Death Valley

Charlie and Andy went to Death Valley over the weekend and left me alone with the girls, again.  Not that I don't love to be with the girls, but I'm with them a lot.  Hmm, I guess that's why they call it parenthood.  Anywho, we gave Andy the option of a birthday party or a trip and he chose a trip for I think the third time in a row.  I say I think because last year I know he and Charlie went to Washington D.C. for his birthday trip, but I cannot for the life of me remember what we did the year before.  We probably went on a family vacation and passed it off for a birthday trip, which would have worked when he was in first grade but not now that he is in third.  He chose Death Valley because he recently did a report on it in school.  It makes me really proud that he picked a place that was kind of academic instead of an amusement park, but in some ways I wish he had just picked the amusement park.

So, they left on Friday after school and didn't come home until late last night.  I hung out with the girls in the yuck and rain all weekend.  Okay, it was only yucky and rainy on Saturday, Sunday actually turned out to be pretty nice.  We went shopping for my friend, Claire, who just broke her leg and had to have surgery today (hope all went well, Claire) and then we went to Chick-Fil-A.  For two hours.  The girls could have stayed much longer, but I was getting bored.  Okay, Sarah could have stayed longer.  Amanda was getting a bit bored herself because she isn't big enough to climb up into the tunnels and such on the top and had to stay at the bottom doing nothing in the one thing she could reach.  But she never complained.  The good thing about all the playing is the girls were super tired when we got home and went to bed reasonably early.

Sunday we got up and went to swim lessons and then spent most of the day buying some new chairs for the formal living room.  We have great plans for this room, at least I do, but that will have to wait for a future post. The great thing is both mornings Sarah got up with Amanda and entertained her for an hour or so, so that I could sleep a little bit longer.  They could come get me if they needed anything, but joyfully they didn't.  I really like this trend, I hope it continues.

So, you thought this post was about Death Valley.  Well, it's not, because I wasn't there.  I will say that they drove a lot and they went down a 500 foot crater that took five minutes to go down and about forty minutes to climb back up.  I could have told them that from a horrible sand dunes experience I had years ago.  Let's just say fun going down and think you're going to die going up.  Andy did learn a few new facts about Death Valley that he is looking forward to telling his teacher.  I'll leave you with a picture so you don't feel cheated, but it's the desert so there isn't a lot to see.