Christmas Trains

This week started out simple and then got busier and busier. On Monday we had nothing planned and by the time we got to Saturday there were FOUR activities on the calendar.  Yep that's December for you. 

Monday was what I called, "The last of the nothing days."  There was nothing on the calendar on Monday. NOTHING. 

I don't remember a thing about Monday and didn't take a single picture. So we'll assume that it was truly a day where nothing remarkable happened. 

Let's roll right into Tuesday. Where  . . . 

Oh wait I do remember something from Monday.  I went Christmas shopping and did a tiny bit of grocery shopping after work.  I'd been playing "Grocery Store Chicken" again the week before. That's where I see how long I can go without going grocery shopping. We did pretty well, but ran out of bread on Sunday.  So I made bread for Charlotte and Lydia's lunches on Monday.  They were okay with the bread, but Charlotte was like, "Mom! Stop playing grocery store chicken!" So I made sure to run to the store and get a few things to make sure we could make it until Thursday when I'd do my big shopping trip. 

I also stopped at a store and bought a present for my Exponent Blog Secret Sister.  I had to mail the package to her so after I dropped the girls off at the Middle School I drove over to the post office and mailed that.  I was there earlier enough that their weren't any crowds.  

Then I went back home and relaxed for a bit before heading to work. 

We had admin meeting for the first time in a while and so we had  A LOT to discuss. One of the things was our old couches.  We were getting couches from another office that had upgraded their couches. Also two of our interns were about to be licensed and they were upgrading their offices.  That meant all our old couches were up for grabs. These couches came from various yard sales when we were first trying to outfit the new office space. 

I was like, "Hey wait, we are getting rid of couches?  Let me take a look at those!"  I was thinking about our AWFUL yellow chairs in the basement. I'd bought them for the living room when we'd first moved in and we needed something to sit on in the living room. Later, I found the Black Couch at DI for $15 and so we moved the yellow chairs down to the basement. They were okay down their for a while, but they were never really the same after homeschool happened in the basement. 

Lately one of the couch's seats has collapsed so no one wants to sit on it. And the other's stuffing is exploding out of the cushions.  The only thing keeping these chairs together is the blue chair covers stretched over them.  

So yeah, a hand me down office couch sounded great. 

My company's office is kind of weird.  We have two office suits, but they aren't connected.  I'm usually in Suite 7. I rarely go over to Suite 1.  All the couches were from Suite 1. So I went over there to check out what was available. There was a brown loveseat that looked nice. 

I texted Brandon and told him to stop by after work and check out the loveseat with me. He did and he agreed the loveseat was great.  He said, "Let's get rid of the yellow chairs, and but the black couch into the basement and put this one upstairs."

That was a good idea.  The black couch is still the greatest deal I ever found at DI, but it's starting to show its age.  The seat cushions are ripping and there's a permanent indent where Marcia has been sleeping.  So it was time that the circle of life continued and this couch take its place in the basement. 

My co-workers were figuring out how to borrow a truck to move all the various couches that weekend.  I was like, "I don't need to wait for that."  Brandon brought the van around and we folded down all the seats.  Then we carried the loveseat to the van. It fit, but the back door wouldn't shut.  Fortunately Brandon always has 550 cord with him. So he tied it shut and drove home.  

I had to stay at work to cover the front desk. When I got home I found Brandon working to string lights onto the house. Derrick and Veronica were breaking and shoveling ice off the back patio.  Derrick's favorite winter pass-time is breaking ice.  So this was more fun than work for him. 

Brandon had a whole plan for how to do the lights this year.  He figured out how to get power out to the window wreaths so they would light up. He also brought brand new colored lights.  Here's the final result. 

When he was done with the lights he came inside and we moved couches.  We pulled the yellow chairs up from the basement. Then took the black one down stairs.  That sounds easy, but we had to take a door off it's hinges to get the couch around the corner to our basement.  And then we finally moved the brown loveseat into the living room. That required taking the side door off it's hinges. It was worth it though.  Here's our "new" loveseat. 

After all that work I came up to Brandon with two ibuprofen tablets and told him to take them.  He was like, "What's that for?"  I was like, "Um let's see, you were up and down a latter all afternoon and then you moved FOUR couches. I think you need some preventative pain management."

Somewhere in there we'd had dinner too. 

It was around 7:00 PM and I told Brandon I wanted to go shopping with him. This is something we'd kind of planned pre-couch surprise and I still wanted to do it.  So even though Brandon was super tired we still went shopping. 

