Monday, May 30
Monday was technically a holiday - Memorial Day to be precise. Although other families had plans to BBQ, or play at parks, our family had a day pretty much like any other. Shane was home from work for the day and I still had to work that night. Shane spent the morning sorting through buckets of random junk in the garage - I watched enthusiastically. It's not that I didn't want to help - I'd already spent hours upon hours over the last few weeks sorting through the junk in the garage. Shane was left with the piles that I didn't know what to do with. We considered making plans to take the kids out to play at a local park, or even just hosing them down in the front yard - but they just kept picking on each other. They ended up earning an early bedtime - not so holiday-ish.
Tuesday, May 31
On Tuesday, I was really hoping the kids were going to be better than they had been on Monday. Those little turkeys had pecked at each other all day long and I really needed them to be a little nicer. Sydney voted to spend the day in her pajamas and was reluctant to get dressed later when we needed to go to the elementary school to drop off our belated teacher appreciation gifts. The principal, Mr. Dillehay, was really sweet and enthusiastic about the gifts we dropped off for him. Mr. Worley, the computer teacher (proclaimed by Spencer to be one of the best ever) was also very gracious about the gifts. Mr. Worley loved the t-shirt we had given him and had all three of the kids sign it with a permanent marker, which made them all feel pretty cool. I went to work Tuesday night and the kids hung out with Daddy - and stayed up way too late.
Wednesday, June 1
Wednesday was spent cleaning the house. That's pretty normal after my working Monday and Tuesday nights. The house is generally pretty trashed by then. The kids were still in a funk - picking on each other and doing a good job of pressing my sanity to its very limits. I can't recall if I took the kids out to a park or not - Wednesday is kind of a fog for me. I do recall how the evening went though.
Shane arrived home to find everyone in an awesome mood (sarcasm there.) I decided to take Ryan to the market to buy new bike tires for all the bikes in the garage - a costly endeavor. Shane took the big kids to get a bunch of crappy sod from the Schneider's house. Layne had called Shane about the sod he was pulling up from the backyard and Shane thought it was a good idea to go and get it. (Please note, that I made every effort not to comment on this situation. I really didn't want hand-me-downs from a family that completely ignores us in general. It seemed to me that it was a convenient way for them to get rid of some trash - Shane did all the work!) Shane spent the evening placing the sod in a neat rectangle outside of our bedroom - there is now a very small patch of lawn in my backyard. I couldn't force myself to work on the project - I was too disgusted with the whole situation.
Thursday, June 2
I trimmed the boys hair in the morning, then packed things up for a picnic. During Spencer's haircut, I put water on for a cup of tea (herbal of course - which I have to keep explaining to the kids - they all think I'm a sinner.) I apparently turned on the wrong burner, burning a pot holder and melting my expensive kitchen sheers. Sad times there. I was determined to do something fun, since we hadn't had too much of it the previous two days. We packed towels and snacks and headed to Loveland. I told the kids up front that they would need to be good to go to the park. We left early in the morning to try to avoid the 90* weather. We stopped at New York and Company to make a return - which should be a simple process. For some reason the computer system wouldn't process the return correctly and kept trying to give me three dollars instead of sixteen. The kids were trying, not very hard, to be good, while the service ladies called tech support to help resolve the issue. Although tech-support didn't do anything, the computer seemed to work out it's own issues and issued the refund. We left from there to Ross's Dress for Less where I was looking to buy a pair of shorts with the money from NY&C. Sydney and Spencer started punching each other when they thought I wasn't looking. I reminded them again that they needed to be good to go to the park. Sydney started picking on Ryan when she lost interest in picking on Spencer. Soon Ryan was throwing a fit and kicking me. I decided that we weren't going to the water play park. I didn't break the news to the kids until we reached the car. You can imaging the crying that followed the announcement. None of the kids could dispute that they were being monsters and didn't deserve to go, they were just sad about it. We headed home. Once the crying subsided I decided to stop at a less exciting park to have the kids burn off some energy before I put them all down for a nap (which they all really love to do.) The mean kid syndrome continued at the park. We stayed for about thirty minutes then came home for nap. When Shane came home I was in time-out. I had put myself in a time-out and informed the kids that I was in trouble and should be left alone. I just felt like I'd had enough of the fighting and it was making me a little crazy. The dinner I had planned on making didn't work out - ingredients had been consumed on either Monday or Tuesday while I was away from home. I proposed to Shane that we grill at a park to keep the house cool. He agreed - we bought dogs at Hay's Market and went to a little park I had stumbled across in Johnstown when I got lost looking for a ward member's house. We had a good time at the park, then promptly brought the kids home and put them to bed early. I went out for a run - which was a shock to my lungs - and spent the rest of the evening coughing up a storm.
