Soaking It Up Before School Starts

Last Tuesday brought even more rain. We had thunderstorms early in the morning, then saw a little bit of sunshine before it rained until noon. I got on the treadmill and tried running some more. All together I ran about 1 ¾ miles out of 3. I was thinking things were getting better for running but my pelvis/pelvic muscles were pretty sore afterwards. The twins entertained themselves with bringing all of their trains and tracks upstairs. They have done it the last several days and, thankfully, they have some nice brothers and sister that will help them clean it all up and take it downstairs when it is time to leave. 

After the rain cleared out, we headed over to my parents house to swim. Sara and her kids got into town right before we got there. The swimming didn’t last as long as the day before because the water was colder with all the rain we got. They played on the monkey bars also though, went on some bike rides and played on their iPads/Kindles. The boys gathered together to play Minecraft together. That evening they all headed to Baring Lake to meet up with some of our Killday relatives while our family went out to eat at 1000 Hills with Andrew’s family. It was Annie’s last day in town and we were also celebrating Tom and Mary’s anniversary which is Sunday. The twins loved seeing the “ocean” and watching for boats while we waited for our dinner. The restaurant has kind of revamped their menu and I think everyone enjoyed their meals. After dinner we headed home and the kids enjoyed playing outside past dark. Us adults sat out and talked until the bugs got the best of us. I had bites all over my legs.

Wednesday morning the kids all slept in. The twins have been going without a nap while everyone is home so it is catching up with them. I did my workout and then we all got ready for the day. The kids helped me make some cookies to take over to my parents and we headed over there around lunch time. My cousin, Jimmy, and his three youngest kids came into town and joined us for lunch and then swimming. My kids are always excited when they come into town. Then my Aunt Betty and Uncle Jim came to hang out too. The kids swam for quite a while and we made it through a few light sprinkles. We even got a game of Bean Boozled in with some of the kids. After they were done, Miles thought he would take advantage of the jelly beans that were left on the table. He was kind of unsure about some of them but I also think he was excited to have some jelly beans and no one was telling him no J.  Soon after we came in around 5 it started pouring. My parents ordered Pagliai’s for dinner and Andrew came over after work to eat with us. It eventually cleared out and the kids got back in the pool, followed by watching Home with the projector on the side of the pool house when it got dark enough. Miles and Bennett loved the discovery of their shadow appearing on the wall when they were standing in front of the projector. Sometimes you would see their spiky hair sticking up in the middle of the picture. That night, Ellie and Lincoln got to stay over for a sleepover. It was a crowded house J.

The next morning I was up early and had great hopes of getting a lot done but then my phone updated its software and wouldn’t connect to Wi-Fi. I really wanted to figure it out since I didn’t want to use my data while I was at home. So I spent over an hour trying to figure that out when I realized it was because my internet was actually down and not because of the update. Then I spent about an hour trying to get my internet back when I finally gave up and called the cable company only to get a message that they were experiencing problems in my area. But other than that, I was able to get a bike ride in and get laundry done. The twins played with their trains again then moved on to their dump trucks. Jackson has been going on bike rides lately around the little lake down the street from us.

Jimmy and his kids were leaving after lunch so we headed over there to tell them goodbye. The kids spent quite a bit of time in and out of the pool and riding bikes. Ellie also loved to swing with Charlotte.

The twins started buddying up with Carolina. She would take care of them and kind of boss them around and they liked it J. After Jimmy left, Kathy and her grandkids came over to swim. My parents were the ever-rotating bed and breakfast this week. That evening we had AJ’s for dinner to celebrate Amanda and Kaitlin’s birthdays. We even had AJ’s wedding cake for their birthday cake and got to sing the Happy Birthday song multiple times so multiple kids could blow out the candles. Everyone was pretty tire though so we called it a night after that.

Friday I was up early but still had trouble getting everything done that I wanted to. I did get all the bathrooms cleaned, worked on pulling some weeds and cleaning cobwebs outside and then showed Jackson and Ellie how to pull weeds. We have these “water weeds” that have popped up in our grass from all the rain. They look like grass except they are thicker and grow much quicker than regular grass. So Jackson and Ellie spent about an hour pulling up as many as they could. Ellie also had the pleasure of doing some extra chores since she had told me her room was clean the day before even though she still hadn’t put away her laundry. Lincoln was in charge of sweeping all the pistachios shells off the patio and then he cleaned up the playroom for me and was so excited to show me. But then he and his friends just messed it up again when they decided to build forts in the basement.

