Visitors

Conference weekend we had the William and Heather clan for a visit. We sat around, watched conference, chatted, and ate yummy food. You know the drill. But this year, any gathering includes the fun feeling of taking your life into your hands/toying with fate. You've just got to let that go every once in a while if you're going to stay sane, right?  

The kids always like to play in the woods, but the adults joined them on one of their trips. We ended up down in the dry creek bed where there were hundred of tiny frogs. That's why we're all squatted down looking at the ground. You can see Scotty holding one below. They were just jumping everywhere. The mosquitoes were also insanely active, so we didn't stay long. 

My friend Renata brought by a conference bingo game for the kids, and it was wildly popular. We also followed through on our tradition of conference cinnamon rolls from an HEB freezer near you.

More recently we watched my BFF's kids while they went to her brother's wedding. It's crazy going from two kids to six kids, and I felt like my brain was on high alert, and now I understand why I have so few memories of my sister-in-law Anya (mother of 7) sitting down. It was a lot of work, but the kids were really well behaved, they went to bed nicely, and we didn't have any trauma or drama.

Okay, there was a little bit of trauma and drama. I decided to take the kids to a pumpkin patch. One of our co-op friends was going, so we thought it would be a fun activity for the afternoon. It was 86 degrees when we arrived at 2:00. By the time we left, it was 58 degrees! We were standing there by the petting zoo, and a huge wind blew dust and leaves into our eyes, and the temperature just plummeted. We were not ready! We had shorts and t-shirts. The youngest, little Madeline, has no body fat to speak of. My friend generously shared her blanket with us. So I wrapped Madeline in that, and she just sat on my lap the whole time. Corinne got cold, too, and would join us in the blanket. But she ventured forth a little more than Madeline. She really wanted to ride the pony. From the moment we got there, she had that goal in mind. The older kids were distracted by other fun things, but she remembered the pony. At one point, she was just sure we had missed our chance to ride the pony, that the line was too long, and she was so sad. But we went over, waited our turn, and got a wonderful 60 seconds with the pony. And it was so cold! 

This was a really fun pumpkin patch. Even with the crazy weather, we were there for about three hours. Under normal conditions, I think we could have easily spent six hours there. Another funny thing was that all three older girls in our party (including my friends daughter) got big rips in their pants from going down the slides at the top of the tire tower. Oh, and the pig races were fun. They named all the pigs--Kevin Bacon, Lindsey Loham, Hamione Granger, Ron Pigsley...you get the idea. And the pig races were on the other side of the tire tower; sitting over there blocked some of the wind. So it was a happy place. 

There was a moment where I was holding the two little girls on my lap. I had wrapped them up in the blanket, and I was trying to tuck in all the little places where the wind could get through. But I myself was completely freezing, shivering all over with cold. It occurred to me that I could just dump these little people onto the ground and steal the blanket for myself. I was bigger and stronger and faster than them. But there was no part of me that had any desire to do that. I wanted them to be warm. And I think that the vast majority of adults in the world would feel the same in that situation. It gave me some hope for the world.