Last Sunday was our day to regroup. Andrew started the
day at the office, then came home and changed out the tires on his bike and
then he and Jackson got the yard mowed. He did the trimming and when he was
doing that he found a nest of baby bunnies. He put them in a bucket and brought
them out back for the kids to look at. Jackson really wanted to keep one as a
pet.
After he was done mowing, he and Jackson played catch for
a while and then he went for a bike ride out to the lake to try out his new
tires. The Tour de France started on Saturday so he was very excited about
that. A lot of our conversations lately are about it and the different riders.
He loves to follow all of it.
Michele came to clean while we were gone so I got to come
home to a clean house which was wonderful. The twins make quick work of taking
care of that though pulling out every toy that they missed playing with while
we were away. They had the toys out upstairs and then brought up toys from the
playroom too.During the day I worked on unpacking everything, putting it all
away and doing laundry. I also got caught up on little things around the house
that had been neglected after my accident. I cut back the rose bushes and my
flowers. My pots were looking pretty sad after a week without watering so I did
that too. I swept the cobwebs off different areas of the house. I have one
persistent spider that keeps doing a web in the corner of the garage door. I
knock it down and she has it back the next day. I also killed a few wasps and
got rid of their nests. Then I used the leaf blower to clean off the porches,
sidewalks, garage and driveway after the boys mowed and to just get rid of junk
collected over the last several weeks. When I was out back, I noticed something
in the yard and couldn’t tell if it was trash or not (there was quite a bit of
fireworks trash around our house when we got home from the neighbors shooting
off fireworks over the weekend). Well it ended up being a turtle. Andrew
brought it over to the porch but it would never come out of its shell. They
kept an eye on it for close to an hour before they gave up and then it got
away.
Next up was fixing the garage door openers that I had
messed up before vacation. And then I decided to slowly work myself back into
my workouts by doing the 30 Day Shred. I had to modify some of the movements
and not doing them all out, but it is a start to getting my body moving again.
Lincoln was excited that evening when Ty showed up at our door. All of his
friends were gone when we got home and he had been so excited to see them. So
he was glad someone was finally home to play with. We ended up just ordering
Colton’s for dinner since I still needed to get to the store. Plus we have a
couple gift cards people gave us to help out after my accident. Then after
dinner I went grocery shopping while Andrew and the boys kept an eye on the
turtle and played outside for a bit. When I got home they were all in for the
night and Andrew had a replay of the Tour on. Then around 10, my parents showed
up with Ellie. She had a great time spending the extra day with them. She got
to go down to the beach one last time, eat some ice cream, ride bikes with
Molly and enjoy the fireworks.
She was a tired girl and went straight to bed as did the
rest of us. The next day was about trying to get back into a routine which
meant chores and some school work for the kids. I am also trying to incorporate
some sort of devotional for them too. Jackson and Ellie have their devotional
books from kamp that they work on every now and then. I would like to say they
do them more often but we sadly forget about it. So they all got to work on
that and I eventually made it downstairs to the treadmill. I decided I would
walk for a while and see how it went. It hurt more than I thought it would. And
I tried to run but wasn’t able to do it without more pain. I was pretty
disappointed in that because my recovery seemed to be going pretty well and I
had high hopes I would be able to get back at running earlier than predicted. I
had the Tour on and was watching the finish of it so I walked 20 minutes while
I did that.
It was a warm day out so the kids played outside a bit
and Lincoln got to go to the Country Club with Alex. I wasted a lot of my time
trying to find some houses for my family for when we go on vacation in two
years. It was a like a big challenge to see if I could find the right size
combination of houses that were near each other and had the right price. And we
still have a year before we can book, but I spent time on it anyways. I did get
a few other minor things done like clearing out some clothes on Andrew’s side
of the closet, moving the twins clothes I had downstairs up to their room and
other random things. We were having my family over for dinner that night since
Caroline is in town for several days so I also worked on making a dessert and
prepping things for dinner.
There was rain in the forecast but I was still hoping to
be able to either eat outside for dinner or at least sit outside for a little
bit, but the rain came. And there was a lot of it. So we ate inside and then
scarfed down over half of the dessert. The next day at lunch, there was a small
battle between Andrew, Ellie and I for the pasta leftovers from dinner. For
some reason Andrew thought since there wasn’t enough for even two people to
have for lunch, he should just get all of it. But I finally convinced him to
share some with me and then I let Ellie have the last few bites.
My mom and I had decided to take the kids to Hannibal on
Friday since it is something they had been wanting to do for a while. So I
researched that a bit and found a Groupon for admission to the museum. I
finished the last part of unpacking by putting away everything that was
supposed to go down in our storage. And while I was down there, I put together
some centerpieces for Lincoln’s birthday. We are going to have to do his party
a couple days early since Jackson has a Show Me State baseball game on Friday
and we take Jackson and Ellie to kamp on Saturday, Lincoln’s actual birthday. I
also worked on patching up the holes in the wall from our old gate on the
stairs.
