Farewell to our summer guests

 Peter, Candice, and Laura slept over last Friday night on their way back down south after one busy summer. We celebrated at home with a lobster dinner. The kids each got their own dumped on their plate. Savannah was the only one who didn't complain about cracking out her own dinner.  Kennon, Camille, and Caroline thought it was gross and weren't to work a little for their dinner.  Laura and Marcus just couldn't get the hang of it.

 Marcus said goodbye to his partner in crime. Now I know exactly what people are talking about when they say double trouble

 Marcus would pick unknown berries out of our backwoods and feed them to his cousin. Laura taught Marcus to fill the bath with every toy, stuffed animal and doll in the house. Marcus taught Laura it was even more fun to dump them all out the second floor window along with all his clothes and even the dresser drawers. Marcus loved spraying Laura down with the hose. Laura is famous for always being naked. Inside or outside she is constantly stripping down to nada. Marcus tried to get away with it all summer too.

Caught at a rare moment when Laura's diaper was actually on, she showed off at the talent show for us.  . She sang us her ABC song with all their sounds from the Letter Factory DVD.

We are crossing our fingers that we convinced them that NH is the best place to live and that a better job  doesn't come along for Peter so they can all come back next summer after his final year of law school. I wish we could say that we had a non-stop fun time all summer for their benefit but frankly Candice was used and abused so much I really don't know if she could say that. She finished so many projects around the house giving each of our rooms the special touch that I never could've done on my own. Many a night Brent and I went to sleep near midnight to the sound of Candice's sewing machine zipping along. And when she left to go back to Peter for a night or two she always left my floors mopped.


So I said goodbye to clean floors last weekend too. At least for several more weeks. I am on the count down to week 30, though I'm not sure why that is the magic date. But I am hoping that then I'll be told to get back on my feet a few more hours every day.

I know tons of you are jealous of my Dr's orders to sit around and get fat. Take it from me though, bed rest stinks. It's hard to find ways to keep yourself happy when all your usual activities are taken away from you. I have such a new awareness and empathy for people confined to wheelchairs after now doing all our shopping in motorized scooters. They beep every time you back up you know and so you try to avoid it all costs. Especially if your teenagers are with you. You know how they don't like to attract attention when they are with their mother. Especially now that she is looking like she is disabled. I've learned that lots of jobs can be done on your bum. . . I do all dishes and most of the cooking on a kitchen stool. I can weed while I scoot along in the dirt. And I have found that sitting in the center of everyone gives me a great director's seat for keeping everyone else hopping. But I have a very trapped feeling almost all the time and feel so grateful that for me this feeling will only be temporary.
My Dad took my picture when we went shopping during the reunion. Brent and him had dropped me off  to get started. They found me so loaded that I couldn't turn right or left and was pretty much stuck in the chip wine aisle until they unloaded me a bit.