August 26th-September 1st

(8/26) Work day for Dad and me and Kathy had the kiddos.  The girls' visit was canceled this week, so we were hoping for a reasonably chill day without that emotional roller coaster...  And it went fairly well, along with the usual drama.


(8/27) We're celebrating today!  Our teen's birthday is next Weds when the kiddos start school.. She requested a b-day party at the house with a sleepover with a couple of neighborhood girls.  I farmed the middles out for sleepovers of their own (thank you!!) and had a house full of teens over for pizza and ice cream cake.  We had a very fun time and I think our teen felt pretty celebrated.


(8/28) So I alluded to some changes coming a couple of weeks ago... and today was the day.  Our younger foster kiddo changed homes to be with her younger sister this morning.  The stress level has been super high here and we have been struggling.  We and everyone involved in the girls' case hopes that this move is in everyone's best interest.  It was and has been really hard, but we'll stay in touch and the girls will still see each other every week at visits.


After I got off work tonight, we headed out to dinner wherein we whacked 6 rolls of sushi in under 3 minutes.  Eeep!  I admit to being totally distracted by the set of newborn twins at the next table over.  I miss my little bits.


(8/29) Work day for Dad and me and Kathy had the kiddos.  We thought one less middle would be easier, but no.  The bigger boys were at each other all day and were big ol' grumps!  The evening was good though.  Got everyone bathed, packed, and we are set for tomorrow!


(8/30) We all scurried around and got packed to go this morning and headed to the beach! We were admiring the "Space Spider" (Needle) and had got just down by Pike Street when we were slowed for another accident ahead of us.  We were rear-ended in our brand new trailer (well, new to us, anyway).  Dad about cried.  Because of the other accident, it took quite a while for a trooper to reach us.  We got everything sorted and then traveled further south to find a spot to pop up the trailer and see if it would still work.  The bumper was dented in, and the tow bar now points up on the van. But we're hopeful that the damage is minimal.  A three hour drive took close to six with all the delays and torrential rain, but once we got there, it was beautiful!  We joined a neighboring campsite for dinner and birthday cake.  Their campsite was referred to as the "happy birthday site" after that and the boys kept returning to check and see if there might be more cake at every opportunity.  After dinner, we hit the beach!  Beautiful evening, but we had a major parent fail.  We walked the twinsies out into the water and a really big wave rolled in and soaked them both.  Doh!  J was *done* after that.  We stripped him of his clothes (diaper and boots is a classy look, yo!), but he was marching back home and wanted nothing more to do with the water after that.  After we got back and dried off, we started the fire for s'mores.  J was so exhausted, he just held his s'mores, but D, on the other hand, was buzzing around the site in no time!  We put them down, but they didn't go to sleep until after we had all gone to bed.  D kept going around the trailer "Mama asleep.  Dada asleep.  C asleep.  J-J asleep.  YAAAAAAAYY!"  and continued that nonsense for a while before finally falling asleep.


(8/31) Got up, had breakfast, and then hit the beach!  Another beautiful day - we had some patches of clouds and some fine mist at points, but it was very warm and pleasant.  Our teen, of course, made a friend.  She's been saying all weekend that she's a loner and that there was no one her age to hang with. Sure enough, she finds someone! We played on the beach until dinner time and then headed into town for all-you-can-eat fish and chips.  Poor twinsies were going on their second day of no nap and were almost asleep on their feet.  They perked up a bit with some sugar and food though. We also gave them s'mores before bed again.  Tonight our neighbors thought it would be a good idea to blast their music complete with disco ball ?!?!? in the middle of the woods.  We grumbled at them from afar until all the wood burned down and it was time for us to go to bed.  They finally shut off the music, but then the twins freaked when we turned off the light.  So that was fun.  They were so overtired.  Once everyone got settled, they slept just fine though.


(9/1) Home from camping today, and back to reality.  We are all covered in sand and looking forward to getting cleaned up.  The trip was a lot of fun and we had great weather for the actual camping part.  And aside from the accident, we all had a great time!  Jensen yelled "NO HOME!" when he saw where we were turning.  I think someone likes camping.