I am a Weekend Warrior!!

Okay, I don't really know what a "Weekend Warrior" is, but I feel I could qualify for that title after our super busy weekend, especially since Ryan wasn't around to help out until Sunday evening.

My parents, my sister Evy, my brothers (David, Jonny & Jimmy), and Andrew all made it into town around 9:00 Thursday evening. I let my parents have our bed, since Ryan wasn't around, and I figured I would be fine on a couch. My brothers spent the first night out on the trampoline and luckily it didn't rain on them . . . much :-)

They had all planned to spend Friday afternoon in Orem, with Mary and her kids, but somehow that tentative plan was rearranged and instead my parents and Evy went with Dave through the temple for his first time. This, somehow, took most of their day (10:00 a.m. until 5:30 p.m.), so Mary brought her kids up to our house for the day instead. The kids had fun playing and I did a little videotaping of kids doing tricks on the trampoline and climbing on the playground, so we could share some different talents at our Heward family reunion this year. As it was also Andrew's birthday this day, he chose Arby's for dinner. To simplify things here, I just picked up the food and brought it home. Eventually the rest of our group returned home and I attempted to get a little work done.

We started Saturday morning making brownies and Jell-O salad for our potluck lunch. As Austyn was in need of a hair cut, I thought I would take him to the barber a couple blocks away for a quick $5 cut. Austyn, apparently, did not agree that he needed a hair cut and actually cried the whole time. He was quite angry with me and was yelling for most of the 3 minutes home. Once home, he refused to get out of the car, not wanting anyone to see his "stupid hair cut." I knew he would need a bath before we left for the reunion, or he would be itching from the hair cut for the rest of the afternoon. I ended up having to pull him out of the car and carry him into the house, literally kicking and screaming, to get him into the bathroom and into the bath. He calmed down quite a bit during his bath and was pleasant again by the time we left for the reunion. We then spent an enjoyable afternoon with our Heward Family relatives at our annual reunion. After that we went to Mary & Frank's house for a BBQ, as they were within 10 minutes of the last event. I was pretty exhausted by the time we got there and took a short nap on their living room floor. I was still dragging a bit when I woke up, so I took Adalyn and went for a quick trip to the Dollar Store in Orem. I was quite pleased with my finds there and I was able to get birthday presents for 2 parties that Austyn had been invited to. By the time we got back to Mary & Frank's house the Mountain Dew had kicked in and I was feeling a lot better. We also had some storm clouds move in about then, which was Awesome, and had a nice little thunderstorm to end the day.

Sunday morning I baked a couple cakes in preparation for Andrew and Sam's "Birthday Party" that evening. The kids all bathed and we made it to church really close to on time. Sam & Kelly and their kids joined us for church as well. After church I made some quick mac & cheese for lunch. It was about that time that Ryan made it home. We were so happy to see him! I cleaned up after lunch and at about 3:20 I realized I was supposed to be at a meeting that had started at 3:00. I took off to that and made it for the last 15 minutes of the meeting. Then back home and started making dinner. By this time Mary & Frank and their kids had made it to our place and were visiting with our other visitors when I arrived. Ryan was sleeping, tired from driving 300 miles home that day. Jenny & Brent made it here by 5:00 and by 5:30 Em & Nate, my parents, and the other kids were here, DEFINITELY a FULL HOUSE! Andrew and Sam opened presents and we all enjoyed cake and ice cream. Most of our visitors were gone by 8:00, as we were trying to get kids to bed who would have school the next morning. Sam & Kelly and their kids stayed for the night, then headed back home to Colorado just before 10:00 a.m. Monday morning.

Andrew made it to his first football practice Monday evening and didn't die. I am sure it helped that the temperature was below 90 degrees outside. We are really glad to have him home!

The Olympics have been going on for the last few days and we have managed to watch a few events in the evenings. It is just amazing what these athletes can do in the gym, I can only imagine the strength and balance necessary for a lot of those events. The men's swimming was fun to watch as well, with world records being broken all over the place. I found it interesting, as I looked through the list of Olympic events, that Trampoline was an event. A few others I didn't know of were: badminton, equestrian, handball, judo, taekwondo. However, apparently equestrian has been an Olympic sport since 1900, handball since 1936, Judo since 1964, badminton since 1992, trampoline since 1999, and taekwondo since 2000 so I just must have missed them in years past.

We have one last mini vacation planned for this upcoming weekend as we will be going up to Yellowstone for 3 days. The kids will be going off track (already) and Andrew will be starting school August 25th, so we figured this would be a good time to go. Thankfully, Ryan will be coming with us for this one. YAY!!!! We are planning to leave Saturday morning, as soon as we get everything loaded up, and will be back Tuesday afternoon/evening. I am really excited to go as we have not been since Austyn was a baby (6 years ago). I can't wait to see Adalyn's excitement with all the animals we are likely to see roaming. We won't be bringing the dog along for this camping trip, as he would probably not tolerate the 5-hour drive very well. Luckily the van still has most of our camping gear in it from our last trip, so we will only need to pack up our clothing and food. Hopefully that will help us get out of here a little quicker Saturday morning.

I don't have any new pictures to post right now as I was not carrying a camera around this weekend, but maybe I'll get some copies of pics from someone who was and then share them at a later date. That's all for now --> Julie