Family Ties

Again with the forgetting to post these on Friday. I've been a bit of a scatterbrain as of late - hehehe. Click HERE to go to my store.... 20% off the first week (only $2.00 a pack)








Dang, I'm tired. It's 10:54pm, and after I write this, I'm gonna read a quick chapter, then go to sleep. *yawns*

So my alarm went off at 7am, and I got up and went about the morning. Breakfast for the kids, sent them out the door at 7:25am to the bus, got Jake going with school, and I walked down to Andreas house for exercise. We got in 4 workouts so far this week. Not too bad!

We were done at 9:30am, and hurried home to change and get ready. I threw on some jeans, changed my shirt, gave directions to the kids, and Andrea and Veronica came to pick me up. We were headed to the movies. Jake was excited to take a break from school, even if it was just to play with Jimmy :) hehehe. They were planning on playing in the backyard for a while.

We got to the movie just before it started. "When in Rome". It was SO funny. We laughed and laughed and laughed. And I realized that Andrea is SUPER noisy in movies - hehehe. She carries on a dialog with the film - hehehe. Love ya, girl - ROFL! I'll go to the movies ANY time with ya!

After the movie, we went to Carlos and Mickeys (a Mexican restaurant) for lunch. Leigh (my neighbor) and her friend met us there. We had a lot of fun eating and chatting. I'm still doing perfect on my diet (day 2), so I didn't have quite as much fun eating as I would have liked, but I had fun chatting. hehehe.

I was down when I weighed this morning, you know. That made the day go better - hehehe. I've gained almost 30 lbs since summer, and I'm gonna lose it here soon. I am. I know I keep saying that, but I think it's gonna stick this time. Really - LOL! I had a perfect day yesterday, and was 4 lbs down this morning. We'll see if I'm down again tomorrow morning when I weigh. And yes, I know, I'm not supposed to weigh everyday. But I like to :)

Anyway, we were home at around 1:30pm. Jimmy helped me make some soup for Captain America and Tom and Emes campout. It had diced chicken, and ground turkey, and sweet potato, and onions and celery and garlic, and black beans, and kidney beans, and basil, and stewed tomatoes and brown rice. Smelled pretty good.

Next, we made some homemade bread. The recipe wasn't too good, but I just crossed my fingers, and went with it. I didn't get to knead it very much, because it was just a clump. Definitely not gonna use that recipe again. I like my bread a little fluffier.

Anyway, I got 3 loaves started, and put them to rise. I went at 3:30pm to pick up the kids from the bus stop, and came back home and cooked some food for the Blue and Gold Banquet. This one was for Joe. I cooked a package of whole wheat pasta with 1/2 a diced sweet potato, then sauteed some garlic, onions, basil, and celery, with chicken from the other day. After it was cooked, I tossed the chicken mixture with the pasta, and added 2 diced tomatoes. Smelled pretty good.

I chatted with my neighbor Leigh a while right before the Blue and Gold. She had some clothes she was wanting to donate, and I said that I'd give them to Captain Americas Battery to give to the Haiti Relief effort. I asked if I could look through them first, and she said "go ahead". OMHeavens, she had some CUTE stuff. I kept about half. I just LOVE getting cute new things, especially if it's free. Now, what to wear first - hehehe.

I picked out a cute red polka dot silkie shirt, coupled with jeans and a black zip up sweater thingy, gathered the kids, the supplies, Captain Americas scout clothes, and headed to the Blue and Gold. We got there at around 5:45pm. It looked really good. We put out our little blue lanters on the tables we were in charge of, gave the guy the DVD that I'd made with the slide show, put the food in the correct place, and sat down at a table we'd staked out as our own :)

It was a very nice Blue and Gold. They had the opening flag ceremony, food, then the FOS (friends of scouting - fundraising) PResentation, then the advancement ceremonies, then the Native American Dancers, then closing, then cake. I should have liked the evening more, but we'd just done it on Wednesday - hehehe.

Joe got his Tiger badge. We were SO proud :) He did get a bit upset, though, that he couldn't pin the Tiger Pin on his dad. Mom's usually get it, because they come to the stuff with the boys. He was ok about giving it to me, though - LOL!

