3 day weekend in PA

Today is laundry day and I'm not enjoying it as much as last week. We went out of town and I ran off and left everyone's mesh socky bags. Wonder how many socks will be sucked away in my washer today? I figure there are hundreds of them stuck in there somewhere. Where else could they all be hiding?

We planned another dental interview trip last weekend. We would visit the church there, stay overnight, swim in a hotel -all of us were so looking forward to it . . . except Kennon. Lucky for her, she was rescued by the Ashworth family. They called and wondered if she wanted to go along on their 3 day family extravaganza to the Palmyra Inn for the weekend.

So on we went without her. It completely changes family dynamics to lose your almost 12 year old. I don't even think we had one eye roll or one "Dad, you are such a cheapo" the entire trip. Things were really chill.

On the other hand, Savannah found her work load doubled. Kennon may make life interesting, but she is also my right hand man. And it was hard to introduce our family multiple times without her. Brent's interview was in the BEAUTIFUL Williamsport Pa area. Seriously. This is a hidden gem in the state of PA. Fairly remote but it has everything I would need to be happy, besides extended family of course. This is our only trip picture taken. Savannah had the camera and I told her to make sure she got a picture of the hills surrounding us everywhere we went. This area had it all. Rolling hills, a large river, nice people (the stake president's wife and family of SEVEN daughters and one son invited us over to Sunday dinner at their 1894 small mansion), a Target-my one stipulation and the reason we ruled out Vermont, and a wonderful dentist who may or may not hire Brent. We definitely are no closer to making up our minds about our future destination after this trip though.

But we found another charming place to live. We both have had a February deadline in our minds for a while now. But now I'm wondering how we possibly will figure it out by then.
Last Thursday, my friend Cathy, gave us last minute tickets at Shea's for Curious George Live. I was a little disappointed in the creativity of the show but it was a fun event to get dressed up and go downtown to as a family. Our friends, the Fordham's, also got free tickets and came along. During the intermission Savannah went out, and ran right back to ask me to come sign a release so she could be interviewed for a Curious George commercial. Kennon wasn't interested but the rest of the kids ran after and all got put in front of a bright light and microphone. Marcus ran off halfway through, Camille did nothing but smile and chew on her lip, no matter how many times they tried to ask her a question, Savannah smiled away and found a few clever things to say, but as usual Caroline stole the show. She is planning on being a rock star and I guess she figured this was her big chance.
As long as they don't get a hold of this picture, I took after the show.
I hope you get a chance to see it. It won't be here long. She'll for sure, demand I erase it, if she catches sight of the blog anytime soon. It's too funny not to post and laugh at for at least a few hours while she is at school, though.

Now I need to go take care of something I have put off all morning. About an hour before we got home from our trip, Marcus started hollering, "I peed!" When his cries became increasing hysterical I inspected the situation, finding a completely dry diaper hanging on his leg and his little bum sitting in the puddle of the pee that he was hollering about. The only thing to do was to move Caroline out of her booster for the last hour so Marcus could have it.

Caroline heard us making plans and said, "NO! I won't do it."

But, I finally convinced her that there was nothing else to do and she needed to help us buckle up Marcus safely. She moved over to a seat, buckled up, then lay her head down and stayed that way frozen the rest of the way home, terrified of another meeting with a state trooper. Dad reassured her that he had a perfect argument for our defense, inspired by the fine words of the last state trooper we met up with on the same freeway.

"Are you a father, because if you are, you have to understand that no good father would knowingly ask his son to sit shivering in a puddle of pee for an entire hour!"

You'll have to see my earlier indignant state trooper post if you missed it. Brent's fathering was severely questioned right in front of his children.

So time to go figure out how to take the car seat apart sitting by my back door. It's probably beyond my abilities. It has to be done though or I won't make it to Target today and I've got quite a streak running for the month of January. Target in January gives me one of the biggest high's ever. I keep thinking I need to stop and then I remember how I feel in February when all the $3 shoes are gone. I only wish I would've bought more, not less.