted a photo of Vader and Fergus together so I also got that checked off. Getting a photo of Vader was quite the challenge. After dinner and clean up I finally got around to helping the girls tie-dye shirts, truth be told it was close to 9 pm. Rachel was very intent on doing it by herself. Her shirt turned out darling. Lia and Mia finished their shirt Sunday evening. 

Sunday I had two fun lesson plans for Primary singing time. The Junior primary did lap rhythms, sensory singing, and rhythm band. In Senior Primary I stumped the kids with a mixed up melody map, lap rhythms, and partner cup rhythms. After church I edited Jana’s family photo from her cruise so it would look better on her walls (got rid of the extra people, etc). The girls worked on making bracelets, coloring shrinks dink headbands, and playing. Evelyn and Hannah soon had the little girls in an epic game of making a fort outside combined with a survival game. The survival part included cutting up lots of leaves for food from all the trees in our yard. It looked quite intense.  After dinner the kids had a short-lived silly string fight. The hype did not last the minute of squirting foam, most of it ended up on Phillip’s bum. Phillip could not get his FSY bags packed without Mommy’s help. He wanted me to approve all his outfits, so cute! Amelia got her stuff all squared away with Lia looking on offering her opinions. We had to be up at 4:30 am to arrive at the Meridian chapel by 5:45. That meant everything packed, bags, bedding, snacks, breakfast, and lunch before going to bed. The little cousins wanted a late night which they got inadvertently due to the chaos of packing. We took a short break for temple couch (the new teenage version of temple table), talking about the Apostle Paul’s ending history of the last section of Acts. He is such a fascinating character! The lights finally went out around 11 pm. I had a very hard time sleeping, afraid I’d sleep through my alarm. Plus Evelyn was up at midnight, then 2, then 3:30, she couldn’t sleep, needed a snuggle, or had a nightmare. That 4:30 am alarm was brutal after such a restless night. Bbbbbbring!!