And yes, mom, I did get pictures. BUT, Captain America took the camera on his campout, so I didn't get a chance to download it. It'll be a few days before I can get the photos on here :) Sorry :(

We were home by 8:30pm. I was beat. Captain America started getting things ready for his trip. He wasn't sure if everything was gonna fit in the little Saturn or not. Tom and Eme got to come with him, but only if the stuff would all fit. They were going to Socorro New Mexico for a reenactment. Those two were SOOOO excited about it.

Finally, at 10:30pm, Captain America and Tom and Eme headed out on their trip. 3 hours. It was gonna be a late night for them. Joe fell asleep on the couch watching a movie, and after the movie, I helped him to bed, and snuggled with Jimmy in his bed. He was out solid after about 45 seconds.

I'm looking forward to a quite morning tomorrow. Sleeping in, and not doing anything in particular. I had stuff going on in the afternoon, but that's a long ways off - hehehe.

Click on the links below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

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Make Yourself Comfortable

So, I took a "personal" 1/2 day today. I got up, but was tired, and got the kids off to the bus. And Captain America came home, I started doing the bills, and we started fighting. Sigh. I hate to fight. I naturally run from conflict, so it's not my favorite thing to do. Anyway, sparing all the details, we argued, and I just felt like crap. You know how that goes. All emotional and junk. And I didn't feel like going out and doing things.

I texted Andrea, and said I wasn't coming to exercise, and didn't go grocery shopping, and didn't do any of the stuff I was supposed to do in the am. I just had a "wo is me" morning. Some mornings are like that. I did sit down for about 3 hours and work on our other Cub Scout Packs Blue and Gold Banquets DVD, though. I'm making a DVD slideshow to play there. It took forever, but I got it done.

And I was feeling much better when I was done. At 11:30, I hopped in the shower, and washed away all of the "sad". Does a shower do that for you too? Does it make you mentally feel better? I took extra care to do my makeup nice, and I straightened my hair. I felt TONS better.

I got more calls from the Speech pathologist, saying that the paperwork I emailed her never came through, and I tried a few more times to get it to go through. I also go a call from ACS (Army Community Services??) saying that I'd signed up for a class next week. I'd forgotten about it. It's a "Tour of El Paso" class, on Tue, Wed, and Thurs. I needed to call a different place and set up childcare (all paid for by the army).

I called the child care place (CDC), and they said that there was a hold on Jimmys account, that I'd have to call CYS (Child Youth Services) to get it taken care of. So I called CYS, and they said that Jimmy and Tom both needed vaccines, and that before they could participate in activities, they needed immunizations. Sigh. I looked on my paperwork, and saw that Tom had his done already, but that I hadn't taken it into CYS. Jim did not.

SO, I got my shopping list together, grabbed the immunization forms, and Jimmy, and headed to the TMC (troop medicial clinic) for his immunizations. They have walk-ins until 4:30pm. We waited for about 10 minutes, then it was his turn. He needed 4. He wasn't too happy. BUT, it should suffice until he's 11, or so they tell me. That was all the shots he needed for Pre-School and Kindergarten.

Next, it was over to CYS registration, to turn in the paperwork. Plus, I signed Jacob up for the Babysitting Course. When they're done, they're First Aid and CPR trained. Sweet, eh? It's on Tuesday nights, and from 5-8pm. It'll be about 15 hours of training all together. It'll be good for him :)

After that, it was 2pm, and I headed to the commissary. We were out of food. Well, the basics, anyway. Bread and cereal and milk and such. Jimmy and I shopped, getting everything we needed.

We were home by 3:15pm, and had Jake carry in the groceries (he gets a $ for it), and I just left them there. I got another call from the Speech lady, and finally got the email to go through. I'm not sure what the hold up was there. I left at 3:30pm to go to the bus stop to get the kids. We were home by 4pm, and Tom got dropped off by Veronica. I put the groceries away, got the kids a snack, and directed chores being done.

I'd bought some fresh corn at the commissary, and cooked that up for the kids. But by the time it was done, it was 5:30pm, and Joe and Eme had a birthday party to go to. I left Jake in charge, and drove the kids the 2 blocks over to Austins b-day party, Kayleys daughter.

