Utah Day 19- Juice's Family

Everyone,

We got a late start this morning. I woke up 3 times with Professor last night (I think). Combine that with the hiking we did yesterday and I was beat. So Juice was sweet and let me sleep in. Well, everyone got up at 8 am and Juice took Butterfly and Professor downstairs with him. I fell asleep with Pirate and we both didn't get up until 11:30am. I only got up because Pirate was putting his hands all over my face. He lit up like a lighthouse when I opened my eyes. Man I love these kids!

We had a nice quiet morning, a nice quiet lunch and I wish I could say a nice quiet afternoon. We were able to go out to Juice's oldest brother's house today for dinner. (Remember Flower my niece helper? This is her dad.) Both boys were sleeping and Butterfly was in need of a nap herself. But we got everyone into the car (with all the kids screaming...that was fun) and headed out. Juice had gotten directions and we were on our way.

The reason why we got everyone into the car right at nap time was that we were hoping to miss the traffic and be there for the afternoon a little too. The drive there was a breeze. We drove right to it, as Juice's directions said we should. And then...Juice realized that he didn't have a house number. Wait, the directions are only half here. Yes, we are in a residential area and Oldest Brother's house should be here some where. We tried to call him. No luck. We tried to call Juice's parents. No luck. We ended up getting a hold of Juice's sister, Splats, and she gave us the address. (In the meantime, we drove up and down this street picking out houses that could be Oldest Brother's. The ones without trucks, with very little work for the lawn and without major frilly stuff. I think we had it narrowed down to 5 houses that we were going to knock on if no one got back to us.)

So yeah, that address Juice had? WAY OFF. As in at least 15 miles and half an hour of driving off. I called my mom and had her look up directions from where we were to Oldest Brother's house. We got there 30 minutes later.

As we pulled up, there was a strange car and a strange guy walking out the back door. Who was that? Oh, it was Next Brother and that was his car. We didn't know that he would be here. We thought it was just going to be Oldest Brother and maybe Juice's parents would be there. Turns out, everyone was there except for Splats and her family (picking up Seraph from the hospital, yay!) and Oldest Sister and her family who live in Idaho. So basically it was his brothers today.

Among the group was Flower. Oh how we miss and love Flower. I want her to come and live with me all the time. She can help me hold babies, be spit up on, play with Butterfly and talk books with me. It was great to have her and everyone there. We had a little bbq and Butterfly and her two young cousins (Flower's little brother and Next Brother's boy) played outside and on the tramp. I barely saw Butterfly all night she was entertaining her cousins so much.

Oh, I almost forgot. As we got to the house, Next Brother was on the tramp and Butterfly was introduced to him. She then took her turn introducing me and her brothers to him. "This is my mom. She's a little crazy." Um, what?! Where did she get that!? And she said it so seriously. It was funny but strange for her. Looks like I'm not the only crazy one in the family.

The boys were not happy all night long. I think they were tired. I did take them to the wilderness yesterday after all. There were lots of people, lots of noises and lots of unfamiliar faces. Pirate basically had a melt down and I had to hang out in their basement with all the lights off to get him to calm down and go to sleep. He didn't sleep long. Just long enough for me to get Professor to sleep with lots of bouncing on Flower's bed. And I tried and tried to get Pirate to go back to sleep but he would not let me put him down. Finally, I did to go tell Juice it was time to go.

We gathered up Butterfly from the trampoline and her cousins and got her in her pjs. She started to cry. They boys started to really cry because they were in their car seats and not sleeping. Everyone is trying to say good bye to everyone else. Oldest Brother said, "I don't think we've had this much noise in the house ever." Yeah, we were that loud.

But, we got on the road and the boys fell asleep about 10 minutes later and we sang to each temple we passed; Bountiful, Salt Lake, Jordan River and the new one in Draper. Once we were home, I had to spend another hour or so calming the boys down and putting them to bed because they were once again woken up. Poor kids. Hopefully they will sleep well tonight! I know I will!

Safire

PS- Again pictures in the camera downstairs. More later.

PPS- A tropical storm is headed for our house in Maryland. I suddenly want to be home!