Fall Break in Retrospect

Okay, so it has been a few too many weeks, and what does it really matter what we did during our Fall Break anyway?


Well, as silly as it may sound, we did very little, and that is what is so appealing to me. Those few things are the things that I want to remember.


The week didn't start out that great for me. Monday, the 3 oldest ended up going to friends' houses for the majority of the day. This should be a good thing, right? Well for me it just proved that my kids don't want to be home.


I know that is not the actual truth, but it still feels that way sometimes.


Due to the lateness of one returning home from the movies with a friend, FHE was kind of a bust. Not to mention the fact that the offending party came home with no shoes. Apparently, our concern was unfounded though, because he didn't wear any shoes riding his bike over there. That made me feel sooo much better!!


Strike one!!!


We had dinner late, and got everything cleaned up. We decided to watch a movie. I happened to be upstairs when the phone rang. I answered it at the same time as someone else, so I listened for a little while. The voice on the other end was denying calling this person and hanging up to facilitate the return call, and at the same time trying to convince the person to invite him over for a sleep-over.


You should know that we have a rule that forbids inviting one's self to a friends house, so our kids usually have to work around that rule.


When the innocent caller finally understood what was being asked, he asked at which house, ours or theirs. The reply was affirmative for the second option. The caller asked his parents and received the "go ahead" and reminded said person to bring back his shoes when he came.


Needless to say when said person started walking up the stairs to ask permission for the sleep over, I was standing at the top of the stairs, holding the telephone. He somehow knew the answer was going to be "no".


Once he got off the phone we had to have a little talk. He had lied about the shoes, which were outside. He had lied about calling the friend and hanging up to get him to call back. He had invited himself over for a sleep over.



Strike two & three & four!!! You're out!!


I was pretty upset. Robert, on the other hand, felt he couldn't get mad at him for doing things that he, himself, had done as a kid.


Monday night ended with everyone in bed asleep, and me crying in the shower. Where was it that I was going wrong? Why was it that our kids didn't want their friends to come home with them? How was I going to fix this?


Well, no great epiphany happened to solve my problems but, a little sleep seemed to help.


Tuesday started out pretty much the same. Sleeping in, watching TV, being lazy, etc. So I decided we would go to the library to get out of the house.


We went to the library mainly to pay a fine for over due items, picked out some books, books on CD, DVDs, played some computer games and overall had a good time. On our way home we decided we would have a picnic lunch at the end of the street in the grass basin.


So once we got home we made some sandwiches, grabbed the chips & juice boxes, etc, etc....

We grabbed some blankets, and we headed to the end of the street.

There is something to be said for watching your 14 year old and your 3 year old blowing dandelions together.

Bryce was having tons of fun as a pine cone ninja.

They rode bikes and played catch. They had relay races and wrestling matches. It was fun to do so little.

Chase is a pretty "Peace"ful guy.






Ally had to be my model as I tested out the background for some family pictures in the future.

Tegan didn't want to be left out of the pictures.





It was a great afternoon. It couldn't last forever though because Karai had football practice. They had to prepare for their last game of the season.



Bryce was the only one with soccer practice and Karai was already home from football so Robert, Tegan and I went to soccer practice as well.

It was a really fun and low key day.


.....to be continued - - - - - later.


mk