It was a wild and crazy time, but the kids had fun. TONS of little kids running around and eating candy and screaming and playing and having a grand old time. Andrea was there too, and we hung out for a while.

After the party, at 7pm, we headed home, got our kids situated for bed, and we went to Lauries house for a cooking party. Another friend, Tiffany, sells Beach Body and Shakeology. She was doing a little demonstration. I already have a program that works for me, so I just went for the socialization.

Plus, I've started my diet again, so I wasn't sampling the products. I felt kinda bad, but I knew that as long as I don't "cheat", I'll be fine. But if I even take a bit, my resolve crumbles, and I've gotta start all over again. As long as I don't take that first bite of things not on the diet.....

I had a perfect eating day, and feel pretty good, actually. I got home from Lauries house at 9pm, and the kids were in bed, and Captain America was just home from basketball. I straightened up a little bit, and sat down to blog.

Tomorrow, the girls are going to the movies at 10am to see "When in Rome". It looked like a pretty good movie to me. I'm excited.

Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

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Always on the Go

Well, I think that Wednesday may have been the longest day in the history of my life - hehehe. It started off at 7am. I woke up from my drug induced sleep (hehehe - slept like a baby, by the way...) and got the kids ready for school. I sent them off to the bus at 7:25am, and got ready to go to Andreas for "Ramp it Up" exercises. I made sure that Jake and Jim were up and fed, and headed out the door. Captain America was just getting home from PT.

Andrea and Veronica and I did our exercises. It's getting easier, but slowly. I still die when doing it - hehehe. But I can tell that I'm getting stronger.

I came back home, got Jake going on school, and headed out to Walmart. It was 9am. I had to get some supplies for the Blue and Gold, and a few things for the house. I hustled. I was on a tight time schedule.

I was at the church by 10am. Andrea had stopped by my house and picked up Jake and Jim, and took them to church with her too. We set up for the Blue and Gold, making it look all pretty. We set up 3 rows of 3 long tables, covering them in blue and gold and white paper. Then we had 2 food tables, a water table, and a cakes table. Plus the award table in the front. We hung some balloons, and got the eating ware all ready. We set up chairs, and made sure that everything was pretty.

We were done at 11:30am, and headed back home. Just as I was getting home, I got a call from the non-army Speech language pathologist, saying that my insurance had denied Tom speech services. She wanted me to get a hold of the school, and ask them some questions. I called the school, and gave the school speech language pathologist the phone number for the non-army speech language pathologist, figuring that they could figure out whatever needed to be done.

Andrea was trying to text me and call me the whole time, saying that she was waiting outside my house for me. As soon as I was done, I got my kids situated, and headed out. She and I were taking one of the girls that we Visit Teach out to lunch. And Veronica too! We went to Chicos tacos. I got some tacos and some fries and a diet soda. It was not my favorite, but Veronica liked it. The Tacos and Tacos place was much better, in my opinion....

We finished lunch real fast, and headed to the mall. We went to the Jewelry Box, and I found a few things. Veronica went to a shoe store, and got some shoes for one of her kids, and we were done. Back home, and I started in on some more Blue and Gold stuff. I designed an Award for our Cubmaster, who was getting a different calling at church. He's now gonna be the Scoutmaster. Anyway, I wanted to get him a nice award as a way to say THANKS for all of his hard work. It turned out looking pretty nice :)

I made a cake for Tom to decorate after school for the cake contest, and realized that I needed prizes for the cake contest, so I designed some of those too. I sent the Cubmaster certificate and the cake certificates off to Walgreens, and started on my casserole for dinner. I put it in the oven, and headed to pick up the kids from the bus. This was 3:30pm.

I got Joe, and Veronicas kids, and walked to the park. She was there about 4 minutes later with the kids from AQ. I collected Tom, and we headed back home. I finished making the lanterns for the centerpieces (Andrea let me borrow her waxed paper, because I lost mine.... grrrr) and made the frosting so that Tom could decorate his cake. It was a HUGE mess in my kitchen, but I headed out to Walgreens to pick up the prints none the less. The mess would have to wait.

