We had a fun holiday weekend around these parts. Of course it was busy. Friday after swimming lessons finished up, we took the kids to Provo to experience the Colonial Days. You may remember our fiasco parking job last year when we went to Colonial Days. No? There’s a refresher here. This time there was no need to call AAA, so that was good. Since Ryan had the day off, I dragged him invited him to come with us. I’m glad he was game, because it was a lot more fun with him along. We just missed my sister doing her drawing, but we were able to see Ryan’s dad in the printing museum, and we enjoyed some other booths. The kids made medicine bags, and enjoyed playing some of the old games. Especially the hoops and the stick throw! We also helped out the local economy. Some of the kids bought necklaces, some got snow cones, and some bought fans. It was pretty hot there, after all.
After we exhausted ourselves there, we walked a few blocks to one of our favorite restaurants, Los Hermanos. Oh, the chips and salsa!
Excuse me while I wipe the drool off the keyboard, would you? Anyway, the kids had been earning “points” with a little system we’ve got going on to earn a trip to Los Hermanos, and it worked out well. It also counts for our little around the world thing. Mexico! There you go!
We stuffed ourselves thoroughly there, and then moved on to the third phase of our trip to Provo. The Freedom Festival Children’s art show. It was hot, it was too crowded, and it was too long. Enough said? And in order to make it NOT so long and boring and hot, they split up the awards into TWO awards assemblies. One for ages 5-8, and one for ages 9-14. Well, if you have kids in BOTH of those divisions, then it just makes it DOUBLE long, hot and boring. Please remind me next year NOT to attend this. Really. Would you please? The kids did very well sitting through the first hour. Well, actually John was out in the foyer with Ryan and was getting his face painted, so they both missed the first 1/2 hour. That’s probably the only reason he lasted as long as he did. I had a book with me (a boring, not very good book, but a book none the less), and so did at least two of the other kids. So we sat in the back row, clapped when we needed to clap, and tried to read. When the first hour was up, I suggested to Ryan that he take Cole, Jenna and John and make a quick run to his parents’ house in Spanish Fork to pick up the petticoat I’m borrowing for the play, and then come back in about 45 minutes to an hour. I would sacrifice myself and stay in the awards assembly with Megan and Natalie so they could get their awards. That worked out pretty well. Yes, I’m a genius, if I do say so myself. When the girls finally had their awards, I called Ryan to see if he was back yet, and he had JUST pulled into the parking lot.
Saturday was not such a packed day. We didn’t go to the big parade, but stayed home to get some house cleaning done. My brother and family are in town, and were going to come over after the parade, and they’ll be staying with us until the 10th or 11th of this month. But the house was a mess. That meant lots of cleaning, which means lots of frustration for me. I don’t do well cleaning under pressure. I’ll admit it. I’m not a very good housekeeper anyway, and the stress of trying to rid the house of the clutter and clean it all up in a hurry turns me into kind of a crazy person. If it happens to also be the beginning of a certain time of the month, all hell breaks lose. Yes. The big black cloud of crazy envelops the house and the children cower in the corner. You might here their whimpering cries, “Please, could we have our mommy back?” Ok, I may be exaggerating slightly. But not much.
Right about lunch time I got a call from my sister-in-law. Plans have changed, and they won’t be staying with us until Monday or Tuesday after all. Click.
“Ok, kids! You can come out now,” I called, “crisis averted. But keep on your toes because we’ll have to go through this again on Monday.”
After lunch, I let the kids do what they had been wanting to do, and that was veg out in front of the tv. Later we went to my sister’s house for dinner. It was so much fun to have ALL 22 of the grandkids together. It’s not all that often that we are all together, and it was a very fun afternoon. The kids get along famously, and we all chatted and laughed. Of course, the afternoon was not ALL fun and games. There had to be some torture involved somehow, and that came in the form of family photos. I think that’s enough said about that.