Friday, June 3
Friday was the great day of basement cleaning. The basement isn't even close to being done, but I spent the entire day cleaning and sorting through junk. The pile of things to sell or donate is enormous. I'm so excited for it to all go away - the question is when? The kids spent the day helping with the work where they could and playing games/watching videos. We grilled dogs for dinner to avoid heating up the house. After dinner a little girl, Brooke, from kindergarten, came by and invited Spencer to the park to play. The kids went out to play and I went for a run. Day two of running was much less painful for my lungs than day one had been! Shane and I watched a movie after the kids went to bed, then we did our own thing. Even though I had spent the whole day cleaning, I ended up cleaning the master bathroom Friday night as well, along with the front of the house. I finished reading Empire of the Summer Moon that night - finally! It was a slow read for me - a non-fiction about the Comanche nation. It was super interesting though and reminded me of Dad and his love of Louis Lamore books. As I was reading, trying to get through my last few pages, (it was now after midnight, 12:24am) and my phone started to ring. I didn't recognize the number so I answered it - thinking it may be an emergency of some kind. It turned out to be one of my coworkers, who saw that I had called earlier and was returning the call thinking that it was his sister. I still had to wonder what his sister was like if they regularly called each other after midnight!
Johnstown BBQ Daze! We woke up early and had our own pancake breakfast - since $5 per person is steep for pancakes at the firemen's breakfast. The bigger kids were in the parade on the church float - which has been kinda lame every year. I know, that's mean to say, but the other churches in town seem to put a lot of effort into decorating and designing their floats. Ours generally, if lucky, has some streamers, and a large paper poster/banner. The kids toss out candy, to the delight of the children along the parade route. For Ryan, who wasn't on the float, it was like Halloween in June. He made out like a bandit. We had a good time watching the floats, tractors, cars and horses going by. Ryan got plenty of practice at waving, saying hello, and throwing kisses (which landed him loads of treats.) After the parade, we hung out at Letford Elementary for a while with other ward members while the kids all had popsicles and played on the school equipment. We went to Parish park to check out the festivities - which seemed mostly to be booths and overpriced carnival food. We ended up going for lunch at Ajuaah (a new Mexican restaurant next to the dry cleaners in town.) Ryan was so tired he kept trying to go to sleep on the bench at the table. We came home for a nap, then headed out for power grocery shopping. Shane helped plan the menu for the week - and we headed to Sam's Club. I bet Shane that I could get all of the groceries in ten minutes while he ate something in the food court with the kids. I made my timer, although I ended up in the checkout line for about five minutes. We stopped by WalMart, this time racing each other. Shane and Spencer headed to electronics for a computer cord of some kind while Sydney, Ryan and I headed off to grab the few grocery items we weren't purchasing at Sams Club. Syd, Ryan and I even stopped for cookies at the bakery and made it to the car well before the other boys were back. We ended up waiting in the car for a good five minutes for those slow-pokes! We headed back to Johnstown to find a park to watch the fireworks at dusk. When we finally did find a park to go to, we realized the mosquitoes were out in full force and we were without bug spray. I was ready to pack it up and head home when one of Sydney's best friends, Anesia, spotted us at the park. Her grandma lived across the street and they were having a party to watch the fireworks. They invited us over and shared the bug-spray. We ended up having a great time. We got home late and put some exhausted kids to bed.
**At 12:48am (technically Sunday morning) there was a very loud pounding on the front door. It scared me profusely! The knocking continued - I got out of bed and told Shane he had to follow. I peeked out the window of the door and couldn't make out a person, but I did see a reflection off of a flashlight at the corner - the porch light was on, the person was just standing out of line of sight. I asked who was there, and the person announced that it was the police - I cracked the door and poking my head out discovered a police officer who seemed to be surprised to see me. He was looking for a Bernadette Hernandez, this was her last listed address. I explained that she didn't live here, that the name was familiar and I had received mail for her that I sent back. He apologized for bothering me and left. I am still curious what the whole thing was about. It startled me so badly that I had a hard time falling asleep.
Sunday, June 5
It was fast and testimony meeting today at church. The first half of the meeting was bizarre. There was a woman I'd never seen before who told stories about her issues with her mother. Another sister told a story about going to watch a friend be baptized at another church, where this same sister said she felt more loved and welcome at the other church. This sister also said that her member son decided to be baptized at this other church at the end of the meeting she attended. At was so strange! I kept wondering when the bishop was going to just close out the time for testimonies and share a message of his own. While I was pondering on the strangeness of the meeting, some guy I also had never seen before got up to speak. He ended up preaching about all sorts of random things for a good ten minutes. I was watching my watch and dying to leave the meeting when I started to get the distinct feeling I needed to share my testimony - which was in direct conflict with the feeling I had in the car on the way into church earlier. As I was about to stand, another sister, Allie Thornbrue, got up and shared a beautiful testimony. I was waiting for the feeling that I had been having to subside since she had brought the proper spirit back into the meeting, but it didn't. I started to go for the stand and about five or so other people all headed the same way. It felt good to share my testimony, although I was a bit teary. I felt the Spirit strongly, along with some other conflicting emotions. I ended up going to the restroom to cry for a few minutes and was okay after that.
Well, that's our week so far. It's time for me to get dinner going. The meat I pulled out of the freezer yesterday to cook today was still frozen when I checked on it earlier. I've had it soaking in the sink to defrost - time to make it into fajitas!
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