I came back home, picked up the kids, the lanterns, some more decorations, the food, and the certificates and frame, and headed to Andrea house. She came with us early, and at 5:15ish, we headed to the church.

We got the food table organized, strung a few streamers, got the certificate into the frame, and got the last minute touches on the room, and people started arriving. It was a WONDERFUL Blue and Gold. We had a TON of people there. About 10 families, and 50 people. Most of those children. Yeah, it was quite loud - hehehe.

So, I only got photos of the kids who were sitting at my table. Jake and Eme, you snooze, you lose, my friends...

Jimmy

Tom

Joe

Tom received his Webelos badge. We were SO proud :) Way to go, Tom!!!


And a photo of Brother Soderborg receiving his award from the bishop and Captain America...


He also won Most Original. He made a cake of Obi Wan Kenobi (not a bum) - hehehe. He was SO proud :)

And a pic of all the boys and their cakes and their awards :)

We were in the car and leaving at 8:30pm, everything cleaned up and put away. On the way home, we got a text from Laurie saying that one of her little girls had fallen and bumped her head pretty bad, and I offered for Captain America and I to come over after we got home, so Captain America could give her a blessing.

We got home, got the kids situated, and headed over. She felt much better after the blessing, and we headed home. We put Joe and Jim to bed, sent Jake, Tom, and Eme upstairs to read and get ready for bed, and Captain America wanted me to help him with his Civil War pants sewing project. He had torn apart an old pair of pants, and wanted to use it as a pattern. He'd cut out some fabric, and wanted me to sew it back together. I did my best - hehehe.

Well, it didn't work so well. But, it's a good thing we practiced first on some crappy fabric, before he butchered his nice wool. By 10:45pm, we'd decided that it wasn't gonna work. So here it is, 11:15pm, and I'm just finishing up designing. See, that WAS a long day, wasn't it. I'm tired just from typing it...... I hope I survive the rest of this week :)

So, in honor of my SUPER busy day yesterday, this WordArt is for me - hehehe. Click on the link below to go to my accounts to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

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Good Dog

OK, so it's gonna be brief today. It's only 7:55pm, but I don't know that I'm gonna make it much longer, conscious, anyway - hehehe. I've got a migraine that trying to start, but I'm hopefully that it'll go away with some rest...

Normal day, for the most part. Kids to school, exercise, then I sat down and designed for quite a while. Lunch, and Captain America came home for a late lunch, the more designing, then kids from the bus, then to the park, then back home, more designing, dinner, made kids clean some more and listened to them fight (well, only a few of them), then I noticed that a migraine was hitting. I grabbed another caffeine soda, but I think it's too late.

I put Joe and Jim to bed (actually snuggled with Jimmy till he fell asleep), sent Eme to her room to read, and am now sitting on the couch, listening to Jake and Tom argue about cleaning their room. It's 8:17, and I'm sitting in a dark living room, and the computer light is hurting my eyes. Not a good sign. Wish me luck, that going to bed early will ease my headache. I've got WAY too much to do tomorrow to have a migraine. It's Tom's Blue and Gold Banquet for Scouts (he's earned his Webelos Badge), and I've gotta buy stuff for it, decorate, make a cake, make some food, and actually go to it. Sigh. Go away, migraine....

So, when designing, I made 2 Dog WordArt packs. And had this one left over. I only needed 4 and 4, and made 9. Silly me. Math never was my favorite subject. SO, here's my leftover, for all of you with dogs :)

Click HERE to go to Scraporchard to download the zip file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

Clean Your Room

Back to real life - hehehe. My vacation was SO nice, though......

Got up at 7am, got the kids ready for school, and we walked to the bus stop at 7:25am. The bus came at 7:35am, and Captain America saw me waiting there when he came home from PT (exercise), and stopped to pick me up. Awe, how sweet!

We went home, I got Jim and Jake fed and Jake started with school, then headed to Andreas house for exercise. It was hard, but I made it through,. I can feel my arms getting stronger each day :)

I was home by 10am, and Jake was almost done with school. I read my book and clean the house the majority of the day, alternating back and forth.

