Sometimes life is such a blur that I don't even notice how busy it is. The last week was like that. It didn't register with me that we were busy at the time, but looking back, I guess things were kinda nuts.
It started with Ree's Girl Scout bridging ceremony last Tuesday. The girls are no longer Brownies. They are now Juniors!
On Thursday the boys finished karate for the year. I was not invited to witness this momentous event, but apparently they were allowed to put on protective gear and beat each other with foam bats for a good portion of the class. They, of course, declared it best karate lesson ever!
Friday morning Jeff and I got to witness Natalia's preschool graduation. I suppose I could've been sad, and I admittedly got misty eyed when one of the teachers started crying (I'm a weeper!) but I was too excited. Do you know what this means? After seven years, we are done paying for preschool! And before anyone needs orthodontia!
Natalia (and some of the other girls) were not too sure about this graduation thing.
But Nati did manage to get her diploma.
And she was happy when they got to dance.
The weekend forecast was abysmal with at least an 80% chance of rain every day, so we sent the kids outside every time we could. Friday afternoon they were tired, and Ree had dance at 5:00, but we still managed to squeeze in an hour of outside time after school. Ree also had a dance rehearsal from 10:00 - 3:00 on Saturday, so Saturday morning we were back outside at 8:30. (I figured someone else was already mowing. Sending my herd outside at that hour wasn't that much worse than a lawn mower. Really!)
Saturday morning we also managed to squeeze in some emergency blueberry picking. We picked about four pounds, and they are almost all gone. Without any used in baking. Someday we will actually pick enough to have some left to make a pie or at least some blueberry pancakes.
As it turns out, the weather was never really bad over the weekend. It rained every day, but mostly at night, and in between it was bright sunshine. So we had lots of outside time all weekend.
We had planned so stay home as much as possible, because traffic in Wilmington is horrendous on Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Labor Day. Except it wasn't. It was a ghost town. Except for Costco. We are relative Costco newbies and made a complete rookie mistake and went there on a holiday weekend. Holy cow. I should've realized that everyone and their brother is going there because with guests in town they can actually use that 24 pack of pre-made burgers and the 36 pack of super hextuple rolls of toilet paper.
Don't my redneck children look thrilled to be shopping? (And despite their faces, they had an amazing time at Costco since everyone, even with their picky preferences, got double digit samples including ice cream sundaes.)
Monday afternoon we had friends over. We discovered the best way to get eight kids to sit down quietly is to let them stuff their faces with Jello.
The downside, of course, to the Jello eating (aside from the consumption of so many chemicals and dyes) is a whole lot of energy. But thankfully the weather cooperated, so it was outside to play with poppers.
The weekend ended with Natalia passed out at 6:30 Monday evening next to Jeff while he watched the Reds game. Obviously the sign of a good (and busy) weekend.
