Home Again

Last Saturday we packed up the kids and my niece, Lauren, and headed to Michigan for the week to drop Lauren back home, spend some time with my parents and get out of the heat. The trip went smoothly until they shut down the Detroit airport due to thunderstorms and we got diverted to Chicago O'Hare. As far as diversions go we were really lucky, because they had us on the ground long enough to refuel and take off again and didn't even let us off the plane. The only real problem was that it was late, so Amanda was uber tired, and Sarah has just been diagnosed with an ear infection that morning (yay for Saturday hours at the pediatrician) so multiple trips up and down were not very comfortable for her. We finally made it to my parent's house at 2 a.m.

The next day we went to a BBQ at my friend, Missy's, house. It was Missy and me and two other friends from high school that I haven't seen nearly enough since we graduated. Oh, and our kids and spouses too. It was fabulous to catch up and find out what was going on with them and see all 11 of our kids together, wow! I also gained some respect for the area where we live and the education Andy is getting when I listened to them talk about their kids' public schools. Michigan is having huge cuts in education, as well as everything else, right now and even though we're seeing cuts too they are not that bad. Overall it was a great day and all the kids got along which made it extra nice.

On Tuesday my Mom and I took Andy and Amanda to see Cars 2. Sarah didn't want to see it so she and Grandpa went on a "date" and did something else just the two of them. I think everybody was happy with this arrangement and it gave Sarah some much coveted one-on-one time. Amanda made it through maybe 30 minutes of the movie and then she and I had to spent the rest of the time hanging out in the lobby with her yelling at me because I wouldn't let her play in the garbage can or something like that. Last time I take her to the movies for a very long time.

Wednesday Mom and Dad took Sarah and Andy to see Kung Fu Panda 2 and I stayed home with Amanda. See, not doing that twice. It gave me a few hours to regroup and hang by myself and even get a little nap in with her. Very nice.

Thursday we took the kids to a bounce house place and they bounced for a couple of hours. Nothing better to wear out your kids than bounce houses. They even played together for a bit and Andy and Sarah fought over who was going to get to play with Amanda. I made some crack to my Dad that I needed to have one more kid so they each had somebody to play with and then followed it up with something like "but who am I kidding I can't even handle the three I have." Besides the fact that Charlie would leave me and then I would be stuck with four kids. Alone.

Friday we went to the children's museum with my friend, Cindy, and her two kids that are about Sarah and Amanda's age. The museum had this small play area for the little kids which is where we spent most of our time. I learned one big thing about Amanda while there. She does not know how nor wants to learn how to share. At all. You would think that as the youngest of three, meaning there are two other kids in the house, that she would know how to share. However, I realized that when she doesn't get what she wants, she doesn't wait her turn, she just screams and we give it to her. Because she is really loud and nobody wants to listen to that. The good and the bad is that she will be going to school two days a week this fall. Good because she will have to learn to share, bad because it's going to be painful until she gets to that point.

After the museum we went to the only McDonald's in the Lansing area that has a playground. I'm not sure why, but they've turned the two by my parent's house into upscale wifi hot spots, I guess because there aren't tons of Starbucks around? I don't know why you'd want to sit at McDonald's all day, but they must like the prospect of those type of clientele rather than the snotty-nosed ones that are extremely messy and make tons of noise.

Charlie came in Friday night and we went to Old Country Buffet for dinner. The stereotypes are true. There were a lot of old people there. So old that instead of thinking my kids were cute they were giving them dirty looks because they assumed they would be loud and obnoxious. They were probably right.

Yesterday we took the kids to feed the ducks on Michigan State campus. Since it's summer and the number of students on campus, and therefore the number of students feeding the ducks, decreases dramatically during the summer, the ducks were very hungry. It wouldn't have been a big deal if it was just ducks, but there were lots of geese too. They weren't aggressive or anything, except for a few that were sticking their tongues out and hissing, but they were about the same height as Sarah and definitely taller than Amanda so the girls were pretty intimidated. The rest of us had fun, but I don't think the girls care to feed the ducks again anytime soon.

So, that's about it. We came home today without any delays or weather problems. The kids are in bed and since I did laundry almost every day while we were gone (not sure why I do this, or why I don't do this at home) we came home with almost no dirty laundry. Which means instead of having a messy house all week while I unpack and try to get the laundry done, I can just take the clothes and put them in a bag for our next trip, yay! We're back to the heat and the few appointments that still go on all summer, but we're happy to see our friends and be in our own beds.

Thanks Mom and Dad, see you in a few months!