Mom and dad came up last week and spent a whole week with us. It was wonderful, fun and EXHAUSTING!!! I'm barely feeling recovered two days after it is all over. But I wouldn't trade the memories for the world. Wednesday we just started slow by hanging out with mom at Jana and Rachel's apartment. Thursday they came to my house and we let the kids play until time for our girls night at Cheesecake Factory! It was fun getting away with the girls, and the FOOD was great too! ;) We went back to Laura's with our ten pieces of cheesecake and everyone tried all of the kinds...yummy!
Friday is when things got crazy! Jay left Friday morning for a camp out and I packed up the kids and our swimming gear and headed to Jana's apartment. We went swimming for the first time Friday night and it was apparent that I don't expose my kids to the water enough!! Both Jayden and Ethan were most comfortable in a boat that Cari brought, with lots of supports in it. So they took turns using it. Kayleigh begrudgingly stayed in the water for a time, with various adults, but preferred to be out running around the perimeter of the pool. She scared me to death several times! I was certain she would slip and careen into the pool far away from where we were. (needless to say, we started setting rules that she stay by the table or be in the water with an adult after that day) I found out in the course of the evening that at some time I had driven over a road hazard that put a hole in BOTH of my passenger side tires. Luckily, Laura had a compressor, so I pumped them up once that night to keep the rims off the ground. We stayed up ridiculously late: after I pumped up my tires, we put the kids to bed, and then Mom and I went to walmart. We went in search of more boats and groceries needed for Saturday. We found them, but thought they were smaller so we didn't buy them. Returned home at 2 am and got a few hours sleep before getting up and starting on the business for the next day. I woke up in time to pump up my tires again and have Dad take me to discount tire right when they opened. We got back and visited the pool for the morning and it worked out well. Most of the kids weren't there so Jayden borrowed one of the big kid floaties that seemed stable to him and swam around with that while Ethan enjoyed the boat. They were having so much fun that the hours flew by! Before long it was noon and we got out, bathed the kids and ourselves and got dressed. Then mom and I went to costco for things for the Saturday reunion and Sunday birthday party. By the time we returned we ate a few bites of lunch and then I made fondant while they raced to put together stuff for the Brown family reunion in Kaysville. Even with everyone working we were an hour later than planned. (I'm not sorry though, an hour longer at the park would have made me MORE tired!) The kids watched the ducks and played around the pavillion until time to eat and then we went and played on the play ground. I felt bad not getting to talk to the fam much, but I was alone with the kids and afraid of what might happen if they got away from me by the creek that runs through the park. And they had a great time, especially once I finally let them go to the playground! Jayden is pretty self sufficient, so he just went wherever all over the play ground. There is one perfect slide for smaller kids on one side that I showed Kayleigh and Ethan after they were tired of digging in the wood chips. It was the perfect size for them to go on even by themselves. I showed them the path up the stairs and across the bridge to the slide and back to the stairs and they went around and around till time to go. Kayleigh was particularly funny; she is so small, she would often plop right on her bum at the bottom of the slide because she couldn't catch herself with her feet. But it didn't even phase her. She'd just get back up and head for the stairs again. When I reached my limit of exhaustion, I loaded up the kids trekked home to Jay who had returned from the campout while we were at the reunion. I would have loved to go to bed, but instead I worked on the birthday party prep till after midnight. (I got a second wind and its a good thing! If you read my post about the birthday, I needed to stay up that late or something probably wouldn't have gotten done!)
I will leave out Sunday since I included that in another post, but it was another long, though incredibly wonderful and rewarding day. Happy Birthday Jayden!!!
I stayed up pretty late Sunday again visiting and relaxing after the party. I was planning to get to Jana's apartment to start preparing for Arin's shower by 8...(yup, ANOTHER event! :) I couldn't make myself get up quite as early as planned and was pretty sore so my movements were slowing down. I forgot to mention that Jana and Rachel live in a third floor apartment. I am pretty out of shape, overweight, and six months pregnant, so after a few days of walking those stairs several times I was FEELING IT! After dressing the kids and one more trip to walmart for shower necessities, I didn't get there till 11! And then we wanted to let the kids swim again. Mom went to walmart and ended up buying those boats we saw as well as a ton of other floaties and it was a great thing! They weren't smaller like they appeared, they were the same, plus they had a sun shade. So we had tons more for the kids to play with and they all had a wonderful day. Maybe too wonderful. We were there for hours and apparently didn't reapply sunblock frequently enough so many of us got burned at least in some places. Luckily the burn didn't kick in for me that day. Some of us went to Laura's to prepare for the shower while the rest went to buy stuff for it, and we got it put together in time. I felt pretty good except for my stair weary legs!
It was a great party. We don't get to see that family very often and lots of them came, even from far distances. It was nice visiting and just seeing everyone. Teri brought some particularly beautiful and sentimental home decorations that brought tears to Arin's eyes and we all shared a special moment. How exciting to watch Arin anticipate her special new life to come, an unforgettable evening because we shared it with so many amazing women. After everyone left, I dragged myself home and plopped into bed.
Now by tuesday, I was pretty close to hitting the wall. Ethan was up in the night suffering from his sunburn, and I didn't sleep so well myself. During the night, I was convinced that we would not swim the next day. I suppose the wiser thing to do would have been to stay home completely. However, I am so zealous about seeing my family when they come to town. That, combined with my desire to give my kids every opportunity for fun and memories, made me drag myself out of bed and pack up again for Jana's. Everyone was pretty exhausted by Tuesday, but the kids, even Ethan still wanted to swim. So I went and got a couple more shaded boats for the kids who we wanted to keep out of the sun, and we put extra sunscreen and t shirts on them and headed back out to the pool. I struggled even at the store, but didn't even think of asking just to stay in with Kayleigh. She never really grew to love the water. We forced her to be in there on the other days, and she tolerated it as long as their were lots of adults to keep passing her around. (I think she was really just trying to find one to understand her pointing toward the edge of the pool where she wanted to be! ) She was happiest playing in the shade by the pool. We went down at right about nap time for her. She even tried to curl up and go to sleep on my lap and on a floaty on the ground under the table, but could find no rest and was getting very grumpy. I also was progressively feeling worse even though all I was doing was sitting in a chair in the shade! Luckily, Mom, Cari, and Candice suggested I go in. I felt like I barely made it up the stairs and by the time I got there I was cramping so I started feeling anxious about the baby too. Kayleigh and I laid under the table until it went away and then I got us out of our swimming clothes and laid down for a nap. It was SO nice to just rest and I was thankful that Jayden and Ethan could still be out having fun. I still felt miserable when they came up and I just wanted to go home. So we said our goodbyes and I drove home. Jay let me go right to bed and put the kids to bed. (SUCH an AWESOME husband! Especially since he had spent the day digging in the sun and was extremely weary himself.) Now two days later, I feel almost completely back to myself and all the effort was worth it. We had such a priceless week with Mom, Dad, and Cari's family. We are so blessed to have such a large family with wonderful cousins to spend time with.
I only pulled out the camera one time all week. Here's some of our swimming fun!
Our little sunbather