After lunch, I headed back to Andreas house with Jimmy, and she and I worked on Cub Scout Blue and Gold stuff. We made wax paper lanterns. Yeah, they're not as cute at those, but it's similar. Blue sticks, and waxed paper. For centerpieces for the Blue and Gold. I mean, it's for 7-11 yr old boys. They're not hard to impress - hehehe.

I was home by 2pm, and I went to get the kids from the bus stop at 3:30pm. Tom was home from AQ (after school PE) by 4pm, and I had the kids clean their room. Now, I must admit, that I tell them to clean their rooms regularly, but I don't check it. I know, bad mom. Anyway, I went upstairs today and OMGosh. It was HORRIBLE. I don't know how it got so bad. I was angry. I took EVERYTHING in their room ,and threw it in the hall. I left the mattresses and bedding, the desk, the TV/VCR thing, and the white shelves. EVERYTHING else went to the hall. And I emptied the closet of everything out of place.

Seriously, the kids had to climb over the mondo pile just to get back into the bedroom. There's no reason for that kind of mess. I told them to put stuff away nicely, and once it got too full, to start throwing stuff away. If it's buried under a pile of stuff, do you really want it anyway? If you haven't seen it in 3 months because you can't access it, is it really that important to you? Sigh.

They cleaned FOREVER. I let them come downstairs and eat, then back up they went. Finally, at 9pm, I let them go to bed. Tomorrow will be a repeat of today for the 2 of them, I think . I noticed that Emeline didn't want the same fate as her older brothers, and went up and detail cleaned her room too. Good for Eme, for taking some initiative.

Jim and Joe's room was already cleaned. Thank goodness. I don't think I could have handled that as well. Little boys went to bed at 8pm, and Eme went upstairs to read. I took all TV and Computers away from the kids after school, cause of the mess. I think I'm gonna do that more often. Less TV and computer is good....

So, in honor of my boys' messy rooms, here's a WordArt for ya! Click on the links below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

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See, I told you it was bad...

Grows More Precious

Hi all! We're BACK!! Did you miss me? I missed you guys - hehehe. It's strange to go to bed without blogging. Really strange - hehehe. I felt like I was forgetting to do something each night - LOL!

We woke up on Friday morning at regular time, but instead of getting kids ready for the bus and school, we worked on getting packed and dressed and out the door. By 9:45am, we were all loaded in the truck and ready to go. We drove to Alamogordo, and stopped at Arbys for lunch. Crazy, how much eating out with 7 people can be....

But see my yummy sandwich? It was FABULOUS! I just LOVE a good turkey sandwich :)









We got back in the truck, and finished our drive to Ruidoso. We were so worried that we'd be late, but we ended up getting there right on time. Here's some pics from outside the hotel.







We checked in, and were SO pleased with our room. I took a few pics on my cell phone of our room. We stayed at the Best Western, and it was WONDERFUL!


There was a bathroom off to the left when you first walk in, then a little closet, then a king sized bed on the left wall, a TV dresser on the right, and further in the room, a doorway to another room with 2 full beds and a TV dresser, and the right wall had a fireplace, with a couch and a desk. It was SO cool. I'm a Motel 6 girl, so this was pretty fancy for me - hehehe.

At 2pm, we had our first class. The room at the end of the hall was set up for childcare. There were a few ladies there to watch all the kids. I put Eme and Joe and Jim in childcare, and left Jake and Tom in the room (since they're old enough to be on their own for a few hours), watching TV. We don't have cable at home, so they were SO excited to watch real tv. hehehe.

Our first class was about the 5 Love Languages. You know about them, right? How we each receive and show love in a different way? 5 main ways. Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receive Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch. We spent a while talking about them, then took a little assessment quiz to find out what our primary love language was.

Captain America was Quality Time and Words of Affirmation, and I was Receiving Gifts and Quality Time. I'm not sure about the Receiving Gifts one, though. I guess that's me. I like it when he does little things for me. Not expensive things, though. Anyway...

We took a little break at 3:30, and we checked on the kids. Doing just fine. We did our next class, where we learned about Words of Affirmation and Quality time.