Also I was just kind of done with the kids. I had no qualms about leaving them home on a week night.  They were watching stuff downstairs and I just said, "Bye guys, we'll be back later." As we went out the door. 

We went to the Mall to look for some things and then ended up at the Sportsman Wearhouse/TJ Maxx/ Michaels/ Home Goods strip mall by the canyon.  We went to ALL of the stores and had a great time. We were looking for some specific things, but I was also just trying to get Brandon to show me what he wanted for Christmas. He is a man of such eclectic talents that it's hard to know what he wants for Christmas. 

So when he pointed to something like a rubber cement erasing sponge type thing and said, "Oh this is something I could use." I pulled it off the shelf and we bought it. 

Our last stop was smiths.  We bought icecream.  After the kids were in bed we sat on the new loveseat and ate ice cream while looking at the tree. It was a nice date. 

When I clocked out of work on Tuesday I'd been shocked at how many hours I'd worked that pay period.  I always say that I work about 15 hours a week, but in reality it's closer to 10-12.  This time I was getting close to 30 hours for the two week pay period.  I was like, "shoot, I don't want to work that much. I'll just come in for an hour or two on Wednesday."

But that wasn't really possible. I had to do a training at 9:00 on Wednesday and when that was over there was a lot to take care of for the day.  I was thinking that maybe I'd just skip work all together on Thursday, but then I remembered I'd offered to cover front desk on Thursdays in addition to Tuesdays in December. So that wasn't really an option.

After work I went home and started writing checks for PTO stuff.  We'd committed to paying for eight things:

• Ornaments for small tress for each classroom (we'd already bought the trees in November)
• An animatronic Santa for the hallway. 
• A reindeer to go with the Santa. 
• Window paintings around the whole school
• A live appearance by Santa Claus
• Pizza for staff appreciation
• Recorders for all the 4th graders
• Half of a Jump rope assembly in January.

I'd asked for receipts and invoices for these things the day before. I'd been sent 4 of them. So I wrote out the checks for what I had. At 2:30 I went over to the school to meet up with Lindsay, one of the co-presidents, so she could double sign the checks with me.  I was also hoping to track down the other invoices. 

It took a little bit of digging but I found 3 more of the invoices/receipts. I was able to get those checks written and signed too. 

The only thing I didn't have was the invoice for the live Santa and that wasn't happening for a few weeks so it was okay to wait. I was glad to have the other things taken care of. The principal and one of the co-presidents had paid for some of the things so I wanted to make sure they got reimbursed pretty fast. 

The principal had lots of fun stuff planned for the students and staff. She was doing the 12 days of Christmas activities with the students and also doing teacher appreciation things all month long. 

Some things were small like "Tell your favorite holiday joke" for the students. And "good toilet paper in all the bathrooms" for the adults.  But others were big. The students kicked off the 12 days by decorating their little trees. Veronica's class made ornaments by melting plastic cups. Veronica was so excited to tell me all about it. 

I'd been a little scrooge-y about some of the things. (Did we really need an animatronic Santa and Reindeer?) But gradually I'd caught the vision. (It helped that some of the other things that we have budgeted for later in the year came in as less than originally planned.) I also started to appreciate the vision of what our Principal was trying to do. Many of the students at this school come from less than ideal home situations and she's trying to give them good Christmas memories at school in case they don't have them at home. 

One of the fun things the principal had planned was to spot Elves around the school. She had flat elves and some 3D ones.  Lindsay and I took care of hiding the flat elves.  Alyssa's husband would come later and hide the 3D ones. I was outside Derrick's classroom a few minutes before the bell rang and so I decided to just get him out of class.  He was lined up by the door and so I just asked his teacher, "Can I take him with me?"  She said yes so Derrick came out.  He said bye to his class and I kid you not, every single one of those big 5th grade kids said, "Bye Derrick!" 

After school we had to figure out the plan for the rest of the evening.  Veronica had Physical Therapy at 5:30. That would last until 6:00.  Charlotte had to be at the Roper Auditorium for a Concert at 6:30 so she'd need to leave the house around 6:15. The concert started at 7:00 and we'd all need to be there. 

And somewhere in there we'd have to eat dinner. Plus I wanted all the kids to take showers or baths. 

We had an early dinner around 5:00. Then most of the kids took turns with their showers and baths while Brandon took Veronica to PT. 

There were two near disasters while he was gone. 