The kids played outside quite a bit since it was cooler
weather. Lincoln and Alex were ninjas most of the day running around in their
all black clothes with ninja masks and swords. Even on their bikes J. Andrew came home from
the office early and ended up taking Jackson out to the lake for a bike ride. I
made apricot glazed pork chops for dinner which are always a big hit. Jackson
even had two of them. And then dessert ended up being courtesy of the ice cream
truck that came through the neighborhood. The Truman student who started TruYo
decided to start running an ice cream truck too that goes through some of the
different neighborhoods and also stops by the ballpark.
It was the first evening since May that I have stood
outside with the others and visited while the kids played. As Leah said, “It is
good to have you back.” And it was nice to be able to hang out outside, watch
the kids play and actually talk with adults J.
Then Ellie remembered the extra sparklers we had so they brought those out. And
wouldn’t you know, that as soon as I started to light one a cop car drove past
down the street. But we blew through the sparklers pretty quickly with all of
the kids. Then it was after nine and time to head in.
Wednesday morning I tried running again. I went for two
miles and it was mainly walking at a fast pace. Every now and then I would run
for a minute or a little more but it is hard to explain how it feels when I do
run. It isn’t much fun but I hope it gets better the more I work on it. Then
after I got some work done around the house and the kids played for a bit we
went over to my parents house. It was an unseasonably cold day and raining with
a high of just 61. We went over because Caroline was in town and Molly was
leaving the next day for kamp. Since swimming was not an option, we put on a
Tom Sawyer movie which the kids actually watched.
That evening my parents made a fried chicken dinner since
it was Molly’s last night before kamp. All of my family was pretty happy about
it and it was delicious. Andrew took the twins home after dinner so he could
watch the tour while I kept the other three there for a bit. We played a game
my mom got called Bean Boozled. It is a box of jelly bellys and you spin a
spinner and it will land on a color of jelly belly and it could be one of two flavors. Some of the
combos were caramel or canned dog food, tuttie fruitie or barf, and pear or
booger. We played a few rounds and it was pretty interesting. Jackson was a
champ about it and tried it all while I was more hesitant. My dad would keep
eating it even if it was the bad flavor while the rest of us spit them
out. After we were done with the game it
was time to head home. Lincoln ended up staying the night while Jackson, Ellie
and I made a quick trip to Wal-mart to pick up a few things.
Jackson and Ellie had dentist appointments Thursday
morning, so I dropped the twins off at my parents and went over to the office.
Thankfully they everything was fine with both of them and we were out of there
pretty quickly. Then we went to wash and vacuum out the car before we went back
to my parents. We were going to pick them all up some lunch but they still had
leftovers from the night before so we all got to enjoy that. Jackson ended up
staying this time so that he and Caroline could go see Jurassic World and the rest of us went to Aldi to do some grocery
shopping. When we got home, Ellie and Lincoln were anxious to get out and play
with their friends. The twins and I went outside after I put the groceries away
and did some laundry. I switched out some of our landscape lights that were out
and picked up a bit. The twins entertained themselves part of the time rolling
around on Jackson’s skateboard.
After I laid the twins down for a nap, I finished up
laundry and then got the power washer out to clean off our patio table. I was wanting
to treat it and it said to power wash it first to clean it off. Well I didn’t
stop there. I noticed that the posts on our arbor had some mildew stains all up
and down the sides so I cleaned all of those off along with the patio. Then I
decided to clean the doormat we have out there and it was filthy. But then it
made a mess of other stuff around it from everything spraying out so I had to
clean that too and then redo the patio and some of the posts. It was quite an
ordeal and took me longer that I thought it would. But I’m glad it is done now.
Lincoln came over while I was doing it and wanted his swim trunks because the
boys were going to do a water balloon fight. Then he was upset later that he
couldn’t get his ninja clothes that were up in his room because they were
moving on to ninja fights. But there was no way I was risking waking up the
twins. So I cut out his cupcake toppers for his birthday and he helped me
assemble those. Actually, he spent most of the time flying them around the
kitchen because some of them were Lego Superheroes. It was nice to get those
done and out of the way though.
Then I went back out back to put the sealer on the table.
I had to sand it a little first and then
put a couple of coats on. It was nice to
have a productive day. I did just order pizza for dinner though and the kids
were in and out eating. But then we had to load up and head to a ballgame for
Ellie. Although her season was over, the age group older than her was still
doing their tournament. Grace’s team needed an extra player and asked if Ellie
could do it. She was very excited but nervous. She did a great job though. It
was kid pitch which was totally new for her.
