First Week of Summer Vacation - 2019

We are one week into summer vacation and I already know two things for sure.  

1. I am going to have to update this blog weekly if I'm going to stand a chance of keeping caught up. 

and  

2. I made the right decision when I decided to leave my job so I could stay home with the kids this summer.  

So far this has been the BEST summer I've ever had with my kids.  Actually now that I think about it, this is probably the first "normal" summer I've had with my kids.  And by normal I mean it's the first summer we've done the whole "Mom is ts home with the kids while Dad is at work" routine.  

Last summer the kids spent most of their time at day care while I as at work and Brandon was at school.  The summer before that was when we lived in Yellowstone.  Brandon was the Stay-At-RV Dad while I was at work.  The summer before that we were in Alabama. I was a Stay-At-Home Mom and Brandon basically had a fake Army job. He was going though the long and drawn out process of leaving the Army.  He still got paid the same amount of money, but all he had to do was what amounted to probably 3 hours of work a day.  He was home a lot and it was pretty great.

The summer before that - we're at 2015 here - was the summer that Brandon went through a lot of pre-flight training.  This was the last time I was a true stay at home mom while my husband went to work.  But even then there was that whole month that basically his whole job consisted of trying to pass the dunker tank swim test every morning. (He holds an Army record for the longest time it took to pass that test.)

And before that Brandon was in Korea so I'm not sure if that counts as normal.  And the summer before that I was pregnant with Veronica, and Brandon was at gunnery and other training a lot. And the summer before that the kids were so little I'm not even sure we knew when summer vacation started.  

And basically we've determined that my life has never been normal. 

Even this summer isn't completely normal. Brandon isn't just gone from 9 to 5 every day.  He's gone from Sunday night to Thursday night.  So yeah, still not really normal. But closer than usual. 

There's actually an odd familiarity to having Brandon gone. I miss him of course, but I've lived without him before and so I've found some old routines and created some new ones.  

Anyway, let's get talking about this first week of the first somewhat normal summer I've ever had with my kids. 

Monday started out with Derrick's therapist, Miss Christy, arriving at 8:00 am.  She took Derrick for the morning.  And that allowed me to focus on the girls.  Monday is our craft day.  

First up was making a bag with Veronica.  She's wanted one like Charlotte and Lydia's bags for a while so she had fun helping me sew this.  She liked pushing the sewing machine pedal for me.  

 Then Charlotte and Lydia each made a pillow out of their old Yellowstone Princess T-shirts.  We bought these on the trip two years before we lived in Yellowstone and they have been well loved.  So we made them into little pillows so they could continue to be loved.

Derrick and Miss Christy came back at noon and they brought Miss Annie with them. Derrick has so much therapy hours this summer that it's going to take two people to do them all. Annie will work with Derrick on things that he is learning with Christy.  Annie looks a lot like my Sister In Law Becca.  We had lunch and then the therapists left for the day. 

The kids had been climbing the walls with anticipation for what we were doing next.  We were going SWIMMING.  Derrick was putting on his swimming suit before the therapists were even fully out the door.  Everyone changed into their swimming suits and then we slathered on the sun block.  Then we grabbed our gear and headed out the door.  

We drove up to Bannock Reservoir at the Wellness Complex.  For months I'd been planning on buying a pass to the Ross Park Pool, but when I finally figured out the cost I balked at the price.  Maybe it would be worth it if we were staying in Pocatello for the whole summer, but I wasn't sure we'd go enough in June and early July to get our money's worth.  Finally I decided that we'd just hang out at the free beach at the Wellness Complex.  The kids didn't care, they just wanted to swim. 

 We were all so happy to be there.  The water was a little too cold for me, but the kids had no problem jumping in it. 

 Eventually they got out and spent some time warming up on the sand, but they would go get back in the water and then come get on the sand again.

 Derrick found a dead fish (not pictured) in the water.  It was so gross, but he insisted on keeping it.  He put it into his toy boat and the fish sat in the sun all afternoon.  Derrick talked about taking it home and eating it.  We did take it home and put it in a bag in the freezer.  But Lydia threw it away about an hour later.  I'm so glad she did that. The fish is gone, but I have deniability anytime Derrick asks me about it.

A family next to us had a youth kayak.  Derrick sweet talked his way into borrowing it and soon everyone in my family was using it.  Charlotte and Lydia were especially in love with the kayak. The lady said they were currently $78 at walmart. (the price has increased a bit since then) I told the girls, "we can't get one this summer because we are trying to save for a house, but next summer I definitely want one."