The first was when Charlotte couldn't find her white concert shirt. I'd put it on my bed, but it wasn't super obvious.  Brandon had decided to sort laundry on our bed and had accidently mixed her white shirt in with the white laundry.  Fortunately he hadn't started washing the white laundry so we were able to rescue it from the laundry basket. Whew!

The second was when I decided that I needed to hang a wreath on our front door. I walked into the living room with the big wreath and couldn't see in front of me. I didn't know that Charlotte had her violin case behind the couch instead of under the piano where it's supposed to be. I tripped on Charlotte's violin case and went down hard on my elbows. I was freaking out from the pain, the shock, and the fear that I'd broken her violin. 

Fortunately, the violin was just fine. I wish I could say the same about my right elbow. It was bleeding and swelled up a little bit. But it was okay again after a few days. 

The kids all got a very loud and passionate lecture on WE DON'T HAVE A HUGE HOUSE AND THIS IS WHY WE HAVE TO PUT OUR THINGS WHERE THEY BELONG!

I guess they'd all thought I liked nagging them to put their boots away because it was fun for me. 

Brandon and Veronica actually made it home before I had to leave with Charlotte. But I was glad that we had two cars so we didn't have to stress about that. 

Lydia didn't want to be away from Charlotte so she came along with me to drop her off at the auditorium. Charlotte had taken her shower first so I'd had time to blow dry her hair. Lydia hadn't had time to blow dry her hair. But I wasn't worried about that. We'd be in the car with a heater and then we could just wait in the auditorium for the concert to start. 

Charlotte was super nervous about getting there on time and at the right place.  She kept reminding me, "It's at the High School, not the Middle School. Don't forget!" I was like, "I know honey."

We got to the Roper Auditorium and Charlotte told me where to go to drop her off behind the auditorium.  Her teacher had gone over what roads to drive on and what doors to go in.  Charlotte knew it all. 

After I dropped her off Lydia and I went to park the car. The parking lot in front of the auditorium was already full so we had to park closer to the main part of the school. Then we walked to the front of the building and realized it was LOCKED.  We were out there with some other parents and I was like, "Um this was not part of the plan."

I was trying to figure out what to do when the Orchestra teacher popped his head out the door.  He asked, "Do we have a volunteer to hand out programs and collect tips?"  I paused a second before saying yes because I was trying to decide if this would cause problems when Derrick and Veronica showed up. Then the teacher added, "You can get out of the cold."  I looked at Lydia's wet hair and raised my hand and said, "I'll do it!"

So we were able to go in and sit at a table. The teacher handed me a stack of fliers and a jar for the tips. The band teacher was there too and he said to give him the money after the concert started. I was like okay. 

The two teachers started to walk away. I looked at the crowd of other parents still outside the doors.  I said, "Um, what am I supposed to tell them?'  The teachers looked at the doors and said, "Oh I guess they can wait in the lobby."  So they let the parents in. 

There were lots of people in the lobby and they started coming up to get programs. I wasn't sure what to expect with the tips. Then the first person who put one in put in a $20. I was like, "Oh WOW!"  Most people put in $1s or $5s.  The jar filled up quickly.

No one had really told me when the people would be allowed into the auditorium. But a little before 6:45 the lobby had filled so much that the people near the auditorium doors just decided it was time. They let themselves in and found seats. 

I was impressed by how many people were there. This was a combined concert for Band and Orchestra. There were parents, grandparents, siblings, friends.  There were easily 150 in attendance and probably even more. We never had attendance like that at my Jr High concerts.  

It was funny to see some of my friends come in.  My friend Jennifer was like, "How did you get roped into this?"  I was like, "I really don't know."

Kaymie came because her son is in band.  She was like, "How are you volunteering for this too!"  I was like, "This was completely unintentional!"

Brandon showed up with Derrick and Veronica and was just kind of like, "Of course you're in charge of the money."

He went inside the auditorium to get seats and made sure to save me one.  

A little before the concert I started counting down the money.  I'm sure that they didn't expect me to do that, but you can't put me in charge of money and NOT have me count it down. I even wrote out a list of how many dollars per type of bill there were. (It was $40 in 20s, $20 in 10s, $55 in 5s and $58 in 1s for a total of $173.00) I thought about trying to find the band teacher to give him the money.  But he seemed busy keeping the band kids in line. I figured the last thing he needed $173 to keep track of. So I just took the money to my seat and held onto it through the concert. 