We had a big day planned for Friday with a trip to
Hannibal. I tried to find a sitter for the twins but it wasn’t working out so
they got to join us too. Caroline and my mom went too, so we had too many to
fit into one car. So we met then at the Health and Fitness Center and Ellie and
Lincoln hopped in with them while the twins and Jackson rode with me. We got to
Hannibal around 9:30 and it wasn’t very busy at all. Plus the weather was
perfect. We went through the tour of the museum and the houses of Huck Finn/Tom
Blankenship, Tom Sawyer/Mark Twain and Becky Thatcher/Laura Hawkins. We also
checked out Mark Twain’s dad’s law office but just from the outside. The kids
also took just a bit to act like they were whitewashing a fence. I found it
interesting and I think the older ones did too.
Then we walked just down the street to the train store
and museum. The twins were in heaven.
They looked at the store and then we got to go into the museum. They had
several big train set-ups. On some of them you could push buttons to make the
trains go and the other ones had buttons to make other things on the track/town
go. We stayed there for a while until it was time for lunch. I convinced the
twins to leave the museum by telling them they could pick out a train from the
store part.
We just walked across the street for lunch at the Mark
Twain Dinette. Caroline joked when we walked in, “Are we at a restaurant or a
nursing home?” J.
We all got seated in one big booth and then Jackson decided to order the fried
chicken which said it would take 20-25 minutes. And we waited at least that
long for our food. The twins weren’t very happy waiting but they did gobble up
their pb&js. We didn’t stick around too long after we hate and then hit our
next stop which was down by the river and the train tracks. The twins were
really hoping to see a train which didn’t happen. They did get to see the river
boat though. Then we went to the ice cream shop and got some ice cream. Lincoln also found a sling shot that he
decided would be his souvenir.
Then it was time to drive out to the cave. And just as we
pulled into the parking lot, Bennett started crying and I looked back to see he
had a bloody nose. Jackson was quick to jump out since he was on his side and I
handed him a tissue to get started on stopping it. My mom went ahead and went
in to get tickets and then came out to let me know the next tour started in 2
minutes. Thankfully I was able to get the bloody nose stopped fairly quickly
and I stuffed a little piece of tissue in there and we went inside. The first
part of the tour was actually a video, so we stayed in the store area while the
others watched. Then we all met up to head into the cave. The tour went pretty
well but with it being close to an hour, the twins did whine for a lot of it.
Not crying, but just being whiny. It was kind of far for their little legs to
walk and a little dark. The best was about half-way through when Miles
announced he needed to poop. Thankfully we were able to distract him because we
really didn’t have any other choice J.
It was a neat tour though. Although I think I went through it when I was
younger, I didn’t remember much at all. Caroline and I were amazed at how back
in Mark Twain’s days the kids were go play in the cave. We knew we would have
been lost for sure. After we were finished, I got Miles to the bathroom while
Ellie and Jackson picked out their rock souvenirs. Then it was time to take some tired kids
home. And they slept most of the way back to Kirksville.
I started working on dinner soon after we got home and
then we ate outside since it was so nice. Andrew didn’t get home until after we
had already started. Actually he got home while I was trying to clean Bennett
up. Bennett went inside to go to the bathroom while we were eating and I guess
tried to wipe himself. I heard him yelling and went in to find his hand covered
in poop along with in smeared on his arm, leg and shirt. Lovely. After we
finished up dinner, Andrew played catch with Jackson and Ellie out back while I
cleaned up. Then I took the twins out front to play. When they were done
playing catch, Jackson, Ellie and I tried to play a little 3-square. But then
Jackson gave up on us, so Ellie wanted to practice basketball passes. Before
long, it was dark and time to head in. That night was one of the first nights I
didn’t take any of my pain medicine before bed and I woke up around 2 with my
leg aching. After trying to ignore it for a while, I finally got up and took
something and was eventually able to get back to sleep about 1 ½ hours later as
a storm was rolling in.
We got more rain Saturday morning and so Jackson’s game
that were schedule for that day were bumped to Sunday. So Andrew took the older
three out to the ranch. I had grand ideas of cleaning, working out and power
washing the front of our house but I only got the cleaning done. It was the
first time since my accident to clean the bathrooms and do all the dusting.
Then it was time to get ready for a party we were going to. It was for one of
Ellie’s friends and it was a family party with a cowgirl theme. They had it out
at their house in the country and had horseback rides, a hay ride, sack races
and a giant jenga game. We left after about 1 ½ hours to take the twins home
for a late nap since they were getting grouchy. The Vincents were there too so
they brought Ellie and Lincoln home for us when it was over.
After getting the twins down, I finished laundry and did
the vacuuming while Andrew took a break and watched the Tour for a little
while. Then it was time to get the twins up and head to my parents for dinner.
