July 15th-21st

(7/15)  Work day for Dad and me, and Kathy had the kids.  She managed the chaos just fine, and the house was still standing again when I got back.  Yay!  Today was good all around, so yay for that too. 


(7/16) Work day for Dad, and I had the kiddos.  Our teenager had court in the morning, so Nanan came to fill in the gap between that and when Dad needed to leave.  After the twinsies went down, the teenager and I ran out for a b-day gift for our neighbor, and then I somehow wound up with 4 girls staying in a tent in my backyard. I made them all popcorn and sent them outside to watch movies and get out of my hair.  Worked for me! 

(7/17) Work day for me, and Dad had alllll the kiddos.  Dad took C & the twins out for wings when the girls had their visit and said the twins were super confused by their food.  I got leftovers from that, so I'm not complaining!  The girls got to go out for dinner with Dad after they came home and the boys and I shared some more "delicious."  So yeah, it was a healthy day of eating for sure. 


(7/18) I took today off because we are headed out camping!  We got loaded and sent Dad and the middles out with the camper and I brought the teenager and the twins after stopping for more books and coffee. We arrived around lunch and bummed around until everyone else came.  The middles played games, and we took them down to the river.  J got in a 10 minute car nap, but D was over tired and wired.  Between my run in the morning and following them around, I logged almost 12 miles.  They drove their trucks in the dirt, "went camping" (which meant visiting Sarah's site), and visited the potty no less than 5 billion times... because it is the best place ever?  After the sugar high from the s'mores mostly wore off, I put the littles down.  They talked forever, and D was still talking when we all climbed in bed at around 10pm. 


(7/19) After breakfast Sarah & I took all the older kiddos out on a hike to Boardman Lake.  It's about a mile out and was more climbing than I remembered.  Still a beautiful hike!  Two of our kiddos brilliantly decided to go swimming (and did not have a change of clothes, because it was a whopping 57° out!).  They got soaked and had to hike back soggy.  Dad managed to get the twins down while we were away, so when we returned Sarah & I got to visit, and the kids split off and played cards or along the river.  We had a group potluck tonight and everybody brought such good food (and drinks!).  Had a great night around the fire, and the twins even went down at a reasonable time so we were able to hang with the adults and enjoy ourselves. 

(7/20) Last day camping.  It poured during the night and woke J up, but he finally snuggled in with us and went back to sleep until 7:30a.  We had breakfast and broke camp and were home before lunch.  I couldn't justify putting clean clothes on the grubby boys, so they (and everyone else) got a bath immediately upon unloading the camper.  The twins went down for a nap, and after that we went for an early dinner at a buffet.  D kept stealing sweet things off the teenager's plate.   She didn't guard it well, and he's fast so scored on a number of occasions.  After dinner we dropped off Dad and our younger girl and went to terrorize the library.  We were definitely that family yesterday. The littles were being loud and had messy diapers, and didn't want to leave, and C was sulking because I didn't get him a library card and the teen got one and on and on.  We couldn't leave fast enough.  Took them home and I stated I was officially DONE for the evening. 

(7/21) Zzz... Happy Monday.  I am working today, and Dad has the kiddos, but I don't think there is anything that we have to do beyond that.