Charlotte is in beginning orchestra and they started the concert.  They played Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Jingle Bells, a song called Rachel's Repeat (they are still learning how to read music and this song was the first one they ever saw with a repeat in it) and the Can Can. They played each song three times. It was adorable and simple and sweet. I remember my brother Billy starting out playing simple stuff like that in 5th grade on the trumpet and now he'd a Professional French Horn player, so who knows where these little 6th grade string players will end up. 

Here's a picture I took of her after the concert. 

And another one because she'd worked hard for this.  She's been practicing every night for several weeks to get ready for this. She said she was really nervous when she saw all the chairs in the auditorium, but she did really well.  

After beginning orchestra was done they exited the stage and sat down in a reserved section of the auditorium. Beginning band went onto the stage next.  Then it was time for Intermediate Orchestra.  I was VERY impressed by the intermediate kids.  They played really well. 

Then Intermediate band played followed by Advanced Band.  They were also really good. 

The only downside to the concert were the long pauses between groups. It seemed to take an extra long time for the teachers to reset the stage for each group. I was like, "Um do you need some parent volunteers to help? Because I bet plenty of people would be willing to help out to make this go faster." 

Thanks to that long set up time the concert took over an hour. It had started at 7:00 and didn't get over until 8:15.  Derrick and Veronica were so done by the time it was over. When we stood up to leave I was gathering my things when Derrick bumped into me and almost sent me down to the floor for the second time in 2 hours. I was pretty mad and snapped at Derrick, "Hey don't bump into me!"  He got mad and said, "It wasn't me it was Veronica!" Veronica had pushed him and he'd crashed into me.  So Veronica got a lecture on not pushing. 

Brandon took them out to the car and they had to walk kind of far and it was cold.  They were crying and so when he got home he put them right to bed. 

Lydia and I went to the stage to try and give the money to one of the teachers.  Both of them still seemed pretty distracted with students.  But I think they noticed us putting it where directed. 

Charlotte was all smiles.  She was so excited that she'd been on the same stage where Jive preforms. She was like, "I've seen the dressing rooms!"

I got home with Charlotte and Lydia expecting to have ice cream. But Brandon was like, "Not tonight!" So we all just went to bed. (Well most of us did.  Brandon stayed up doing elf things in the garage.)

On Thursday I was super tired. I took the kids to bed and then went home and went back to bed for a couple hours. 

Then I got up and went grocery shopping. Brandon had told me he wanted to make Christmas cookies so I made sure to get ingredients for those.  That was fun. 

I went to work and covered front desk for two hours.  I'm glad I did that because I was able to take care of a few things that probably couldn't wait until Friday.  But when I clocked out I saw I had 29.5 hours for the pay period.  I'm not sure that's EVER happened with this company. I'm also not sure how I ever worked 28 hours per WEEK when I was at the treasurer's office.  And yes, I'm aware how spoiled that all sounds to anyone who works full time. Brandon is ALWAYS rolling his eyes at me when I complain about working 4 hours in one day.  But in my defense I have like 4 part time jobs and I only get paid for one of them. 

I could have stayed at work longer. We don't have anyone to cover front desk on Thursday afternoons, but I've found its best for my family if I'm home when the kids are home from school. So I went home a little before 3:00 and walked over to the school to pick up Derrick and Veronica. 

Oh I'm not sure if I mentioned this. We were having Derrick and Veronica walk home by themselves for a while. Derrick really liked that. But it wasn't helping Veronica's anxiety.  She never knew if Derrick was ahead of her or behind her and waiting for him just filled her with worry.  She she asked us to start meeting them across the street from the school again. That way she'd know that Derrick was either with us or we all still needed to wait for him. 

When we got home I told Derrick that we had a special package.  He knew what it was because he'd been having me track it. It was a little steam train.  He'd asked for one for Christmas. But I wasn't too sure about getting him one.  A high quality one would be really expensive, but an inexpensive one wouldn't hold up to a lot of play. 

I decided to buy a cheap one as a Christmas Decoration. We'd set it up around the tree and that's where it would stay. Derrick could run it and play with it, but he could rearrange the track and he definitely couldn't take it to his room. After Christmas it would get packed away with the other decorations. Derrick was just excited to have a train. 

Here he is admiring it. (With Veronica looking on.)

He didn't have time to get it out of it's box though because we had to go to Occupational Therapy.  So Derrick said goodbye to the train and we drove over to therapy. 

Well it was Derrick's lucky day because when we got there the office ladies were like, "Um, didn't we call you. We've changed your appointment week and time." This was all news to me.  We now meet the other every other week. And the appointments will start at 5:30.  

