November 8, 2012

A GRAND-Day at the Zoo!

(click here for today's pictures)

• This blog is being written in the darkest house ever.  This it our first power failure experience at our new house and trust me, it is dark out here.  Good thing we have those two flashlights we bought for the kids at IKEA or we would be in big trouble.  We do have lots of flashlights but none seem to be working or we lack the right size batteries.  More on all of that later.
• The morning started out as usual.  The kids were the first ones up but they were all ready to put on their clothes.  The reason?  Well, Grannymom & Grandpa were taking all of them and Lilly and Cash to the zoo.  We had breakfast and then headed to Grannymom's house.  Since Graham didn't have school and my work kid wasn't there, we were a little bit late dropping them off.  
• Actually Robby dropped them off and I stayed at home for a few minutes alone.  There are so many tiny little things you can do-put this up, straighten this, get this out.  Well, so much stuff to do that I was a few minutes late to my ultrasound (really just 2).  So today was the day for our big ultrasound.  The technician was different than before and she was fast on her little computer.  They did move my due date to April 4 and the baby weighted 10 ounces (normal size).  That little baby had its hands by its face and was kicking away.  But the neatest thing was the lady was able to count 10 fingers and 10 toes.  Absolutely amazing.  
• Afterwards, Robby celebrated seeing the baby 6 with a trip to the grocery store and I celebrated by my regular checkup.  And yes, this was his second trip to the grocery store in less than 24 hours-we will probably go tomorrow too.  My appointment was quick-I did have to wait for a few minutes but I never noticed because I was too busy looking at the Walmart Black Friday ad.
• The kids had a great time at the zoo. Keaton enjoyed seeing all of the animals but the highlights of the zoo trip for the others was the hay maze and getting to ride the carousel.  After a long time at the zoo, then they all went across the street to the park to play.  The weather was perfect and they all had a blast climbing and crawling everywhere and on everything.  Keaton even got in on the action running around with everyone.
• Robby and I beat them back at Grannymom's house so he could work on their computers and when they saw that we were there, the kids were not happy at all.  They wanted to keep playing but we did give them a few more minutes to play before heading home.  Once home, we cleaned out the van and then the little girls took a nap.
• And yes, I am the mean old school marm that made the others do school.  But I did set the clock for 45 minutes and told them that we would get done what we could.  Reagan finished all of hers except for science and Anderson did pretty well too (I may or may not have stopped the clock for a few minutes every once in a while so he could really get near finishing).  We were about to go and watch his math video when the power went out.  
• On the way home, we could see that a van had flipped in the ditch ahead of our turn but really thought nothing of it but it was related to the power issues.  I already had the chili in the crock pot because we were having company but we figured that the lights would come back on soon, so we carried on getting things ready for supper.
• The lights did come back on and I briefly thought that maybe I should bake dessert (dessert sounds so much classier than brownies, doesn't it?) just in case the power goes off again.  Well, you guessed it-I didn't bake the dessert and the power did go off again.  It took Robby awhile to get a hold of Tom but he was eventually able to so we could meet or postpone.  Tom decided to postpone so he could see the house so we loaded up and headed out to eat.
• Of course, we had chili ready to go but that would have meant a long time in a dark house with lots of wild kids.  So we opted for Chilis-and that will probably be out last time to eat out.  Seriously, eating out is just not worth it anymore.  The kids are really good but they still probably stress us out a bit.  And the food is never as good as it should be.  Nothing is worth what you have to pay for it-all that to say, we should have just walked around Walmart and spent our money there.  Robby said that his 2.99 lunch that we split was better than his food tonight.  But the kids enjoyed the night out and the cokes that were flowing freely.
• We had to pass the police car blocking the road for the power crew to get home and no the lights weren't back on.  We took our two kiddie flashlights and headed upstairs to tuck int he kids.  We left a flashlight in their room but it was very, very quiet without the house noises and without their fan.  
• They were at least quiet but downstairs Robby was like a caged animal without the power.  His phone was dead, no internet, no tv-like living in a third world country-except we did have ice cream!  The lights came back on after a while so we started turning lights on and setting clocks.  The kids were relieved-but we were probably more relieved!