A few weeks ago when I sat down to write out the weekly blog post, there was not one single photo on the camera from the previous week. Not that we did nothing that week, but we just apparently didn't take any photos of what we did. Probably because it was Same Old Summer: some school, some pool, some dinking around at baseball club. Glorious stuff, but not exactly headliner news. Plus, we were in the middle of a few other things, like celebrating Jenny Geddes Day...
Todd made this drawing of a Bishop and the kids all threw water balloons at him.
Knox has been loving this luchador mask.
... and packing to go on vacation.
That's right. Since you've seen me last, I've been jet setting. Globetrotting. Perambulating. And by all that, I mean "riding shotgun as Todd obeys the speed limit across South Dakota's I-90." We spent last week at Todd's parents' house in the Black Hills, which is also why I didn't post last week.
And now you're up to speed on my wandering ways and negligent blogging. So let's show you some slides of our travels.
We began by stopping at our regular park pitstop in Sioux City, Iowa. It was... a letdown. Not only was it about as hot as the surface of the sun, but the local YMCA had dropped off like a thousand daycampers to play in the devil's spittle that was the park's pathetic """"splashpad"""". We waited in line for the only available bathroom for like eighty hours just to finally get in there and have to avoid piles of sopping wet toilet paper everywhere.
Not a choice favorite.
At least we got our traditional family photo in front of the park's weird baseball mascot.
Shhh. Here you see two toddlers actually napping in the car, a rare sight in these parts.
We spent four days up there, visiting with Todd's parents, digging in the flower beds, and riding the four wheelers. Todd's aunts, and a distant cousin, stopped by while we were there and we got to know them better. It was so relaxing and fun.
Atticus and Finneas were both a huge help in getting some landscaping work done.
These babies have been so cute and affectionate lately.
Needed to take a little break to drive some sisters around.
Callista learned to drive the ATV this year.
They would drive buckets of weeds up to the burn pile for us - which came in handy later in the week because they were all so antsy to have more weeds to drive up there that they were super motivated to actually pull weeds with which to fill the bucket. I felt like Tom Sawyer convincing all the neighborhood kids to beg me for the privilege of doing manual labor.
Atticus cut his foot pretty badly on some metal roof shingles. It probably could have stood to get some stitches, but we got it cleaned out and glued shut and it has been healing well.
The kids played this little keyboard all week.
The kids loved sitting around singing songs with Grandma Jacqi and Papa Tony.
Look how fast we're filling that bucket. So many ATV rides into the forest were necessary when so many people were working together.
For a while it was just me and the boys, and I have to say I just love having teenage sons. They're funny, and fun to be around.
Callista helped me make breakfast most mornings. Oey was just there for moral support.
Howdy, ladies.
Knox, living his best life.
Juni and Lalie.
Callista and Oey dancing on the porch.
He's powering up in his Dutch shoes and fireman's hat. Enemies of the King, beware.
No sleep for these babies this time.
Our first stop was the rest area at Chamberlain, where we checked out the Lewis and Clark exhibit and the Dignity statue. We had planned to try the Badlands loop on the way home, but in the interest of making good time, Todd decided to skip it, which ended up being propitious.
Luckily, the right lane had been coned off for construction that hadn't started yet, so we were able to get over to the shoulder easily, and had an entire lane of buffer between us and the traffic. Plus, since it was a construction zone, traffic was going slower than the typical 80 mph speed limit. So we were about as safe as we could have been, given the circumstances.
Todd and the older boys got out and got the spare put on.
Once the spare was on, we headed into Mitchell. First we stopped at Pizza Ranch again to get everyone fed, watered, and morale-boosted. Then we headed to the Walmart tire center. It took a couple of hours for them to get new rear tires put on, so we wandered around Walmart to wait. When we got back on the road, the van was steering so crazy that we had to turn around and go back. Long explanation short, we needed new front tires as well, so we got to wait another couple of hours for that. We ate dinner at the Subway in the Walmart while we waited.
Finally, six hours after the tire officially blew, we were back on the road and completely exhausted. Since everyone had been fed recently, and we were already on track to get home super late, we decided to just power through the six hours of driving from Mitchell to home without stopping. We got home around 1:30 in the morning and were glad to get all that behind us.
This week, we've just been trying to recover from the trip. Luckily we had left the house in decent shape when we left, so it didn't take long to get things put away and have the house feeling pretty normal. But I have been so tired this week! A friend of mine with a lot of kids told me that she feels like it takes twice as long to recover from a trip with kids as the trip itself lasts. I'm starting to think she's right. Looks like I'm going to need another week to recover yet.
We have gotten back into our routine of spending most afternoons at the pool. The last day of open swim is next Wednesday, and we're trying to maximize these last few days.
Tuesday night was the Elder session meeting, so Todd hosted that on the deck. While that was happening, Penelope had a couple of her friends over for a movie night, one of whom is leaving for college this upcoming weekend, so it was kind of a farewell sendoff. While the teen girls were all watching Signs downstairs, the rest of the kids and I cuddled up in my room to watch Tom and Huck. I'm starting to notice that the best movies for Movies with Mom are from the 90's, so that might become the official theme of our movie nights. We'll have another one tonight during Men's Beer and Books - what should we watch?
