Festivities

Okay, so I've been a little negligent in blogging the past couple of days. I'd better update now, before too much time passes and I wind up not blogging for days and days and never get around to updating at all.

On Friday, we had a pretty relaxed day. We watched some movies, and just hung out at home all day. We planned on walking down to the stadium to watch the fireworks, but decided against it. Since the fireworks wouldn't start until after 9:00 (had to wait until it was dark enough) and the kids' bedtime is 8:00, we decided we'd just put them to bed and stay home. Plus, Jeff had found a couple videos of fireworks online, and we watched them. They pretty much freaked Thomas out, and we thought it best to not subject him to the real thing yet.

It turned out okay though. After putting the kids to bed, we popped in an Indiana Jones movie. While we were watching it, we heard the fireworks going off and decided to check if we could see them from our back yard. Turns out we could see them just fine. Well, the middle and high ones anyway; the lower fireworks were blocked by buildings and all we could see was brightly-colored smoke. But we had a good show anyway, and I got some fun pictures. These are the ones that turned out the best. I think next time I shoot pics of fireworks, I'll try to use some sort of stabilizing surface or tripod - my hands kept moving around and that movement showed up in the pictures. But it was a lot of fun anyway!





On Saturday we had such a great time. My mom's brother and his wife had a get-together for all the family in the area. We had a nice big lunch (I totally blew my diet, but it's nice to have "planned indulgence" days once in a while) and hung out in their HUGE backyard all afternoon. They had a slip n' slide out, and we had brought Zaylee's swimsuit. She had a great time splashing around in the water!



At one point, she found some wet sidewalk chalk and had fun coloring on the walkway.


The bigger cousins got together a game of water kickball. The bases were buckets of water, and to get from third base to home they had to slide along the slip n' slide. It was a great spectator sport - I had a great time watching everyone running around getting wet, sliding in the water and throwing water balloons at each other. We had a few close shaves when the ball almost hit the adults gathered around watching. And the ball landed in the ditch several times, forcing the kids to dive after it into the filthy water. But fun was had by all.

I enjoyed taking pictures of the game. During one inning, I got a little series of shots of Janelle and her boyfriend Lloyd. I though they were cute.

Standing in line, waiting for their turn to kick the ball.


Janelle sliding into home. I love the way this picture turned out - the timing was perfect!


Janelle cheerfully sopping wet, while Lloyd slides in.


I gotta tell ya, it is so much fun watching such big, grown-up people sliding on a slippery wet length of plastic! This one is Marie.


The older kids enlisted Samuel as a sort of runner. His job was to keep the playing field clear - such as this time when one of the cousins kicked off their sandals and Samuel was responsible for getting them off the playing field. I love how proud he looks to be involved and to have such an important job!


Then I've just got a few random pictures I took throughout the day.






Okay, that's plenty of pictures!

When we got home we threw together a quick dinner for the kids (Jeff and I were still full from eating way too much lunch) and then I got busy on the kitchen and dining room floors. We have an inspection coming up tomorrow, and I wanted to make it look nice. This was especially important because I have only mopped once or twice in the several months we've lived in this apartment. Needless to say, the tile was filthy! Our mop is pretty pathetic, so I grabbed a scrubber, a rag, and a bucket of water and went to work. It took a very long time and a whole lot of elbow grease (and all this after having been out all day and I was really tired already), but I got the floor cleaner than it's been since before we moved in. It looks great! The only problem is that now I'm paranoid about letting the kids eat. They tend to drop stuff on the floor while they're eating - big turnoff when you've just spent over an hour cleaning it!!

Today was pretty interesting. When I went down to the nursery to drop Zaylee off after Sacrament Meeting, there was no teacher there yet, so I stayed there with her, waiting until a teacher showed up. I waited a bit as other kids trickled in, but no teacher. Suddenly, before I knew what was happening, the nursery leader was handing me a baggie of goldfish crackers asking if I would sit the kids down and start handing out the snack to occupy the kids. She thanked me for being willing to help out, and then she was gone.

And so it was that I spent the entire two hours in the nursery.

It turns out that the teacher of Zaylee's class, where I helped out last week, wasn't able to come to church this week because both her little girls were sick. So the nursery leader was just running around trying to find people willing to help out in the nursery. I guess she assumed that since I was in there, I was willing to help. I was, of course - it's always fun to play with the little kids - but it was a bit unexpected. And this time was different because I was more in charge than usual. Usually Sister Harris is there, making sure everything goes smoothly with the lesson, the snack, the coloring, etc. All I had to do was play with the kids and keep them from beating each other up. Today, things were pretty chaotic because I really had no idea what was going on. But we survived the two hours, and no worse for wear. Whew!

I think next time I'll just drop Zaylee off and leave, whether there's a teacher there or not! No, just kidding, I'm glad I had the opportunity to serve. They really did need my help, and I was glad to give it.

Well, after so many out-of-the-ordinary days this weekend, I'm looking forward to things getting back to normal tomorrow. Well, except that I'll have to clean a bit more to prepare for that inspection. But aside from that, it should be just a normal, regular day. Ahhhh.