So we drove back home. Along the way we picked up Charlotte and Lydia walking home from school.  Derrick went right back to the train as soon as we were home.  He and Brandon put the track together and had the train running soon. 

This is a picture from the next day, but it fits here.  Derrick LOVED the train. 

And so did Veronica. She figured out how to make a tunnel with her magnets. She and Derrick played with the train for a very long time. 

On Friday I went to work in the morning. It was the beginning of a new pay period so I wasn't worried about wracking up too many hours yet.  I spent the morning working on all the odd little billing things that accumulate throughout the month. 

Then I went home and just laid on the couch. That evening we planned to go to the Magic Valley Light Parade on Main Street. I was also planning to hang out in the garage doing elf things with Brandon after the parade.  I figured if I was going to do those things I needed a break while I could get one.  So I enjoyed the quiet house. Brandon came home and he sat on the couch next to me.  He ended up falling asleep so I went to pick up the kids. 

Derrick and Veronica were both so happy it was Friday. 

Veronica helped me make pizza and we had another early dinner.  This one was even earlier than Wednesday's had been.  We were eating around 4:30. 

When we'd gone to the Christmas in the Nighttime Sky fireworks the day after Thanksgiving the kids had all complained that their toes were cold. I realized it was high time we invested in some decent wool socks.  So I'd ordered 6 pairs from Amazon. They'd come in the package with the train set.

So after dinner I handed out the socks to everyone.  We put them on and everyone was like, "OOOOOOHHH these are nice. They were plush on the inside and really thick. They kept our feet super warm. (And side note, it's nuts that we are getting to the point where I can buy 6 pairs of the exact same size socks and they basically fit everyone fine. Derrick's feet are almost the same size as mine. The girls aren't too far behind. The socks were a little small for Brandon, but they weren't uncomfortable.)

The parade started at 6:00, but I wanted to be in a parking spot around 5:00. We've only been to this parade one other time in 2019 and we learned then that parking fills up fast.  

That other time we'd watched the parade closer to the end of the route by the area where they did a tree lighting. This year we were going to be at the beginning of the parade route at Mary Alice Park. 

We'd been at Mary Alice Park the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the care taker Art had shown Derrick all his trains.  He invited us all to come back the night of the parade. He told us they would be serving hot chocolate and have a bonfire going. I was sold as soon as I heard bonfire. 

So we parked and then walked to Mary Alice Park. The girls started playing chess. 

Derrick immediately went looking for Art and the train. Art got a big passenger train running and Derrick yelled, "It's WORKING!!!!"

Then they went over to another area of the park and Art had Derrick operate the controls to run the train over there. Derrick had a blast doing that.  I was really impressed that Art trusted him to do that. It worked out well because Art had a lot going on. He was making sure the fire had enough logs, passing out raffle tickets for a drawing to see the Christmas Carol at the Orpheum, and helping his wife.  His wife was in charge of handing out the Hot Chocolate, popcorn, and cookies. 

It's kind of hard to see, but Derrick is running the train in this picture. 

Here's Veronica eating a cookie or something. She'd sit by the fire and say things like, "This is the life!"  Then she'd get up and take a turn running the train. 

The parade started and Charlotte and Lydia went out to the street to watch it.  Brandon joined them. 

I watched the parade from the gate of the park for a little bit.  I wanted to be by the gate incase one of my kids went in or out. 

Here's the Idaho Power float. 

I got board of the parade and was cold so I went back to the fire. I was like, "BEST PARADE EVER!" I could sit by the fire, sip warm cider, and still sort of see the floats.  Derrick and Veronica were still playing with the trains.  I think the parade was going for about 20 minutes before Derrick was like, "What? It started?"

This was probably Derrick's best Christmas parade ever too. We've had many years of melt downs ranging from going catatonic to screaming and yelling.  This year he just hung out with trains and occasionally noticed the floats. 

The parade ended and Charlotte and Lydia (and Veronica who had gone out to watch at some point) came back with their hats full of candy. It's kind of hard to see, but it's the white part of this picture. 

Derrick had disappeared toward the end. We found him in the shop playing with a windup train that Art had pulled off the shelf for him. 

We went back home and the kids had fun eating all their parade candy. Derrick had been a little miffed that he'd missed out on the candy, but he'd been able to fill his own hat just by walking the parade route and picking up candy on our way back to the car.  Brandon was like, "This is the ONE time its okay to eat candy that you pick up off the road."