 We stayed at the beach for 3 blissful hours.  When we came home I thanked my morning self for having taco meat cooking in the crockpot and already cutting up all the toppings for taco salad.  It took barely no time at all for us to be sitting down for dinner.

While we were eating I got a phone call from Sister Hansen - one of our military relations missionaries from when we lived in Fort Rucker.  She and Elder Hansen live in Colorado, but they have grand children here. They'd come into town for a high school graduation.  They wanted to come see us.  I said we'd love to see them. 

They had some other family to visit first and said they'd come in about an hour.  We'd planned to go to a park, but instead we just hung out at home.  I was surprised at how chilled out all the kids were.  We ended up just sitting in the living room for about 45 minutes without anyone fighting or arguing.  Even Derrick was content relaxing on the couch.  Swimming is definitely a good plan. 

After a little while we had a knock on the door, but it wasn't the Hansen's. It was our neighbors informing me that water was leading out of the little cover over our water meter.  I'm glad they let me know because I hadn't noticed at all.  We've had a puddle in the gutter in front of it, but I just assumed it was from all the rain we've had, I didn't realize it was a LEAK. 

Before I could do anything about that the Hanson's showed up.  We talked in the front yard for about 30 minutes and then they went back to their grandkids' house. 

I called the emergency number for Pocatello Water and the man who answered said he'd come right over and check it out.  True to his word he arrived in a few minutes.  The kids were all in their pajamas and should have been going to bed, but I let them stay up and watch what the man was doing.  When he opened the cover we found that the whole thing was full of water.  He pumped all the water out and into the gutter.  Derrick thought this was great and followed the flowing water down the street to the storm drain. 

The man found a small hole in the pipe and went to work removing it and replacing it.  The whole process took less than 45 minutes.  When it was time to turn the water back on he let Derrick use the tool to turn the valve.  Derrick thought that was pretty fun too.  I was glad it was an easy fix. 

 I herded everyone inside and put them to bed.


In the morning we got ready for a hike.  In a few weeks Derrick will have summer school on Tuesday mornings so I wanted to make sure we took advantage of this free time.  We drove to Cherry Springs which is south of Pocatello.

 The kids were so excited to be going on a hike.

When we came here last summer this tree had had a tire swing, but this year the tire swing was gone.  We were all sad about that. 

 Derrick and Veronica quickly found other entertainment by looking at slugs and throwing rocks into the water.

 Charlotte and Lydia climbed the tree.

 Then we kept walking.  We came to an amphitheater with a stage. The girls took turns pretending to be a ranger that gave a presentation with a silly helper.

 We didn't make it much further down the trail.  Charlotte was scared of snakes and it started to get hot.  So we went back to the car.  On our way back into town we saw wild turkeys on the hillside.

 I had the kids help put away their laundry and then they could watch movies the rest of the morning. Veronica was a little sad and saying that she missed Brandon. I texted Brandon and asked him to call us on his lunch break. He did and talking to him cheered Veronica up. We had lunch at home again and then we went to Chubbuck for the afternoon. First we went through the car wash. 

 Then we headed over the the Chubbuck library to meet up with Miss Christy.  She had Derrick for the afternoon, but we were going to be there for part of the time. The library was doing a "Maker Day" which sounded fun for all of us.  Unfortunately we realized that Maker Day wouldn't start until the next week, so we were a little disappointed..  But it was still fun to see the library.  They have a good kids room and Derrick has come here a lot during therapy. He showed me the things he likes to play with and do when he is there.

Then we went to the Mall because that is another place Derrick goes during therapy.  On Sunday Veronica had asked me if we could go to "the museum that has gum balls."  I laughed when I realized she was talking about the Mall.  We never by anything so I guess it might as well be a museum.  So we went there and got gum balls. 

 We also went to the arcade.  They have an interactive I-pad thing on the floor that the kids loved playing with.  They also loved pretending to play the arcade games.

 Derrick stayed with Miss Christy and I took the girls to the dollar store to buy craft supplies for a summer of creativity.  Then we went home and hung out until Derrick came home at dinner time. He'd gone to the splash pad and told me about how fun it was.

