Home is a wonderful place to be. I love my wife and family. They are great and drive me crazy at times but I love them dearly.
Friday, Kris and I actually got to go out on a date. We went and saw a fun movie together. We saw Vantage Point. It was a good movie done in a slightly different way. It was refreshing to see something new out of hollywood. It was kind of a groundhog day / 24 combination. I quite enjoyed it. More importantly it was great to just spend time with Kris. It was fortunate that we had gift cards to the movie theater because at $8.50 per ticket and $20+ for some food it gets to be an expensive proposition rather quickly.
Saturday started off with me making breakfast – cereal for Abigail (a real stretch), pancakes for Kennedy, Parker, Lexi, and Abigail (after she cried that she now wanted pancakes too), and fresh hashbrowns and eggs for Tanner and me. Cassidy and Kris slept in and had to fend for themselves.
At 9:30 Cassidy and Kris took off to take Cassidy to an audition for “Big River” (and breakfast at Mc Donalds) and I piled the other kids in the Excursion and dropped Tanner off at his baseball practice. Tanner was pretty excited because this is the first practice this year that was outdoors. He got himself all gussied up with his full baseball uniform and everything.
While all the older ones were gone, we quickly cleaned up the house – including the girl’s bedroom. The girls actually cleaned up because they wanted to make a movie. Once they cleaned up and I had switched out the laundry we started to make a movie. We created the first episode of Super Roquefort . We made it in several takes and then used windows movie maker and edited it down to an 8 minute movie that we posted up to youtube. I have never posted anything to youtube before and the kids think that it is great to see their work out on the internet.
After everyone got back around 12:30 we slapped together some lunch and then Kris, Lexi, and I went to Lexi’s federation piano competition. Lexi did a dry-run before we left and did horribly. I can’t imagine a worse warm-up. We really didn’t know how things were going to pan out. Mom came to the music store to support Lexi and we all held our breath as she walked up to the piano. She did great and got the highest category they award – superior. It was one of the best times that she has ever played it. It was very nice. To celebrate we took Lexi to Mc Donalds and got her a happy meal. The service was sub par – even for Mc Donalds, but we all survived.
We gathered the troops back at home and actually had time to have dinner all together. It is so rare that we are actually able to have all of us together. We usually are able to gather most all of us, but it is unfortunately a rare thing that we all get together. Kris made spaghetti and we enjoyed the feeding frenzy for approximately 3.5 minutes. The older kids were jealous of the younger kid’s movie and wanted to make one themselves. We got all of the scenes shot, but before we could get it totally mixed we had to leave for our next event.
Kris took Abigail upstairs to get her hair done (not a small task) and I took everyone else over to the stake center to practice our roadshow. It will be really corny and dumb, but everyone seemed to have a pretty good time. The actual performance is next week. I don’t know how it will turn out, but somehow these things always come together at the end.
To celebrate / bribe the kids I took them to Macys for a cheap ice cream cone after the rehearsal. It was after 9:00 when I finally got them home. They were tired, but we did a quick scriptures / prayers and got the young ones to bed.
Cassidy and Tanner cleaned (and I use the term loosely) the kitchen while I headed upstairs to iron everyone’s clothes for church.
Once everyone was down and clothes were ironed I ran around and reset all of our clocks to account for daylight savings time (don’t get me started). I then double-checked my flight schedule and began to pack for my trip out to Boston. While I packed, Kris and I watched an episode of CSI and she crashed half-way through. I finished packing, put Tally out to go pottie before bed and finally ended up in bed a little after midnight.
With daylight savings time the alarm at 5:00 am came an hour early and I groggily stumbled out of bed and into the shower. I got showered and shaved and got myself all ready to go. I woke Kris up and off we went to the airport.
I was scheduled to head to Boston via Atlanta. The flight was overbooked and I was able to get in and volunteer to have my “travel interrupted”. As luck would have it they were able to bounce me and get me on a flight to Boston via Baltimore three hours later. For my troubles they gave me $400 in airline voucher dollars.
Now here I am, sitting in the airport, too tired to think, but waiting for my 10:00 flight to Baltimore. Instead of getting into Boston around 5:00 I’ll get in closer to 8:00 which will be just fine.
It has been a weekend whirlwind. It is crazy, but I love it. We are a wacky family, but somehow we get everyone where they need to be and avoid killing one another. I’d rather be at home spending Sunday with the family, but sometimes I end up being busy as well. I hope that Kris and the kids have a great week. We have the webcam setup at home so we should be able to communicate every day. I miss them all already.
Anyway – I ought to get some food since it will be a long time before I get a chance to get any food. Let the paradise continue.