And look, here's the secret to our success - wool socks. These worked so well. We will be using them for every outdoor event this winter. 

I'd been planning to stay up with Brandon after the kids were in bed, but I was so tired. I was yawning so much I had tears in my eyes. He was like, "just go to bed."  So I went to bed and he stayed up and did elf things. 

I hoped to wake up with lots of energy on Saturday. We had FOUR things planned for the day.  

We had our Ward Christmas Breakfast at 9:00. 

We were hoping to do our tradition of helping the kids shop for each other at the dollar store after the party. 

At noon Derrick was hoping to go to the Model Train Club for their Christmas Train Show. 

And at 5:30 I had my work party.  

Plus we needed to clean the house and make food for the Christmas party. 

In theory all of this was doable. 

But I woke up on the wrong side of the bed and it all felt impossible. 

Veronica had climbed into bed with me during the night. She was talking to me in the morning and asking me if I wanted to get up. I told her, "If I get up right now I'll start crying and I wont be able to stop."  So I rolled over and went back to sleep. 

I woke up a little bit later and still felt off, but I figured a shower would fit that. Instead I got out of the shower and was super angry.  I came out of my room and was grumpy with Marcia, Brandon, and my cereal bowl all within 5 minutes. Brandon was like, "Are you okay?"  And my only answer was "No!"

The ward party started at 9:00 and this was about 8:30. Me, Brandon, and Veronica were the only ones out of bed.  Brandon went around seeing if anyone wanted to go to the party.  No one seemed that excited about it. I was hoping that the party would pull me out of my funk, but I was feeling so grumpy I wasn't sure that could happen.

I finally said, "You guys can go if you want, but I'm going back to bed." And I went back to bed and cried. Then I fell asleep for another hour or so.  No one ended up going to the party. Instead Brandon had everyone clean up the house. 

I was in and out of sleep for the rest of the morning. I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me. It was like my heart was sick. But I couldn't figure out what was wrong. 

I woke up a little before 12:00 and thought about getting out of bed. Then Derrick came in and said, "Mom, the train club happens at 12:00. You need to get up."  

He basically pulled me out of bed. I was like, "Okay we are going."

I got dressed and made myself a quick sandwich.  Then we drove out to the fair grounds in Filer to see the model train club that runs trains in a building out there. I'm not sure how we haven't been to this model railroad club yet.  In Pocatello we went to the one there nearly every month. But this one slipped under my radar and first, and then we had that whole covid thing, and then Derrick got obsessed with things besides trains, and well all that adds up to not going to visit this place even though we've lived here for 3 years. 

Derrick was SOOOOOOO excited. Here he is with the train signal outside the building. 

We went in and Derrick was in HEAVEN. Absolute HEAVEN. 

He looked at each and every display and set up.

I'd told him that he probably wouldn't be able to run any of the trains this time. That was true. But there was a man who was letting kids take turns operating a model crane. Derrick was really excited for his turn. 

Derrick didn't need much instruction. He went right to work. 

Here's a link to the video I took.

When they were done the guy took Derrick over to another part of the model. He slowed a train down and had a car dump out the candy it was carrying.  That was Derrick's payment. The guy also told Derrick he could make "big bucks" as a crane operator one day. Derrick liked that. (After I explained that a buck was another word for a dollar.)

Here's Derrick checking out the Christmas display. 

There was also a display of some trains in boxes.  Derrick pointed to one and said to one of the train guys, "I want that."  The guys said, "Did you enter the drawing?"  He explained that they were having a drawing for 5 trains. So Derrick and found where to enter that. The rules said that the drawing would happen at 3:00 and you had to be present to win. It was like 12:45 and I was thinking, "there is no way we will still be here at 3:00."   But we filled out an entry slip anyway. 

Well, Derrick was still enthralled by those trains. So 1:00 came and went. 1:30 came and went. We saw Art and Derrick recognized him right away.  He went right up to him and said, "ART! How are you?"  There was no where to sit and so after a while I was like, "well Derrick hasn't tried to touch any of the trains yet, I guess I'm fine leaving him unsupervised.  So I went and sat on the benches outside the building for a while.   

I went back inside when Santa arrived at 2:00. By this point I figured we'd be staying until 3:00.  Derrick and took a little break outside. 

He peeked into the caboose that was in the back. 

Then we went back inside. The club members had various cookies that they put out throughout the event. I tried one of each during the HOURS I was at that event. A teacher from the elementary school came with her kids.  She recognized me.  She was like, "How are you?"  I said, "I've been here for over two hours."