When it got dark enough, my brother-in-law Tom delighted us with his wonderful backyard fireworks display. Soon it was 10 pm and time to get all the kids home. We ended up bringing home one cousin, as she REALLY wanted to spend more time with Jenna. No problem, we have plenty of dresses and things to outfit any extra 8 year old. On the way home, we enjoyed watching the Riverton fireworks, and then the Thanksgiving point fireworks. We could see a little bit of something way down South that may have been from the Stadium of Fire, but I couldn’t hear any Jonus Brothers singing, so I’m not sure.
When everyone was in bed, I said to Ryan, “Six kids isn’t so hard! That didn’t take any longer than it usually does to get five kids in bed.” Oh, how pride comes before a fall. At about 12:30 or 1, there was a little knock on the door. I woke up to see our sweet niece at the bedroom door. “I really miss my mom,” she said. Oh, the poor sweet thing. No way am I calling her mom at her brother’s house, so I had to just do my best. I went with her back to the girls’ room, and talked to her softly about all the fun things she was going to do this week while here in Utah, and how excited our girls are to have her here. I lightly ran my fingers over her hair, her face, and her arm. I’m not sure how her mommy comforts her when she can’t sleep, but I just did what I would do with my own girls and tried to comfort her. It didn’t take long before she went back to sleep. I wish I could say the same thing for me. I have a hard time falling asleep if I’m woken up during the night. I guess it’s just one of those things that happen when you get “older”.
This morning, having six kids did take a little bit longer. Since they all got smoky from the fireworks and sweaty from running around, everyone needed showers. And having four girls’ hair to do in the morning definitely takes longer than only three. Especially when three out of four of them want french braids. No worries. We still made it to church on time. It wouldn’t have really mattered if we were late, though, since so many people were gone for the holiday weekend.
It is my month to conduct in Relief Society, and my week to teach the “presidency message”. I stressed for weeks and weeks about this lesson, trying to come up with just the right message. I don’t mind teaching when I just have to teach out of the lesson manual, but coming up with my own lesson? not so fun. I was such a scatterbrain, I messed up on the conducting, forgot to get prayers, and BLEW through my lesson in about 1/2 the time. Ugh. I think it was a good lesson (on service, by the way), I just needed more material. I left the ladies with about 15 minutes for testimonies at the end. Oh, the silence was uncomfortable. (crickets chirping). I was so nervous, thinking ‘how long do I let it be silent’, when someone stood up to bear their testimony. And then someone else did. Then there was another uncomfortable silence, and I was JUST about to get up and announce the closing song and we’d just dismiss early, when another person stood up to bear their testimony. Sometimes, I guess, uncomfortable silence is a good thing.
After church, we came home and had some lunch, and I slunk upstairs to have a nap. A well deserved nap.
The kids really love the pony ride that’s included. They all have to “name” their ponies and enjoy their little rides. 
The kids were right. It was much more fun with friends. 
My kids have really been there a lot in the past year, especially John, so they didn’t jump for joy when I said we were going. I even made Cole come with us (gasp!). Kids cost $8, and adults $10, so it would have cost the 6 of us $50 to go. That’s $103 for the three activities this week. You can see that having a family pass really IS a bargain, if you do any of these activities more than once in a year. We’ve really gotten our money’s worth out of the pass, and enjoyed the benefits of membership.
and I wished my kids had been more involved, so this year we decided to do it together. Only when I woke up on Saturday, I had NO VOICE. Seriously! I was like Ariel in Little Mermaid, only I didn’t still have my looks and my pretty face. I had this croaking frog voice. I tried singing along to the radio as I was getting ready. Maybe it’s just the usual morning hoarseness. Maybe that cold/allergy thing has taken over and is now residing in my throat! What was I to do? Well, I went anyway. 
or the $39.99 GORM. Decisions, decisions. We made a quick stop at the AS-Is, and then payed for our stuff. We still had 15 minutes left on our playland timer, so I bought the girls their hot dogs and they sat down to eat. 
Some of us are more enthusiastic than others, you know?
We let Jenna and John try their hand at the shooting water game.
It only took two games (at $6 each for the three of us) for the two of them to win stuffed animals.
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