We had dinner and then cleaned it up.  Derrick somehow had a glass cup and casually knocked it against something.  It instantly broke.  Two minutes later he got up on the chest freezer and found a package of glitter I'd stuck up on the fridge.  He opened it and shook it into his eye.  I was like, "THIS is why I have you in therapy 20 hours a week."

When I'd made the schedule for our summer I'd known that Derrick would need to get out of the house a lot so fortunately I had a plan for that evening. We went to the Edson Fichter nature area for a free fishing even put on by the Idaho Fish and Game department.  They have a "Take Me Fishing Trailer" that goes around various locations in Southeast Idaho.  The staff provides all the gear you need to go fishing.  If you use the gear you don't have to have a license.  I figured the kids would like doing that.  So we went down there and got four poles and four bags of bait. Then we went off to find our spot.

 These pictures make us look more accomplished than we were.  The kids had some trouble figuring out their reels and so spent most of their time doing practice casts. 

 Derrick and Veronica lost interest pretty fast and ended up playing on the shore.

 Charlotte and Lydia had more patience and kept at it for a long time. We a spot on a dock opened up they insisted we go over there.  Lydia even ran over to save our place.

 I took Derrick and Veronica on a walk over to the swimming hole on the Portneuf.  I want to come back here when the water is lower.

 I love this picture of all the kids.  We didn't catch anything, but it was such a beautiful evening that it wasn't a waste of time at all.  I love being able to do things like this with the kids.

 Honestly, I'm always relieved when my kids don't catch any fish.  I feel bad putting a worm on a hook, I don't know what I would do it I had to kill a fish.   Another family had a caught a fish and we watched the Fish and Game employees gut it.  Yeah, I'm not a fan. Lydia was fascinated.

 Veronica had all the extra worms from our bait cups and was playing with them.  I took a picture just as she kissed one.  She hadn't wanted to put any of her worms on a hook. 

We went home and had another easy bedtime.  I love how worn out the kids are at the end of every day.  I spent the evening (as I had the previous two evenings) relaxing in my room watching Gilmore Girls. I've made it to Season 5. I'm not happy with Rory.

The tranquility didn't last though.  Veronica woke up crying around midnight. She was hyperventilating so bad that she was shaking.  For a second I thought she might be having a seizure. But she walked for me as I helped her upstairs to my room so I figured she was okay neurologically. She took a long time to calm down though.  She was sniffling and shaking for probably 30 minutes.  I think she's having a hard time adjusting to having Brandon gone.  She doesn't really remember all the times he was gone for training when he was in the Army.  So this is new for her.  Plus she's done with daycare for the first time in almost 2 years. I think she's missing her routine and her friends.

She was perfectly chipper in the morning though.  Miss Annie came and picked Derrick up for the morning.  Charlotte and Lydia and I made bread. It's been over a year since I've had time to make bread.

We also DEEP cleaned their room.  This actually worked really well.  Every time the recipe called for us letting the dough rise we'd set a timer and run down to the room.  When the timer went off we went back upstairs and worked on the bread.  Then we'd let is rise again and go back to the room and so on.  

We took everything except the beds and the dressers out of the room. The girls had so much stuff crammed onto their beds, and their dressers, and under the beds, and on the floor, and stuffed between the beds and the walls.  We pulled the furniture away from the walls and vacuumed.  We took all the bedding out and washed it.  I told the girls they could choose one big blanket and one small blanket.  The rest of the blankets I boxed up since we will move before we need them again in the fall.   We were all very happy with the result.  (Now we need to do the same thing in the toy area. 

 And the bread turned out great as well.  This week we just made a simple recipe.  Next week we are going to get the wheat grinder out for the first time in over two and a half years.

 We met up with Derrick and Miss Annie at the park for the first day of Lunch in the Park.  This is a program that provides free lunch to anyone under the age of 19.  It's pretty awesome. Last year I was able to meet up with the kids at the park on my lunch break 3 times a week.  Those are some of my favorite memories from last summer so I was happy to do them again.

 After lunch we went home and the kids changed into swimming suits.  Then we went back up to Chubbuck so the kids could play in the splash pad.  A few weeks earlier when I'd started putting together our summer schedule I'd asked the kids if they wanted to go to the splash pad.  Charlotte and Lydia had told me it was a "Baby Thing." and they didn't want to go.  Well, that changed as soon as we drove by the splash pad on Tuesday.  They really really really really wanted to go.  So we put the Splash Pad on the schedule. 