We got closer and closer to 3:00.  Up until about 2:30 Derrick had still been engrossed by the trains.  But after 2:30 he started getting more and more excited about the drawing.  He kept saying, "Mom, I feel it in my brain. I'm going to WIN!"  

I was trying to manage his expectations. I was saying things like, "Derrick, look at all these people. They all have their names in the drawing too. They might win and not you. Will you be okay with that?"  He told me he'd be okay if he didn't win.  But he was SURE he was going to. 

He kept jumping up and down and saying, "Mom, it's almost 3:00."  From 2:50 to 3:00 he had me check the time on my phone over and over again and see how it matched up to the clock on the wall. 

Right at 3:00 he went over to the people in charge and said something like, "Excuse me. It's 3:00."

Then he hung around close to them while they gathered all the names and brought the 5 train sets from where they'd been displayed.  He was obviously very excited about the whole thing.  

The main guy got on the microphone and announced that it was time to do the drawing. He read off the first name.  A boy who was about 8 or 9 won. He picked one of the sets Derrick had been eyeing. Then a little girl who was about 3 or 4 (and looked like my niece Hazel) won. She picked the biggest set. 

Derrick was still near the announcer at the front of the room. I was toward the middle. There were a lot of people around us and I was trying to figure out how to edge closer to Derrick. I wanted to be close in case he had a melt down when he didn't win. 

They read off the next name. It was another little boy.  Then the next name was for a teenage boy. The announcer said, "Oh this is for one of our older children."

We were down to the last train set. I still hadn't been able to get even remotely close to Derrick and I was envisioning all sorts of worst case scenarios. 

The announcer said, "Oh it had to be this one."  And I perked up. What did that mean?

He said, "How many Derrick's do we have here?"  Derrick's hand immediately shot into the air. 

The announcer asked, "What's your last name?"  Derrick said, "Illguth"  The announcer said, "Can you spell it?" And Derrick rattled off, "I L L G U T H."  The announcer said, "Yep that's the one. You are a winner."

Derrick was so excited.  He yelled, "MOMMY! I WON"  I was like, "I can't believe it!"

And really I can't believe it. Like part of me is super suspicious about the odds of Derrick's name coming out of that big bowl of names. But it couldn't have been rigged could it?  Derrick put his paper in when we were still pretty new in the building.  It was before he talked to nearly all the operators. No one would have flagged his paper at that point.  Did they go back later and set it aside?  After he'd talked to every operator? After they noticed how we were there for over two hours?  But how would they have known which paper was ours? The only person there who really knew Derrick's name was Art.  And we only know Art a little bit. He doesn't know our last name. I did notice Art pointing Derrick out to the other operators, but I'm sure it was more of a "this kid ran my train for me for 2 hours last night." And not, "hey rig the competition in favor of this kid." Art wasn't even there when they did the drawing. He'd left about 30 minutes before.

So I pushed my suspicions aside and was just happy for Derrick.  He ran over and showed me the train. This was one of the ones he'd been eyeing. 

He said, "See mom. I told you so."  He told me that I was supposed to say, "You were right. All along."

We went home and he was so happy on the way home. He turned the radio up and sang along to the Christmas songs. When we got home he went into the house and proudly showed his train to everyone.  

I told Brandon that Derrick had won.  He was like, "Of course he did. That kid is super lucky."  But he also asked, "Did you see them pull the names?  Like did they rig it for him?"  I told him I couldn't see the names get pulled. It's possible they were all just in a pre-planned stack.

So we either have the luckiest kid alive or the most charming.  Or just a nice combination of both. 

Brandon had made a big batch of brownies for a dessert for my work party and he was making a chili dip for chips.  I was so happy he was taking care of that for me.  Because as nice as the model train thing had been I was still feeling completely run down. 

I went to lay down for a while again.  While I was laying down I had a realization. I was trying to think of happy thoughts and I pictured the tulips that are under the ground right now. I thought about how pretty they will be in the spring. I thought, "I love working on my garden. It's so fun."  

And then I realized I hadn't done anything that was FUN for ME in a while. Like really, look back over this post. And the one before it. And the one before that. And probably the one before that. Is there a single time when I'm just doing something for the fun of it?

No!

I mean there's plenty of things that I like doing and that I had a good time doing. But the last several months have been full of a lot of things that I was obligated to do. And a lot of the fun stuff was because Brandon or the kids initiated the idea.

And even the things that started out as fun hobbies like writing, or doing stuff with the Magic Valley Symphony, or even PTO have turned more into obligations over the last several months. 

