After the Memorial Day BBQ, my sisters and I decided we needed a little “Girls’ Night Out.” So we headed home, fed the kids dinner, got a little dressed up (OK, it’s St. Joseph so you know we didn’t go nuts or anything) and left the boys in charge.
We had such a fun time! We started with dinner and margaritas then a little shopping. Afterwards we drove around a bit, coming to the realization that it’s Monday and not a whole lot is happening. Ha ha ha! So in the end we headed to another local restaurant and just sat, drank some wine, and chatted. It was so great to spend time getting to know Abra better and everyone laughing, getting along. I love those girls!
Elliott texted me to bring him home some Taco Bell (which the other boys were sooo jealous of, ha ha ha!) Turns out they had a fun time too, playing Wii the whole time we were gone.
Tuesday was a bit slower (thank goodness!). We spent most of the morning hanging out on the back porch, watching the kids play in the little kiddie pool and later on just watching them play inside. Like I said, slower - just the way we like it. I even managed to sneak away to pick up my favorite Chinese food from Hunan’s for lunch (their crab rangoon is yummy).
For me, though, the highlight of Tuesday was catching fireflies at night. I was determined that the girls would see a real life firefly (i.e. lightening bug) which – believe it or not – don’t live in Utah. I know, I can’t believe it either; probably has to do with the altitude. Anyway, catching fireflies is one of my favorite childhood memories and I had to get my girls in on that. Only problem was they got all sorts of tuckered out and simply couldn’t stay up that late. So I promised to wake them up when the fireflies came out so they could see them.
Which we did. The only problem was they were so asleep we couldn’t wake them up! Between the four adults we carried the three little girls outside, but the only one who would wake up at all was Piper (who had also been the last to fall asleep). Ava and Lily just wanted to go back to bed. Well, Matthew and I had a blast running around, catching them and putting them in a jar. (For those of you who don’t know, they fly fairly slowly when they are blinking, so it is pretty simple to just swipe them up. Then you let them go after awhile.) I put a firefly on each of the girls so they could see one up close like they wanted; Piper squealed in delight. Oh well, maybe somewhere in the back of their brains they’ll remember that.
We were sad to leave Wednesday morning, but hit the road about 8am. The trip home was a bit rougher. All the girls were simply exhausted (including this one) and so much whinier than usual. Even Emma complained much of the trip and just wanted to be out of her carseat; mommy sitting back there wasn’t enough – she wanted OUT. It was wearing on me, but I reminded myself that they were just so tired and not willfully horrible and it kept us fairly even-keeled.
We hit some bad weather going by us in Nebraska, stranding the girls and I in an Arby’s bathroom for awhile, watching the hail pummel the van with daddy inside. (On the upside, somehow the girls managed to sync up their bowel movements for the trip. Although bathroom visits took longer, we only had to make one. Woo hoo!) After that it was smooth sailing. We stopped for dinner at a diner in Wyoming and all went inside to eat. I think Emma was the happiest, sitting and smiling at all the other customers from her highchair (especially the baby at the table next to us) but we were all pretty happy to not be in the car for awhile.
We arrived back home on time, around 17 hours again. Carried the girls off to bed and I hightailed it there myself fairly quickly. Ah, home sweet home!
And for those keeping track, my family escaped the Stomach Bug (although somewhere down the line Abra and Dad also picked it up I hear). We had a touch of it the week before we left for Missouri, so Elliott tried to blame the event on us, but there is no way. A friend of mine, who was supposed to meet up with us at Jessie’s birthday party, texted me to let me know she had it and later on her son had it too. So other people in town were sick too. I know I didn’t do that!
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