 They had fun.  (And yes Derrick is drinking the water - this might be important later)

 I didn't plan to get wet. I bought along the latest book I'm reading.  (Brandon Sanderson's War Breaker) and just read that while the kids played.  Derrick came and sat with me.  He put my glasses on, but would pull them off every time I tried to take a picture.

 It turned into a game that I never quite won. Derrick laughed hysterically every time I missed the picture.

 We went back home and the kids watched a movie or something while I read.  We had dinner and then we debated going to a park or not. I was fine staying home until Derrick started fiddling with things again.  Then we immediately got into the car and headed to the Upper Ross Park.  We were the only ones there for a very long time.  I'd brought my book and I read that while the kids played.

 Derrick and Veronica played in the drinking fountain for a while.

 Charlotte made an ant out of rocks.

 Here's a Lady Bug.

 And here's a design Lydia made on the merry go round toy.

Brandon called and we talked with him.  He's filling his evenings with bike rides, exploring the area around Twin Falls, a trip to the temple, and driving by houses we are casually interested in. 

We left the park and went home to get ready for bed.  As soon as we pulled up to the house Derrick complained that his stomach hurt.  I wondered if he'd got carsick on the short drive home. I figured he was just trying to play sick to try to get to sleep in my bed.  I gave him some kids peptobismo tablets just in case he really wasn't feeling well.

I put the kids to bed and then I got on the computer to check out bank account.  Brandon got paid which was great because it was our first paycheck with the new job. I was happy to have the money, but it made me wonder if I had made the right decision leaving my job. We could have more money if I was also working.  Was it really the best use of my time to be lounging on a blanket reading while the kids played?

I didn't want to think to much about that so I turned on Gilmore Girls and watched a few episodes. I was falling asleep by the end of an episode around midnight so I shut down the computer and put it away.  A few minutes after I was back in bed Veronica came into my room crying.  She was really distraught again. I let her lay in my bed.  She fell asleep fast, but for some reason I was wide awake again.  It took me a long time to fall asleep. 

Around 2:30 I woke up and heard someone throwing up in the living room.  I thought it was Veronica, but realized she was snuggled up to my back.  It was Derrick.  I sleepily got up and turned on a light.  I followed a trail of throw up and found him throwing up all over the kitchen floor.  I REALLY wished Brandon was home.

The next few minutes were a blur of running up and down the stairs to find towels to put on the floor, clean pajamas for Derrick, and trying not to step in throw up.  I got Derrick situated in my bed and decided it was better if I just laid down on the couch.  Veronica left my bed and laid on top of me on the couch. She said her tummy hurt. 

About half an hour later she got up and said she had to throw up. I tried to get her to the bathroom in time.  She didn't make it and added another spot on the living room rug.  I found another towel and clean pajamas for her.  She'd made a bigger mess of herself than Derrick so she needed a bath.  All the ruckus woke Derrick up - or maybe he'd never gone to sleep.  When everything settled down I found myself sitting on the couch with two miserable kids on either side of me. 

I desperately needed sleep, but I didn't think Derrick or Veronica felt well enough to fall asleep on their own.  So I did the best thing I could think of.  I took them down stairs to the futon, folded it down into a bed, turned on Curious George Christmas, and went back upstairs to my bed. The movie kept the kids entertained for 90 minutes.  I'd hoped they'd fall asleep during it, but as soon as it was over they came up stairs to find me.  So I put in one of the season one disks, hit play all, and went back to bed.  I don't know how long they watched that, but Charlotte and Lydia said they were still awake and watching it when they woke up. 

Charlotte and Lydia took care of their own breakfast when they realized how exhausted I was.  They let me sleep in for a long time that morning.  I got up around 9:00.  I realized that I'd made the right decision when I decided to leave work so I could be home with the kids this summer.  Sick kids are the hardest part about being a working mom.  I have no idea what I would have done if I'd had to get to work that morning.  Who would have watched Derrick and Veronica?  Day care wouldn't have taken them.  And how would I have made it through work on such little sleep? 

Yes more money would be great, and I don't plan to be a stay at home mom forever, but right now I'm glad I'm able to stay home.

We spent the morning chilling out.  I'd planned to go grocery shopping, but thanks to sick kids I decided that I'd just do a milk and medicine run.  I let Charlotte and Lydia stay home and I took Derrick and Veronica with me to Fred Meyer. 