After class, we all got back together in the conference room for dinner. We had Spicy chicken, with rice, and taco fixings. It was quite tasty. And apple crisp for dinner. SO much food :)

After dinner, the fam got ready and headed to the hotels pool. They had a jacuzzi too. We had fun going from the pool to the jacuzzi and back and forth. I think it was the kids' favorite part :)

After the pool, we came back to the room, and had all the kids shower and get ready for bed. We were channel surfing, and found and edited show of "The Patriot", already 1/2 way over. We all watched it, then turned off the TVs and went to bed. I think it was only like 10pm or something :)

The next morning, we were up at 7am, getting kids ready for breakfast. We headed down to the breakfast area in our jammies (hehehe), and Captain America headed off to the gym. He ran a few miles on the treadmill, and we ate. The breakfast was SO good. They had a waffle maker, yogurt, hard boiled eggs, cereal, bagels, english muffins, cinnamon toast, cottage cheese and peaches, biscuits and gravy, sausage biscuits, hot cocoa, lots of juices. It was fabulous. I just LOVED it :) And the kids did too. See how happy we are at breakfast - hehehe.



After bfast, we dropped the kids back off at child care, left the older boys in the room, and went to class. We learned about Receiving Gifts and Acts of Service. We had a little break at around 10, then back to class.

See our snacks. Yummy! My sister thought this picture was funny, with the healthy fruit in the foreground, and the snickers bar in the background. hehehe.


At 11am, we let Tom and Jake go to the pool, since they were old enough to go and play on their own. We learned about the love language of Physical Touch.

At noon, we had lunch. Angus burgers. OMGosh, were they ever good. With baked beans, too. SUCH good food. Or premium hot dogs. The little kids picked those.

After lunch, we were released for Family time. We had 5 hours to do what we wanted in Riudoso. We got ready, and headed out. Here's some pics of us in the truck, almost ready to go...








We found a few brochures at the hotel of things to do in Ruidoso and surrounding areas, made our plan, and headed out. First stop, down town Ruidoso. We walked around and did the tourist thing. At one of the last shops, we bought some smooth, fun colored polished rocks for the kids. We play train dominos a lot, and it takes "markers", which the rocks would work perfectly for. They were pleased. They each got 2, thanks to the very friendly store lady :)

Back in the truck, we drove up to see the Smokey the Bear museum. Unfortunately, the road was really windy, and I started to get car sick. I took a pill, but it made me a bit sleepy and out of it. Yeah, not so cool :)

When we got there, we found out that there was an admittance fee to the park. Yeah, I wasn't gonna pay over $10 for us to go and see the spot that they buried Smokey the Bear. So we just went into the gift shop/museum, and looked around.

Here's Jimmy with the historical marker.

And the gang inside the museum.

Tom and Jimmy, looking at the display cases.

We were gonna drive a bit further, and see the museum of Billy the Kid, but realized that it closed in 30 minutes. And I wasn't gonna pay for only 30 minutes. See, the cheapness in me coming out - hehehe. SO, we drove around a bit more. We drove by Ft. Seldon, and old US Army fort, long since out of use. It was kinda neat, though. We also found a Merchant Marines cemetery. That was kinda cool.

Here's some pics of the view from up there.

We headed back to Ruidoso after that. I was pretty car sick, and in need of a nap. We stopped by WalMart in Ruidoso before heading back to the hotel. We bought lunch for Sunday afternoon, so we didn't have to stop and eat out on Sunday. We don't shop on Sunday, and it's always hard when traveling. Since we had a fridge in the hotel room, it would be relatively easy to pre-purchase food. AND, the total cost of more soda, food for the next day, and some treats was less $$$ than we paid to eat at Arbys on the trip up. Fast food really is expensive, you know :)

Dinner was at 6pm, and was steak. YUMMY! The place that catered the Couples Retreat was AMAZING! It was medium rare, just the way I like it. The cheesy potatoes were FABULOUS, and the spinach/mandarin orange/sunflower seed/feta cheese salad was DIVINE. My favorite meal, so far.

