Sleepy Day

Everyone,

The kids woke up at 5:30am this morning. Well, the boys did anyway. They were screaming and hungry and wanted their mommy. Juice got them out of bed for me and brought them to me so I could nurse them in our bed. I was too tired to get up. (Did I mention that we have addicted Flower to Rock Band? No? Oh. Did I also forget to mention that we were up till almost midnight last night playing Rock Band? Yeah.)

Well they thought it should be time to get up once their bellies were full. They poked me in the eyes. They shoved their fingers up my nose. They pulled all the books off of my bedside table to the ground. I finally picked them up and deposted them back into their cribs with some toys. Just as they were being put down and crying about it, Butterfly woke up screaming.

Seriously, she went from peacefully asleep to screaming her head off in about 2 seconds. I heard it ramp up even. She did NOT want it to be morning. Fine, I said. It's not morning. Then she went on and on about how the sun wasn't up and how that means it's not morning. Yep, I agree. Go back to sleep.

I went back to my bed. She kept screaming that it wasn't morning. The boys were screaming. I felt like screaming. Finally I stomped into the kids' room (everyone is in the same room while Flower is here so Flower has a place to sleep.) and pulled everyone out of their beds and stomped them downstairs to play. They were happy. I was not. Ugh, I was so tired.

Juice and Flower got up around 8:30am or so. They seemed refreshed and happy and ready to start their day. I was cross and moody and ready to go back to bed. So I did. I slept until almost 1pm and was feeling much better.

Juice and I were supposed to go on a breakfast date this morning but didn't because I was mad at him. (How dare he get to sleep in?!) And I was sleeping. So we went on a lunch date instead. We had lunch in the tiny cafe in town here and then went to buy him new work shoes. No luck in the store near the cafe. We did a little bit of geocaching but no luck with that one either.

Then we came home to a sleeping house. Butterfly is napping in our room so the boys can actually go to sleep during nap time. She locked the door and fell asleep. Good thing my husband is an engineer and can open the lock without the key.

We cleaned part of our room and had 2 big bags of garbage to take out. We are still not done but at least we have some stuff out of there.

Now Pirate is screaming so I better go check on him. And maybe go back to bed myself!

Safire

3rd Times the Charm

Everyone,

Today was full of packing, organizing, folding, bags, bags, and more bags. It's amazing how much STUFF kids take up. Since we don't have to worry about a weight limit (well, not as strict as 50 lbs) we seem to be bringing a lot more this time. Of course, it's 6 days of travel instead of 6 hours. My head hurt by mid morning so I figured a trip to the park was in order.

BFF Vinny and Lala came along. We did a nice walk up to the town next to ours and enjoyed the park and the mud. This park still has all the old playground equipment that I remember playing on. Teeter totters, metal horse swings, tall metal slides, etc. I would show you pictures but Lala and I were have so much fun playing on the teeter totters that there was no time for picture taking.

On our way home we decided to do some treasure hunting in the form of geocaching. Either I am bad at it or new at it or my GPS does not get exact coordinates for me to just walk right up to the caches. I suppose that's part of the fun of geocaching...the thrill of the search. We couldn't find it and decided to go home before the gathering clouds rained down on us.

In the process of going home, I pushed 4 kids and BOB (what an amazing stroller) through the quagmire and ended up in mud up to my ankles. But still BOB went forward. (I think all those late nights making fun of belly dancing for fitness with Lala helped too.) We all got eaten by bugs and just barely made it home in time for naps and an impressive thunderstorm.

Juice came home early so we headed out to run some last minute errands for the trip. Tomorrow I am busy with other things so I needed to be prepared today to go. I drug everyone over to the spot where the cache was again and made Juice help me look. With the kids. In the rain. Because of course, it started raining when we got there. Juice didn't get his master cartographer title in his game for nothing. He finally found it. It was a good cache and we got some good prizes.

I am almost done packing. We have a super busy day tomorrow with a birthday party, my dad and brother coming into town, and finalizing our trip.