When I came back the kids crowded into my room and watched Annya and Elsya youtube videos for a while.  I heard a knock on the door and when I answered it I found a package waiting for us.  It was two float tubes I'd ordered from Walmart.com on Monday.  We weren't able to affort Kayaks, but I did want us to have some fun water toys.  These tubes were each $10 which was a great deal.  We blew up one of the tubes so we could see how well we will fit on them.  We are going to have a fun time with them.

 We debated going to lunch in the park and the kids all decided they'd just stay home. Derrick was supposed to have therapy with Miss Christy that afternoon, but I'd cancelled it. I suspected that Derrick would need a nap soon so after lunch I had the kids get their blankets and lay down in the living room.  I sad on the couch and read to the kids for something like 45 minutes.  That's a record for reading a book with the kids in the day time.  Usually Derrick is getting into something and I have to stop reading because of him.  But this time he just drifted off to sleep.

 Veronica took a little bit longer, but she eventually fell asleep as well.

 Lydia build herself a little area under these two chairs. 

This left me in a little bit of a predicament.  On the one had it was GREAT that they were taking naps.  On the other hand we'd been planning to go to the library for their special showing of Boss Baby.  The kids were really looking forward to it.  Should I wake them up or let them sleep?

I planned to let them sleep, but then that made Charlotte and Lydia upset.  They didn't want to miss out on the movie just because their siblings were sleepy.  After talking it over we came up with a plan we all felt comfortable with.  I would walk Charlotte and Lydia over to the library.  They would stay there and watch the movie and then walk home on their own when it was over.  The library is only 3 blocks away so this was a good chance for Charlotte and Lydia to test out a little bit of freedom.  I worried about them, but then I reminded myself that Lindsey and I were walking twice as far to our library when we were 7 and 5 years old.

So we walked over to the library and I dropped them off.  Then I came back home and read while Derrick and Veronica slept. Every so often they'd seem to be waking up, but then they'd fall back asleep. 

My biggest fear while Charlotte and Lydia were gone was that it would start storming while they walked home.  That morning the power had flickered a few times during a thunderstorm and it looked like the thunderstorm was coming back for round two.  Around the time I expected the girls home I went out with an umbrella to meet up with them.  I found them coming right around the corner.  They ran up to me and said excitedly, "WE DIDN'T DIE!"

We came back inside and they told me all about their adventure of crossing THREE streets (two are dead ends).  I'm glad they had this chance to do something on their own. 

Soon Veronica woke up.  She was nearly hysterical when she realized that she'd missed Boss Baby. She wanted to go get it at Redbox right away.  I checked online and the nearest redbox with Boss Baby was in Chubbuck. Boss Baby is NOT worth paying $1.50 and driving to Chubbuck.  Then I did something I'd promised myself I wouldn't do.  I let the kids know that we have Netflix. 

We haven't had Netfilx since we moved to Yellowstone.  Our city library has a great selection of TV shows and I've figured as long as we have access to that who really needs Netflix anyway.  But a few nights earlier I'd had trouble with one of the Gilmore Girls disks I'd got from the library. I tried logging into my sisters netflix account which I've used a couple of other times I needed to watch something.  But it wasn't working.  So I decided to sign up for a free month trial using my 51 cent adventures e-mail. I wasn't going to tell the kids about it, but I hadn't planned for a stomach bug either. 

I told Veronica that Boss Baby wasn't on Netflix, but that there was a Boss Baby TV show. I thought she'd  see the appeal of a whole TV show.  But she continued with her near tantrum.  Charlotte and Lydia knew exactly what a whole netflix tv series entailed and immediately started binge watching it. Eventually Veronica figured out that the show was basically the movie and she calmed down and watched it.  (It helped that I figured out she was hungry.)

Meanwhile Derrick continued to sleep.  He didn't wake up until nearly 5.  He'd slept for over 4 hours. 

I knew our whole evening was shot to heck so I just let the kids watch as much Boss Baby as they wanted.  I did make them stop it long enough for dinner, but I didn't make them help clean up.  Charlotte spent the whole time they were watching the show coloring on her hand with a blue ball point pen.  This is the results of her efforts.  I call this, "visual proof of why I won't keep the netflix subscription after the first free month."

After Boss Baby had nearly destroyed my children's brains we decided to shift to something new.  I had the kids get in their pajamas and then we folded out the couch bed.  I put the laptop up in the living room and the kids watched The Incredibles 2 followed by Cars 3.  I happily read my book.