AFter dinner, we had cheesecake for dessert, and I was in heaven - hehehe. We went back to the room, and took a little nap. Not long, just about 45 minutes. We were supposed to take the kids to the child care place so we could have a "date nite", but we weren't allowed to leave the hotel. But we were tired, and took a quick nap, and let the kids watch TV.

At 8pm, we took the kids to the conference room, and we played train domino's. There was a big table where we could play, so it was perfect.

At 9pm, we had an ice cream party. I was starting to feel sick from all the food at this point, but who can turn down ice cream with all the toppings? They had good chocolate and vanilla ice cream, hot fudge topping, carmel, chocolate sauce, pineapple, strawberries, bananas, sprinkles, and 2 kinds of nuts. We were getting SO spoiled :) hehehe.

We went back to the room at 9:45pm, and put the little kids to bed, and sent the big kids to the pool, and had a bit of Mom & Dad time. We were all in bed and asleep by 11pm.

Next morning, we were up at 7am again, and getting ready for the day. And packing. Separating dirty clothes from clean clothes, gathering toiletries, getting the room in order.

We went to Breakfast at 8am, and had more fun eating - hehehe. I just had cottage cheese and a yogurt, with an apple today. I was still full from the night before. I'd eaten WAY too much :)

We dropped the kids off at child care, and went to our last class. We had a "vow renewal" ceremony, which frankly, I thought was kinda weird. But whatever - hehehe. We watched a little video on Dave Ramsey's "Financial Peace University", which I THOROUGHLY enjoyed, we tied up the classes and the weekend, and we were done.

We went back to the room, and finished cleaning up. I'm SO glad for whoever invented the suitcase with wheels and handles. Life saver, that's for sure :)

We got the truck all loaded up, and off we headed. Later, we discovered that Jake had left his glasses in the hotel (he has contacts), but that wasn't until we were already home.... Anyway, we took the LONG way out of Riudoso, more of a scenic trip.

We stopped in Alamogordo to eat lunch at a park, and had a good time. Here's some pics of the kids playing.



We got home at around 3:30pm, unloaded the truck, and relaxed for a while. I started the dirty laundry, and did the dishes (yeah, they were nasty from being left all weekend), and had Jake clean off the counters. The house looked pretty good after that.

Captain America took a nap, and I read some, and the kids took some quiet time in their rooms. They'd been together WAY too long, and were fighting. Quiet is good :)

We had cereal for dinner (yeah, I didn't feel like cooking), and at 6:30pm, I left for a Primary Inservice Meeting. A few times a year, the Primary Presidency holds an Inservice meeting, where we meet with the teachers, teach a little bit, and find out how things are going, give instructions, and what we can improve on.

Since Andrea is a teacher in the Primary, we went together. I sure missed that girl! It was good to see her again. We laughed and talked all the way to church.

The Primary president welcomed us all, we had a prayer and a song, and after talking for about 3 minutes, she released us to either Jr Primary, Sr Primary, or music/nursery. I was supposed to be teaching the Jr. Primary. Crap! That's the first I'd heard of it. Sigh.

SO, I just had us talk about how the classes were going, good things, bad things, sharing things that were helpful. Luckily, Andrea was in the group with me, and she never lets the conversation drag - hehehe. The 30 minutes flew by.

We met back up with the group, had dessert, had a few closing remarks from the Primary President, had a prayer, and were done. We still hung out and chatted for another 15-20 minutes, then headed home.

After sitting in the driveway and chatting forever longer, I finally got home a little after 9pm. Captain America was dying some wool pants, and cleaning up his mess. I guess he tried to dye too much at one time, and it boiled over on the stove. Jake had figured out that he'd lost his glasses by this point, and was making notes so he could call the hotel and see if they were there. He was writing out a script of what to say. Hard lesson to learn, so someone who hates to talk on the phone. But he did a good job. Yes, the glasses were there. They're gonna send them tomorrow, I think.

I downloaded all the pics from the trip, checked some emails, and started blogging about the long trip. Yeah, I should have just taken 25 minutes each night I was up there and blogged. It's taken FOREVER to blog for 3 days - hehehe. Here it is, 11:34, and I think I'm tired :)

Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!

DOWNLOAD LINKS UPDATE WITH CORRECTED WORDART :)

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