After dinner the kids swam for a while and then played with my dad’s drone.
They thought they lost it on the first flight. Jackson said he was telling Papa
to not let it go up so high (kind of bossy) but my dad just lost contact with
it and it fell. They were able to find it a few houses over though and then got
the hang of it. Andrew went to the office a little after dinner and ended up
working pretty late into the night. He hasn’t had many late nights like that
lately. I got the kids home and bathed and then we read the twins latest
favorite book, Goodnight, Construction
Site, Goodnight. They love it.
Sunday morning Andrew went out for a bike ride. I tried
my walking/running again on the treadmill. I was able to run a ½ mile at a time
and then walk for a while. It does not feel good though and I haven’t figured
out if it is a good pain and I should continue or if it is a bad pain and I
should quit. Later that morning I made my grocery store run and then Andrew
took Jackson to get some batting practice in before his games. The batting
cages ended up being closed so they set up down in the storage area and just
worked on hitting plastic gold balls for a while. We put the twins down for an early
nap since the games started at 3. Andrew and Jackson went early and I brought
the other kids later. We were under a heat advisory so it was going to be a hot
one. I bought some of the Frogg Togg cooling rags while I was at Wal-Mart so I
put one in Jackson’s cooler and then had a couple for the rest of us to share.
Then I packed lots of snacks and drinks. My parents and Caroline got to the
game about the same time we did and we found a spot in the shade, although it
wasn’t the best to see the game. Jackson was in the outfield for half of the
first game and didn’t see much out there. But he did have a great hit his first
at bat and drove in two runs. My parents left right as the first game was
finishing up and took the kids with them. They got to swim a bit while my
parents worked on dinner. Then we went to their house after Jackson finished up
his second game. He was hot and starving so steak and a swim sounded great to
him. Caroline was heading back to Tampa the next day so they made a very yummy
dinner for her-steak, sweet corn and baked potatoes. Then the kids swam again
and then Andrew took the twins home while the older three swam a little longer.
Ellie and Lincoln ended up having a sleepover but Jackson really enjoys
sleeping in his own bed. Ellie told Caroline she wanted to snuggle with her J.
The next morning, I got the twins ready and then headed
outside to quickly clean out the garage and power wash the front of the house.
It was hot, but it didn’t seem to bother the twins too much and they would cool
off in the mist from the power washer. I got the garage area and the front
porch cleaned up then tried to work on getting a wasp nest down for the peak
over the dining room but the pressure wasn’t enough that high up. I showered up
and got dinner started. I was getting ready to go pick up Ellie and Lincoln
when my mom texted me that they were leaving soon. Since I wasn’t quite ready I
had Andrew pick them up on his way home for lunch. Later that afternoon I had
to take Lincoln to his dentist appointment.
The twins were napping and I left Jackson and Ellie in charge. And while
I was gone they were supposed to do a devotional from their kamp devotion book.
We had a couple of quick errands to run on the way and then I decided to
multitask at the appointment. I got Lincoln situated and then I went over to
Wanda, my dad’ lab/x-ray tech, across the hall and she was able to quickly do
an x-ray of my pelvis that I was supposed to have done around the 2 month mark.
When I got back to Lincoln he was almost done with having his teeth cleaned.
The hygienist was excited to let me know that they were even able to get x-rays
done. First time ever. And they got through the cleaning without any problems.
So much better than previous times. There were some stern conversations
beforehand. Lincoln just attributed it to being older though. J So everything checked
out well with him so then we headed down the hallway to show my dad the x-ray.
He said everything was healing up nicely which was great.
When we got home, the kids all headed out to play with
their friends. Ellie was so excited when Faith invited her to go to Baring
Lake. I was surprised they were going because there was a small thunderstorm
coming soon. But Faith’s mom texted me to let me know that they got to the
cabin and weren’t on the road during the storm. So it was just all the boys and
I for dinner. I broke the rules and
opened my eyes while Lincoln was praying before dinner so I could snap this
picture of how cute the twins are when they pray.
They helped me clean up a bit after dinner and then
headed outside while I finished up. Then I also finished up a surprise
“dessert” I was working on for them…homemade Frostys. It was just chocolate
milk, sweetened condensed milk and whipped cream. I had to mix it in two
batches in the blender and then put it in the freezer for about 5 hours,
stirring it every 30 minutes or so. It definitely didn’t have the consistency
of a Frosty but they were pretty good. So I brought some out to Andrew and the
boys. They all loved it except Miles. He has decided he isn’t a big fan of
chocolate milk. But then the ice cream truck surprised up by showing up. Last
time he said he would be back on Tuesday, so he was a day early. The kids were
so excited they all went running down the street. And they were excited that he
was stocked up with all of the fun choices.
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