Tuesday morning we finished our chores, finished packing,
ran our errands and set off for our mini-vacation. We surprised Grammy at her office on campus
and checked out her office and amazing views.
Unfortunately the kids were restless. So we went wandering on
campus. I showed the girls the quad and
Old Main. We went in search of Aggie ice
cream but most of campus was closed. So
we picked up Grammy and ran some errands.
We went to the Pizza Pie Café and the girls loved it. A devoured three bowls of spaghetti with
alfredo sauce and L and E loved the dessert pizzas. Then, we went to my brother’s house to meet
my brand new niece. So tiny! My brother and Papa took some of the bigger
kids pokemon hunting on campus while Grammy and I admired the baby. Z feels so big already in comparison! Then we spent the night at Grammy’s house.
The kids slept great and helped me do a few little projects
at the house the next morning. Then we
went to school lunch and visited Papa while he was working. The kids were especially thrilled that they
got ice cream in their lunches. We
headed back over to Logan to play with cousins and ended up taking the oldest
three with us for a long playdate at the park.
The kids had a great time playing kitty, cops and robbers, chef and
more. We snacked on goldfish crackers
and drank a LOT of water, but the kids didn’t seem to mind the crazy heat—they
were having too much fun. I took the
cousins home and Grammy joined us for some back to school shopping. L was thrilled with the selection at Kohls
and both L and A have become very fashion conscious. So they had a blast picking out outfits and
trying them on. (E just likes to mimic everything her sisters do.) Grammy had a great
discount so we were able to get everything she needed. She’s very into dresses right now and had a
hard time deciding between favorites. I
was a little sad acknowledging that she has officially grown too mature for
characters or even for letting me pick her clothes. But she has great taste and we found lots of
stuff we both liked. Trying on shoes was
the biggest surprise. She needed good
tennis shoes she could use for PE or activity days. She picked out great shoes and we had to keep
going up in size. Last spring I bought
size 3. This week I ended up buying size
6! We had a quick dinner at Café Rio and
picked up cookies to share with cousins for dessert.
On Thursday morning we were lazy. The girls played and watched cartoons. Grammy and I worked on plans for an upcoming
family party (one of our favorite pastimes).
Then we packed up and headed south to camp in their trailer at Cherry
Hill. We ran a few errands along the way
and Papa had everything set up by the time we got there. We explored the grounds and went swimming in
the camp pool before a late dinner. The
girls fell asleep watching an episode of Mickey and slept great.
On Friday morning, the girls were overly excited as we made
it through breakfast and got ready to go.
We spent the whole day in the water park. Grammy kept Z in camp for his nap while Papa,
the girls and I headed first for the Gulch, a waterslide rapid river. We got our tubes and got in line but E
panicked and chickened out. Papa took
the big girls while we watched. The
second time, we convinced E to try it and she LOVED it. She came up sputtered and shouting “Again! Again!” Five rounds later we tried the Double Dragon
water slide. E got to sit on my lap and
loved it. Several rounds later we tried
the lazy river. Grammy brought us a
picnic lunch and a hungry baby Z. After
lunch we settled into the lazy river again and spent most of the afternoon
going around and around. Z lounged in my
lap, even sleeping almost an hour protected from sun/splashing with my umbrella
and loving the warm water. We got frozen
yogurt (the kids mostly just like piling candies into their dish) and had
another late dinner back at camp. The
kids were thoroughly worn out and slept great each night. Z was occasionally fussy, seeming to have
some separation anxiety and drooling like crazy (teething?) but still so fun to
cuddle.
On Saturday morning I took the girls mini-golfing. L and A loved it. It took awhile for E to warm up. She has been playing so hard and staying up
so late that she was obviously overtired and got upset easily. So she threw fits at first and eventually got
over it and had a blast. (We didn’t keep
score but if we had, A won by a landslide.)
We made lunch at the trailer and Husband came to join us. The girls settled in for a quiet time movie
while we left for a temple date.
Unfortunately the temple was closed and by the time we figured it out,
our window was getting too short to go elsewhere. So we postponed the temple date, went back to
camp and took the girls swimming again.
L, my fair skinned princess was quite sunburned so we bought a rashguard
for her and Papa, who had done rounds on the waterslides with us the day before
was definitely worn out and sunburned.
So Grammy and Papa stayed in camp with Z while the girls introduced
Daddy to the waterslides and lazy river.
We picked up dinner from a local island grill and then hurriedly
packed. We said goodbye to Grammy and
Papa and headed down to the drive in theatre.
(Z cried the whole drive but fortunately fell asleep as soon as the
movie started and slept through the whole thing.) Husband brought everything to make a comfy
bed in the back of the truck and we had a great view as we watched The Secret Life of Pets. (I thought it was kind of dumb but the kids
liked it.) We had planned to stay for
the second feature Ghostbusters but
we watched the preview on my phone and the girls immediately voted no. (They’re always sensitive to gruesome things,
but especially being overtired from playing hard all week, overreacted to the
creepy ghosts.) So we drove home and got
everyone tucked into bed, actually rather liking being home sooner than we
thought.
Z decided to wake up extra early (and unusually fussy)
Sunday morning. So everyone else slept
in while we cuddled. I LOVE
Sundays. Especially having 1:00 church
right now makes our mornings pretty wonderful.
We had a leisurely pancake breakfast, wrote in journals, took showers,
watched Jesus movies and did conference cups.
And even made it to church almost on
time. The kids did great through
sacrament meeting. (E slept on Daddy’s
lap through most of it.) Z got fussy
after that so I spent most of it working through it with him but loving the
cuddles. After church, Z and I took a
nap while Husband played with the girls.
Then we spent a great evening at grandpa’s house. It’s an annual tradition to harvest from
Grandpa’s garden and then make homemade calamari, onion rings, French fries,
etc. The girls loved it (especially the French
fries) and husband thoughtfully grilled some fish for me, knowing I wouldn’t
want to eat fried food. Dinner was
delicious and then the girls disappeared to play (getting along exceptionally well!)
while Grandpa held Z and played guitar.
It was a pretty perfect lazy Sunday.
And then Husband and I stayed up late planning an upcoming
family adventure…
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