 At one point Lydia noticed a rainbow outside and we we stopped the movie and ran to the back door to look at it. 

 I love this picture of the kids looking at the rainbow.

 Most of the kids watched the movies, but Veronica also entertained herself by making designs with her money and button collection.  This is a person.

  At 11:15 I turned off the movies and the kids fell asleep.  Charlotte and Veronica were on the couch bed, Derrick and Lydia were in my bed with me. The next morning Derrick slid off my bed and slept on the floor for a few more hours.  When he finally woke up he was all better. 

This was Friday morning.  Normally Brandon would have come home on Thursday night, but they had a plane that they wanted to get done before Saturday so he was asked to work Friday morning.  The kids and I relaxed in the morning and then pulled ourselves together enough to go to lunch in the park.  When we got there the daycare kids were there.  It was fun to see a lot of our friends from last year.  Then my kids enjoyed the freedom that comes from being at the park with their mom and ran to the lunch line ahead of the daycare kids. 

The rest of the day was spent watching movies downstairs and netflix shows upstairs.  This is so not how I expected so spend any part of our summer, but since we all had different mixes of tummy troubles and headaches it's what we did.

Brandon made it home right as I was making dinner.  It was so good to see him.    We ate dinner and then got into the car to drive to Idaho Falls to go to the zoo up there. Ordinarily we wouldn't have gone to the zoo on a night like this.  The sky was threatning rain, the forecast called for freezing temperatures later that night, and some of the kids still weren't feeling 100%.  But we had a free pass for Dream Night. So we were going.

Dream Night is a special night for family's of special needs children and adults to go to the zoo.  We were invited because of Derrick.  (Autism occasionally has it's perks.)

The event was very fun and they had some hands on things we could do. 

 The otters were a favorite as usual.

 I like this zoo better than the Pocatello Zoo because it has more exotic animals. 

 I also really really really love the Red Panda.  I was so sad when the Panda was nowhere to be seen in its enclosure. It must have been hiding inside it's little cave home. 

We walked away from the Red Panda and then Lydia said, "I see the Red Panda mom."  She laughed so hard when I turned around super fast to look.  That little tricker. 

 Here's our family picture.  We were all in various stages of freezing.  Poor Veronica spent most of the time crying and asking if we could go home.

 Not even animals like this could get her to enjoy herself. 

 Finally we left and headed home.  Everyone was happy to be in the warm car.  When we got home we turned the heater on. 

Brandon and I stayed up and watched the Fyre Festival Documentary on Netflix.  That was crazy. 

Saturday was another low key day.  I went grocery shopping in the morning.  When I got back I took Derrick to the free day at the Fort Hall Replica.  Mostly I just went there for some pictures for my blog.  I'm not a fan of museums, But I was mildly impressed by the place. Derrick liked the train layout. 

 Here's the Fort Hall Replica.  It's pretty cool.

 The inside was more elaborate than I expected. 

I was impressed we could climb up these stairs. 

The other fake buildings were cool to look at too. We've seen these from the other side of the fence at the Upper Ross Park playground so it was nice to finally see them from this side. 

Back at home Charlotte and Lydia had discovered a box of connex that I forgot we had.  They had so much fun with that. 

We had movie night and everything seemed to be going well.  But when it was over Derrick told me his tummy hurt.  I hoped it was nothing.  But no.  At midnight Brandon got to experience the fun of a surprise throw up event.  At least this time Derrick made it into my bathroom. I'd assumed that Thursday's sickness had been caused by drinking the water at the splash pad, but now I don't know what to think. 

Derrick slept in my bed with Brandon and I just gave up and slept on the couch.   

Today we had Stake Conference and then went to a park so Veronica could show Brandon her monkey bars skills. I laid on a blanket and enjoyed being in the warm sun.

In the evening we hung out for a long time in the back yard.  My garden has enjoyed all the rain. 

 The kids had fun eating the first of the peas.

 We sat on camp chairs and Brandon told the girls his hilarious "Grandpa Stories."  They laughed and all the crazy things that happen in those true stories about Brandon's super grumpy grandpa that lived with his family for a decade. 

Then it was time for bed.  Derrick hadn't thrown up all day, but he had been more subdued than he usually is on Sunday's.  He went to bed pretty easy. 

I'm hoping he feels better tomorrow because I really want to get back to our planned activities.  I didn't quit my job to watch Netflix all summer.  I quit it to spent time with my kids.