I don't have a single thing that was just purely for the fun of it. 

No wonder I was so worn out and heart sick.  I was running on empty and not refueling myself in a meaningful way.    

I've already been considering Self-care as my word of the year for 2023. I've also been going over the list of hobbies and obligations that have accumulated in my life since we moved here. I'm trying to decide which ones are serving me and which ones I should let go of. This has been super hard because I'm not used to making decisions like this. I've never lived anywhere for 3 years. Usually we just move and that takes care of all the obligations. But now I have to really assess what I want in my life and what I don't.   

And after my awful Saturday I'm going to be figuring out what is fun for me. What brings me joy. What refills me. 

I'm glad I had that realization because it gave me hope for the final Christmas thing left on the calendar for Saturday.  We'd skipped the ward breakfast, and had decided to move our Dollar Store shopping trip to another day. Derrick had drug me to the train thing and I'd been okay going because I wasn't expected to actually do anything.  The last thing on the calendar was my work party. For most of the day I wasn't sure I could fake a good time at that party. I considered saying I was sick and just staying home. 

But I realized I needed fun. And the party had a lot of potential for fun. 

One of my co-workers was hosting it at her house. It was just going to be a casual night with food and games.  Nothing serious. Nothing too stuffy. 

And I have some really cool co-workers.  My boss has done a good job of creating a very collaborative environment. There isn't a lot of drama or competition. 

Plus I'd already bought the white elephant gift and Brandon had made a dessert and side dish. So I got out of bed and changed into my black shirt dress and made it Christmassy with a red scarf.  

Brandon and I drove over to Larissa's house and from the moment we arrived I was in a good mood.  Not in a fake good mood. But a really, genuine good mood. I had a blast talking to my co-workers and their spouses.  My boss is kind of quiet, but his wife is a talker.  I always say I get more personal info out of her in 5 minutes than my boss tells me in a year. 

Brandon and I told some of our funny stories. And it was nice to just sit with him and not worry about the kids.  

The food was great too.  

We played a game where we had to list things based on categories and then get points depending on how many other people listed this things.  (One of the funniest categories was "Reasons Couples Come to Therapy.")  

Then we did a white elephant exchange.  We'd done this last year and I'd specifically requested we do it again.  I'd said, "I don't care what we do for the party, but we have to have a white elephant." It was super funny to see what people fought over.  I'd brought a cereal container with bowls and it was stolen a bunch of times.  Brandon and I ended up with a "Battery Daddy" to store batteries.  When Derrick saw it later he was like, "Congratulations, Mommy!

 

The party was kind of officially over after the white elephant, but no one was in a hurry to leave.  Kami had brought a lot of games to we kind of broke into groups and played.  One group played codenames. Brandon and I were in a group that decided to play exploding kittens. In our group of 7 people only one person had ever played it before.  He was good at explaining it. 

I was out pretty fast. (Honestly I was kind of relieved. That game is INTENSE!)  Brandon stayed in and was one of the last two in the game. At one point he had to place and exploding kitten card into the deck.  It was one of those situations where the other player then had to try to figure out if Brandon was the type of person who would have put the kitten on the top of the deck, the second card down, or on the bottom. Brandon started quoting The Princess Bride and saying things like, "Am I they type of man who would put the card closest to my enemy."  Everyone laughed and laughed at his impressions of Vicini. It was so funny. 

I don't even remember who really won. Brandon had us all won over with that. 

It was really great to look around and see everyone having a good time. Everyone was really loving Brandon's chili dip. The guy who'd ended up with my bowls opened them up and dished chili dip into them. Everyone wanted the recipe when they found out I'd brought it. I was like, "I'll get the recipe from Brandon and give it out to you all."

The invitation for the party had said it would last from 5:30 to 7:30. I think we left at 8:45. That's the sign that you have some awesome co-workers. 

When we got home the kids were still up.  I'd assumed they'd all be content watching movies.  And three of them were, but Veronica had been super worried about us. She told me, "I just imagine that you died in a car accident or something." Dang anxiety. I need to be better at texting the kids if we are going to be gone longer than expected.

Derrick wanted more pictures with his train.  

He opened it to look at the tracks, but we convinced him to wait until morning to set it up. 

And that gets us to Sunday.  I think that's a good stopping point.  But it's worth noting that I woke up feeling so much better on Sunday morning.  Everything seemed do-able again. 

Yes that fun party had been exactly what I needed.