Juice and I collapsed in front of the tv tonight and watched Newsies. Boy it brought up memories of sleep overs with my friends as a teenager. Juice and I sang all the songs, because we know all the words. :) It's fun to be geeks together.

Now, off to bed.

Safire

What a Difference Sleep Makes

Everyone,

Juice is doing MUCH better, thanks to a good night's sleep. I am no longer coughing and the boys noses are just slightly running. Butterfly is still unscathed. I feel like we bounced back from this one pretty quick but Juice thinks otherwise.

Today was yet another fun BBQ with our church this time. It was great! There was tons of food, a bounce house and a playground for the kids, and good friends to talk to. Of course, it rained on us. Hard. Didn't seem to bother anyone too much, though. Butterfly had a pretty good time (although she kept saying no one would play with her...BFF Vinny was too excited to be in the bounce house to come out and do anything else) and came home wet and cross. She napped. The boys did not. ARG! They were DONE by 5pm and have been quiet ever since. (Well, except for the time that Professor got his binkie stuck between inside his sleep sack. He couldn't find it and was pretty unhappy!)

I was hoping to do some geocaching today. You know, that fun treasure hunting thing I've gotten hooked on. But it rained off and on all day and there was no nap to be had from the boys. So, my goal is to go tomorrow, after I do my errands and have friends over in the morning. Juice says I've become obsessed with it. I wouldn't go that far but it's a lot of fun. And free! And there is exercise and fresh air involved! All good things!

6 days till launch!

Safire

Treasure Hunting

Everyone,

One thing that Butterfly insisted on doing for her birthday was a treasure hunt. I made up this cute little story about Soot hiding some toys and needing the kids help to find them before they are lost forever. I took pictures of the places I hid them, and Butterfly led the guests around the house looking for them. They all had a ball.

One thing I was able to get for this road trip is a GPS unit. The last time we drove across the country, we got lost in Nowhere, North Dakota. There was construction along our printed route, and the detour suddenly stopped with no direction on where to go. There was a lot of searching the map and we stumbled our way back on our route. I really don't want to do that on this trip. It was bad enough with 6 of us shoved in a camper towing my blue car behind us. At least we were adults and knew what was going on. I don't want to get lost with the kids in the car.

So I went researching GPS units. Some were hand held, some only for the car, some were cross overs that could do walking or car. I was leaning towards getting one of those (for when we go downtown it might be nice to be able to set it on walking mode and have it tell us where to go instead of me blundering around eventually finding where to go). While I was researching, I came across this thing called geocaching (pronounced geo-cashing). Apparently, it's a search for a specific set of coordinates with a little box or treasure at the end.

This is totally treasure hunting for adults. And when I found a car GPS that also does geocaching, I purchased it on the spot. I've used it twice for geocaching and once in the car so far. It gets me close, but not exactly on the spot. Kind of fun for geocaching (more searching) but not so fun in the car.

Our first geocaching trip took us to a tiny town nearby. I love this town. I want to live there but it's horribly expensive. They have a lake they offer swimming lessons in and everything. Seriously, an ideal spot for us. But since we can't live there, we go walking there. We found our first geocache with toy lizards in it. Butterfly was thrilled. I was too. It was fun! (This is a picture of Juice with our first find.)

Until I came home to log the find on the geocaching website and found out the little one we found was a decoy. There's another box out there just waiting to be found! I must go get it. Since Pirate and I have been sick, I haven't had any energy to get out and walk over there. But I'm hoping to soon.

There is another cache nearby that has a traveling bug in it. Yes, it's a little traveler that you can pick up a dog tag with a bug and a number imprinted on it. The purpose of these things is to go traveling. I'm thinking about going to pick up the little bug and take it to Utah and another cache. Would be fun!

I am totally hooked. Probably because it gives my walks some kind of purpose. Maybe it's the searching. I'm not sure. You'll hear about it some more!

Safire