Busy Bees

This past weekend was a busy one. Very busy. Here's what happened.

Friday morning I made breakfast for the family (eggs, English muffins, bacon, sausage, strawberries). Then I frosted 20 cupcakes and finished gathering birthday party stuff. Then I got myself and all the kids bathed, dressed, and ready to head in to town. And wrapped two of Adam's birthday presents. And cleaned the kitchen. And then it was time for lunch. Fed the family lunch (leftover Chinese food). Skipped lunch myself to finish getting ready. Cleaned the kitchen--again. Loaded the van and headed into town.

Friday afternoon we dropped off the lemon bars that I had made for the school auction and while we were there, I laminated the Pokemon bingo cards for the birthday party. Then we went to the park to set up for the party. When people started arriving, the kids played on the playground until everyone got there. Then we played a few games, ate cupcakes, and watched Adam open his gifts. Then some more playground time. I love park parties because there is very little clean up. And the kids have a great time. The weather was good, too, which was great. A little breezy, but warm enough. Which was good, because last October at Josh's party we all froze. Which is not as fun.

Pokemon cupcakes Party fun.Make a wish!

After the party, we went directly back to the school for the auction. We ate dinner (fish and chips) and started checking out the silent auction stuff. They had tons of great stuff. Josh spotted a sports basket right away and asked me to bid on it. (Actually, he asked me what our number was so that he could bid on it. I knew that could be trouble, so I had to set some bidding ground rules. Rule #1--ask mom first.) Adam found two toy dragons that he liked and asked me to bid on them. So I bid on those two things along with a few others, but auctions make me a little nervous with all the outbidding and rebidding. Luckily there wasn't too much of that going on with the items I was bidding on. Here's what we went home with. The sports basket for Josh, the dragons for Adam, a polar bear basket for Jules, a box of sugar cookies (which I unknowingly outbid my sister on but shared with her later), two movie tickets, a Mexican food gift card and free babysitting for me, and a certificate for working with the fish and game department to catch, tag and release ducks and other water fowl (thanks to Adam and Ada). The auction was a success for the school and fun for everyone there. We got home that night at about 10:00pm.

Mirror Lake

Saturday was the day of the First Annual Family Fishing Derby. The boys had gone home with mom on Friday night and they had all headed up to Mirror Lake early to get a head start on the fishing. Pappy, Grandma, Josh, Adam, and Aidan had caught 6 fish by the time me, Arrty, Julianna, Ada, Adam, and Abby got there at lunch time. We ate sandwiches and chips and Gogurts and string cheese and strawberries and sugar cookies. The boys looked for snakes and frogs and turtles, but only found turtles. We laughed the first of the many laughs of the day. Ada, Adam, and Aidan then decided to take the boat out to try their hand at fishing. After a while they came back with a sleeping boy and a picture of one fish. (Not the real thing because that would have meant that Ada with her sleeping cutie, would have had to get off the live well to put it in.) Then it was my boys' turn to fish. To be fair, they were out on the lake much longer than anyone else. And they were all three fishing. And Josh could happily fish all day from dawn to dusk. So, they came back with the six fish caught earlier in the day and 13 more. So, we were the winners of the Family Fishing Derby 2009. (I hear next year there are going to be tee shirts.)

Mirror Lake is where they filmed part of the movie Dante's Peak. They built this cabin for the movie and then gave it to the lady who owns the property and still lives there.

Pappy and Abby

And since my sister handed out her own awards, I thought I would do the same.

Best catchphrase--Pappy (all you need to know is that it started out, "hoochie coo, hoochie coo."
Best future use of catchphrase--Adam R.
Funniest without meaning to be--Grandma
Stickman in the making--Arrty
Most determined fisherman--Josh
Best fisherman without really trying--Adam D
Best reading material that never got read--Jen (so what if I like vampire books)
Best heart attack inducing moment--Ada
Best nap of which the rest of us were jealous--Aidan
Cutest legs ever--Abby
Best at staying awake even though she really needed a nap--Jules

And a special award goes to Pappy for being the Memory Maker Extraordinaire

Catch of the day!

Julianna was here.

We got home that evening at about 6:00. The boys cleaned the fish while I put the picnic stuff away. Then I fried the fish and they ate the fish. Then I cleaned the kitchen and got Julianna ready for bed and the boys showered and ready for bed. Then I sat down on the couch and sighed. And watched SNL that we had dvred.

Sunday was Sunday with church and lunch at KFC. (Free dinners for all of us. I love free stuff.) We then went over to mom and dad's to pick up Adam's new gorilla Webkinz that he had left there the day before. Which had led to tears the night before. They were working in the garden and invited the boys to stay and help. Which they readily agreed to. They love working in the garden. I think it's mostly because it's actually more like playing in dirt. We picked them up Sunday evening and went back to church for a showing of the movie Fireproof. We had seen it before, but wanted to go anyway to support others. We got home a little after 8:00 to turn on the tv and see that we were missing the season finale of Survivor. Luckily the dvr caught it and was recording. So we stayed up until after 11:00 watching that. I love it when the person I want to win wins.

Then all of a sudden it was Monday. I gave the boys the day off from school for Adam's birthday. Then we took him to dinner at Red Lobster (his choice). He had snow crab legs. They sang Happy Birthday to him and gave him a caramel sundae complete with a candle. I think he loved the attention even though he pretended not to.

The birthday boy.

Mmmm. Crab legs.

Julianna knows the camera has buttons. And she loves buttons.

So it was a busy weekend (and Monday). Busy, but wonderfully so. It made me look forward to lots of other summer weekends full of family and fun.