Eventually we made our way to my parents. Amanda had already left to head back to Kentucky. But Sara and Kaitlin were still around. The kids swam for a little bit and we had lunch then Sara left too. I put a movie on for my kids and had them rest on the couch while I did a much-needed grocery shopping trip. I unloaded it all and put it away at home and then went by the Primary school to find out who Lincoln’s teacher was going to be for Kindergarten. He is going to have Mrs. Quigley. Ty had her and told Lincoln that if you turn in your homework that you get a piece of candy. So Lincoln was excited about that.

Andrew planned on taking the kids out to the ranch early Saturday morning but actually slept through his alarm and didn’t get up until about 6:30. So I got the twins ready to go and went ahead and started washing bedding. I did a bike ride on the trainer and it was my longest one since my accident. And I am creeping up closer to my average speed on the trainer from before the accident. Running is still a whole other story. I finished up some of my other cleaning chores around the house and other random things I had put off during the week since we were at my parents’ house so much. Andrew and the kids got some work done out at the ranch and got to have some fun riding the horses and four-wheeler.

Andrew went for a bike ride after he got back. Then Ellie went with Faith to Baring Lake that afternoon. The boys got out the Tinker Toys and crafter some guns (I’m sure not the intended use of Tinker Toys) along with Ty and Bryce.

After dinner Andrew took Jackson out back to work on football while Lincoln went to play with Alex and Ty. The twins wanted to join in on the football too, so Andrew would give them the ball and have them try to run past Jackson. I joined them after cleaning up and worked some more on pulling the water weeds. They were already starting to grow back after Andrew mowed the day before. I do think there were less though after Jackson and Ellie pulled some earlier. Then I took the twins out front for them to play around and ended up spending the rest of the evening visiting with Tiffany while the kids played. Ellie got home around 10 and was so excited that she got to knee board at the lake. That night we had another big storm roll through with lots of thunder and lightning. Lincoln had been out in the family room and he joined me around 4. I pretty much didn’t go back to sleep after that and just read a book on my Kindle. Andrew came in around 6 debating whether to try to go to sleep or go to the office. So he snuggled in next to Lincoln and tried to go back to sleep. And I guess Ellie ended up in Jackson’s room sleeping on the floor. But we had to get up after a while and get ready for church. I was a little anxious about going since we hadn’t been all summer-partly because of my accident, partly being out of town a lot of weekends and partly because I was undecided if we would go back. But we did and it was fine. It is odd knowing that most of our small group won’t be attending though.

That afternoon we made our way over to my parents’ house for some swimming. Lissy and Molly had both gotten into town the day before so they were there too. Andrew went swimming with the kids which they always enjoy. Then he went to the office for a bit. We had pizza there and then headed home because the kids were very anxious to “game night”.  As soon as we got home, they all ran inside to get their all black clothes on. Tiffany went way beyond just game night though and they had a fire going in their fire pit for s’mores, a cute table set up with all the supplies and drinks. Our neighbors across the street, the Van Meters, were moving in a few days so she even had a canvas set up for all the kids to leave a message for Bryce. The kids started playing Capture the Flag while Andrew and I tried to get a round of tether ball in. Neither of us were getting anywhere and we realized that the top was just spinning in a circle so the ball couldn’t wrap around the pole at all J.

Then the Tiffany and Mike set up a movie on the side of their garage and had a popcorn machine so everyone could enjoy popcorn with the movie. They watched the movie for a little bit and then it was time for serious games. Lissy came by and picked up Ellie around 10 to take her to my parents to sleep over so she could help with the mini shoots the next day. And Andrew took the twins in earlier. The rest of us stayed out until about 10:30. The kids had a great night though and the LaBeths did an awesome job putting it all together.

Lissy did mini shoots at our house Monday evening. She had Ellie, Lincoln and Faith help her set everything up in our backyard and it looked so cute. She said she would squeeze our kids in before everyone got there but her first two appointments showed up early. The twins had to be woken up from their nap and weren’t very happy, so it was best that we had to wait. I think she got some good ones though.

Lissy had a very busy night and I found myself staying out there visiting with some of the people coming to take the pictures. It was funny that even the ones we didn’t know would still stick around and play on the swing set or the basketball court. We don’t even have a fancy swing set but they still liked it. I finally forced myself back inside until closet to 6:30 to make dinner…Andrew was starving J. So I finally got it all together and went back out to tell everyone it was ready but there were even more people out there visiting.  I ended up just staying out there the rest of the evening while Andrew and the kids went in randomly, threw some food on paper plates and brought it back out to eat. We ended the night with probably our biggest football game yet with Andrew in charge. It was dark when we finally headed inside and I sat down to eat about 9:30. Andrew did baths and I cleaned up the kitchen, ready to get to bed after a couple fun, busy nights.