Back in the Saddle

Oh seriously. An entire week without blogging. What's going on here? Given the context from my last post about parting ways and severing ties, you surely didn't think I would abandon my favorite readers did you? Never! Not even if I wanted to. So here I am!

For the past week, I've been telling myself every night that some day, our lives will begin to settle down just a little bit and that I will finally find out what it means to have "free time." Just as fast as this thought enters my mind, I begin to think that maybe this is it. Maybe this is exactly how we will be spending the rest of our days; one jam packed full day after another. Part of me is alright with that because this life, however exhausting, is fun and most definitely action filled. But, on the only hand, HOLY SMOKES! I need to sleep.

Without further ado, how about me catching you up on the fun ways we filled our days which have taken me away from blogging.

This past weekend we went to visit our hometown to see our parents. We stayed with Eric's parents on Friday night and Elaina and Lincoln found the best of entertainment in the form of the grandpa's dog's cage. Both kids took their turn crawling in and out of the cage at their own will and delighted in shutting the door on the other. Seriously, has Fisher Price looked into this kinda set up for the next up-and-coming kids toy? I had to tear my kids away from this and bribe them onto something new to play with. Isn't it good to see the little guy having the upper hand with his big sis?

On Saturday, Elaina and I enjoyed a morning out of shopping, just the two of us. Our special girls' day treat was a shared slurpee (Elaina's first) as she helped me run errands for my class reunion the following day. She is getting to the age that she is able to handle herself for longer stretches of time and has already come to appreciate our shared time together, just mother and daughter. I totally love having a girly-girl to share this special time with, just like my mom and I did and continue to do. I'm only doing my part to continue the tradition. I would be at fault if I didn't.

What made Saturday even more special is that Uncle Greg brought Colin to Grandma and Grandpa H's house to play for the day. The kids were both so excited to see each other and got along like they have never been apart. My baby Lincoln tried his best to keep up with the big kids and loved being in all of the action. Uncle Greg pulled out all the stops as he became the kids' landing pad as they decided to leap onto him from the toy box. Lincoln wanted so badly to follow their lead and eventually was able to hike his little leg onto the toy box and pull himself up too. All of them were so darned cute, but seeing Lincoln trying to act so grown was sweetly comical for me. His babyhood is just flying out the window with each passing day.

As if having Elaina, Lincoln and Colin all together to play wasn't enough, the big boys (the dad's) decided the Elaina and Colin needed to go fishing. I have to say that it was especially daring since neither kid had time for a nap all day and they had been playing for 5 hours straight up to this point and it was closing in on my kid's bedtime. Yet, they did it and successfully at that. Elaina is truly her Daddy's girl and proved it by helping to catch 3 fish which she was over-the-moon excited about. Greg captured some great little videos of their fishing endeavor which you can enjoy here.

And for the grand finale of our weekend and the whole event that compelled us to travel all the way to our parents' houses for the weekend was my class reunion. Oh yes, good old class of 1993 which boasted a graduating class of 53 students from our small Catholic high school. Pitiful Me signed on with a fellow classmate at our 10 year reunion to do the planning for our 15th year (this one) so that she wouldn't have to do it on her own. Can you believe that there just weren't any other volunteers chomping at the bit to do the planning? More than that, do you want to see the product of our 15 year class reunion of which 15 classmates RSVP's to?

Brace yourself, you won't believe what you're about to see.

SIX! Yes, 6 classmates in attendance. Given that 2 of us were the planning committee, 4 other people obliged their RSVP and showed up. Because we planned it to be a very casual, family-style picnic day, we were expecting 33 guests total (this number including kids). The result; just over 10% of our graduating class. Wow. I think that I've already lamented plenty to any ears that have crossed my path, but I really just found that people's attitudes toward coming (after RSVP "yes") were quite rude and mostly just disappointing. In the end, I was glad to share some time and memories with the ones who did feel this reunion to be worth their all-precious time and I'm just really glad that it's over. Needless to say, there has been no talk of planning a 20th class reunion.



We eventually found our way home after this exciting weekend and every night has just been one thing after another. There are plenty more stories to share and lots of pictures to post, but for tonight this reunion crasher is going to bed. Next time, I'll be sure to tell you all about Lincoln's sleep strike while we were away visiting and helpful hints for berry picking with a 3 year old. Until then... party like it's 1993!