A Grateful Reunion

This past weekend was a rather long, and exhausting one. I wasn't sure if it would ever end. Let me explain:
Eric's parents asked if he, along with his brother Matt, would go up to Utah with them to help clean up the old house in Huntsville. This involved cleaning out, and tearing down the old grainery, remove some old diseased trees, and other hard, physical labor. Essentially it's our payment for being able to spend a week there each summer. They flew up Thursday evening, Eric left straight from work. We had to say our goodbyes in the morning as he went off to work.

I don't think a worse weekend could have been chosen. Firstly, Thursday and Friday were both half days at school for parent-teacher conferences. Which meant an additional 6 hours that the kids could, and did, fight all together. And secondly, I had to teach the Relief Society lesson yesterday. Which meant that there was no one to help tame the children while I worked on my lesson, nor was there a daddy to take and deal with the baby while I gave my lesson (thank goodness for RS sisters!)

I had a feeling that this would be a long weekend. I had been saving a trip to the mall to spend my birthday money just for this weekend, when I knew I would need the escape (my kids behave better in public than they do for me at home). I went on Thursday, and I picked up some See's chocolate to get me through the weekend. It only lasted until Friday afternoon. I had to go back on Saturday to get some more (a BIG thank you to Ashlee for giving me an hour break, I needed it) just to make it through to Sunday evening.

I won't bore you with all of the gory details, just one of the funny ones. We went to the park on Friday, hoping that getting out of the house would help. We had to leave early (think Davin throwing sand), and on the way home Davin "spanked" me because he was mad. I simply grabbed the full water bottle and flicked him with it (hey, if it works with cats and dogs when they misbehave, then maybe...) His reaction was the funniest thing. He had a major melt down, he told me that his shirt was ruined because I got it wet (umm, it gets wet every time I wash it). And then, on Saturday, we went to Target. We were going to make pizza for dinner, but I was bushed, so we opted for mac 'n cheese (the orange kind) instead. Davin, who picked out the dinosaur kind, threw a fit when we got home because he wanted pizza again. The kids went to bed early every night: Eme at 7, Davin at 7:30, Aidan at his usual 8:30.

Sufficed to say, we were all very glad to see Daddy when church ended. Eric is allowed to go on trips again, he just has to take either Davin or Eme with him, or bring either Mom or Julie down here.