Best and Worst Moments of the Week

• Detected a wireless network with my ipod touch named "Stay off my network" - wish I'd noticed whether it was secured or not before we drove on.
• Ruth 7.2 caught a crawfish.
• Learned that if you hold a 3-year-old dangling in mid-air and aim her feet wide and to the sky, she can pee in a very nice arc just like a little boy into the weeds while out on a hike.
• Got the news that my 14-year-old, tortoiseshell kitty cat has the beginning stages of renal failure.
• Grilled a zucchini grown in our very own back yard and tossed it with basil, home-grown tomatoes, chicken and pasta.  Mmmmm.
• Ate many more s'mores (cooked by my girls) than I should have
• Sat on I-71S.  Like sat.  In park.
• Got a clean bill of health on Rose 3.6's teeth from the dentist.
• Had two days without our girls and went out to 2 lovely restaurants, enjoyed Homerama and a movie just us adults.  Missed our sweeties.
• Saw the joy light the face of Rose 3.6 when she woke up from her nap long enough to recognize me after two days away and exclaimed happily, "Mommy!" and then went back to sleep for another 2 hours.

Marshmallow in her hair

I’ve had a first happen to me last night.  My children came to me and asked, “Can we please take a shower? We’re dirty!”  And it was so true.  May 9.10 even had marshmallow in her hair.  They came by that dirt very honestly.  We’re visiting a state park in Ohio with a multitude of relatives.  Grandma and Grandpa have their camper and so do aunts, uncles, cousins.  There are a few tents, including the one we brought just as a play tent for the kids to use (that they are loving!).

And kids… many, lots of, tons of, swarms of kids! It’s really awesome to have so many.  My family has reached a stage where most of my cousins have little ones.  There are a few in the ballpark of 10 years old and there are dozens that are more like 2-6.  We are situated in a piece of the campgrounds where 2 roads form a T and we have one corner below the T and part of the area above it.  A trio of campers forms and open area and fire pit surrounded by tents, a hammock, picnic tables and woods that sort of hems in the little ones, but there are constant dashes to grab the toddler from crossing the road, which thankfully isn’t too busy.  And all the cars know the whole campgrounds (not just us) is swarmed with kids.  The compound we form has several picnic tables, corn hole thingies (what to call those?), lawn chairs, big wheels, squirt guns, etc.  And this is an annual ritual that we’ve enjoyed for several years with our children.

So, they earned the dirt by throwing water balloons, running around the playground just up the  street whose main attraction is a merry-go-round that some kids sit (and hold on for dear life) and other kids run around pushing and then make mad jumps to board.  For the second evening in a row, the fire was used to roast marshmallows for s’mores (hence the marshmallow in the hair thing). 

When I was a child, this same side of my family always went to a state park for a week each summer and rented cabins.  We’d have a whole cul-de-sac of cabins that were all my relatives and we’d get together nightly in the center after each long day of swimming, playing cards, riding bikes…. I have fabulous memories of those trips.  I remember big family pot lucks at the end of each week to finish off all the odds and ends of food that each family had left before we’d pull out and head for home on Saturday morning.  I remember bicycle races.  I remember euchre tournaments until very, very past bedtime.  There were trips into town to find the local ice cream place – trips where we rode to the shop in the back of a pickup truck, freezing because we’d all hopped straight out of a pool to go.  It was our favorite time each year.

So, even though this isn’t exactly the same (the cabins which were pretty rough back then have been modernized to have a/c, phones, luxuries that now make them more expensive than my extended family can afford, so we’ve switched to the campgrounds), my heart thrills to think that my children will have some of the same memories that I have.  And their memories will also include a nightly shower in the camp bathhouse to make them at least somewhat suitable to meet the sheets on the beds in grandma’s camper!

Will it stick?

Someone told me this week that they miss my blogging. Wow, haven't done that in a while. I enjoy it, but it seems to get dropped to the wayside just when there is so much that I could be writing about! I'm pondering setting a goal to blog once per week. But if I set a goal and flop, that would be more disappointing.

Why is life so full? I really think that if it starts to slow down, I unconsciously find stuff to fill it. I've got 2 part time jobs now, both paid, thankfully. I enjoy them both, but feel like sometime soon I'm going to have to choose one or the other since they both could evolve into full time jobs. And I definitely can't hold 2 of those! (You know, on top of the full time job of 3 daughters!)

So, here's just a snapshot of a few of the things I've been doing and some of my daughters' snippets.

May 9.10 and I finished a 4 week class on cake decorating. That can seriously wear you out. I've made more icing and cakes in the last month than I had in several years before. There were some cool things. I really like making leaves and very simple flowers. The shell border was simple, yet makes a cake look so much more polished. Love the new cake turntable I got that lets the cake spin as you decorate. But it led to my big Ooops for the week. I was washing the little metal decorating tips on Wednesday afternoon and accidentally dropped one in the sink. Didn't realize it until the disposal ran and crunched it and got stuck with it over one of the metal bladey things (technical term (-;). Spitz and some pliers and flashlights came to my rescue and got it out without a visit from the plumber!

This is my cake from the final session. No real planning went into this. Just random flowers we worked on that night. But I definitely prefer the taste of the chocolate buttercream to the regular. Of course, none of the buttercream icing we were using in this class actually had butter. I'm going to have to play with icing recipes and see if I can decorate with something that has real butter. I'd much rather have taste than perfectly hardened little flowers!

Rose 3.6 said earlier this week (riding along in the car), "Mommy, when I cover my ears, can you still hear the music?"

Ruth 7.1 went off to church camp most of this week with grandma. So, for about 4 days we had only 2 girls. The change is really amazing. So much simpler to have 2 - not outnumbered, lower volume, etc. We like to read at bedtime, and we could actually break out, one of us with each. Smoother evening all around. Of course, it's more than just nice to have her back.

Okay, heading out to get bedtime snacks. Let's see if this once a week thing sticks.