Weekly round-up

I'm trying really hard to remember what we did this last week . . . Oh, right.

Monday was the twenty-fifth of July and our local celebration of the twenty-fourth. Dan maintains that the town parade was entirely in his honor. In any case, we joined Sarah and crew and Bubby and Poppy to watch the parade (much shorter, thankfully, than the 4th of July parade). We particularly enjoyed watching the 9th ward kazoo band--that was our ward, and almost all of our friends and neighbors gave us weird looks as we waved to them from the sidelines. (Turns out, our ward won the "most participation" award for the parade. I can't escape the irony.) I think I might even have pictures, but of course, I don't have the camera with me right now and I'm too lazy to go look for it.

The one thing I'm starting to dislike about small town parades is other people's children. Specifically, the children whose parents encourage them (or at least, don't discourage them) from racing into the street to grab as much candy as they can, regardless of the fact that they are now standing in front of much smaller children (my children), and regardless of the fact that we came 20 minutes early to actually get a spot on the curb . . . It raises all of my mama bear hackles. At least, we're trying to teach Andrew better manners than that. (In any case, it didn't do him any good to hoard candy--he put it all in a styrofoam box in his room, and the next day it was swarming with ants. Yuck. On the plus side, he won't be hiding candy in his room any time soon!)

We spend much of the rest of the week working on our swimming lessons. Andrew successfully passed his class and will now be doing level 2 (the same as his cousin Lydia, apparently). Evelyn did well enough in her class, but her teacher recommended that she stay in that class because she's still so little. She doesn't seem to mind--I think she just likes the water. The last day of class they turned on all the works at the aquatic center: Andrew got to go down the big slide and Evelyn went down the little slide on the little gym in the center of the pool. Afterwards, they both got otter pops, which as just about as close to bliss as they could come.

We also had dentist appointments this week. I was a little nervous, since I would be taking the kids without Dan (and I wasn't sure what would happen when I had to lay down for my appointment: would my kids wreck havoc on the office?). As it turns out, the dental tech (both the dentist and his tech, brothers, are Laurie's cousins) was very complimentary about my kids: he said they were both well-behaved, and you can tell they come from a good home because their teeth look so good. I was a little surprised to hear that: don't all parents make sure their kids brush their teeth? He said you'd be surprised to find how many parents don't, in fact, enforce that--and as a result, how many kids have a mouthful of fillings by the time they're ten. My appointment was a little more eventful--Andrew was willing to watch the TV in the waiting room, but Evelyn wanted to be right in next to me (rubbing the mole she just discovered on my arm. I should clarify that it's her discovery that's recent, not my mole). When she got bored, she wandered into the next room and told the dentist that she saw a buffalo. I *think* they were more entertained than anything else, but they did make sure she found me again shortly.

This weekend we tried to get in our fill of playing yesterday. We went down to SG to get Dan's hair cut at Arthur's and to hit the clearance sale at Dillards. While Dan got his haircut, I took the kids to the splash park where they got drenched, of course. Bubby and Poppy joined us there and Bubby took the kids on the new carousel. Afterwards, we went with them to Dillards--we found a shirt and several pair of pants for Dan, and some fancy rainbow Sketchers for Evelyn. Sadly, the shoes were the style and size Sarah had been looking for for Lydia, but once Evelyn saw them, I couldn't pry them away from her. To be fair, I made the mistake of having her try them on before I remembered that Sarah could use that size, which to her little mind sealed the deal. Even asking if she wanted to give them to Lydia--whom she loves--didn't move her.

We had lunch at Jimmy John's with Bubby and Poppy--Poppy took a darling picture of Bubby and Andrew sharing a rootbear which I hope (hint, hint) that he posts. After lunch, we took the kids to see Kung Fu Panda 2 at the discount theater. Andrew, predictably, cried when the main character found out that his mother had not, in fact, abandoned him, but had saved his life. (To be fair, I cried too.) Otherwise, I think he enjoyed it. Evelyn did too, although she kept asking me why it was so dark in the theater.

After the movie, we hung out at the condo with Bubby and Poppy some more before running our final errands: a trip to Costco, frozen yogurt at Dixie Nutrition, and dinner at the Red Robin. (Andrew just picked at his dinner, but he drank nearly two full cups of milk. We should have been paying more attention, because when he got still more milk at bed-time, the results were predictable. Bed-time was delayed by a good ten minutes while Dan and I cleaned up.)

It was fun--it's also a good thing we don't do that all the time (or even every weekend) because our budget couldn't stand it!

Today's major excitement came after church. We walked to church despite lowering clouds because, honestly, how often do we get a major rainstorm in Utah? It sprinkled a little on the way over, but we didn't think much of it. When we came out, it was raining pretty steadily. We waited a minute or two for the rain to lighten before heading out. We made it to the corner by the parking lot (near a big tree) when the skies opened. Literally, it was like someone dumped a bucket of water over everything. We huddled under the tree, but even with that cover, it didn't take long to get thoroughly wet. Our neighbor kindly offered to take Dan to get our car; another ward member pulled up after they'd left and said she could take two of us. My only thought was to get the kids dry--I hustled them into the car, but it wasn't until the car had driven off that it occurred to me: what were the kids going to do when they got home? I wasn't sure if Dan had seen them leave--what if he came back to get me before the kids got dropped off?

Luckily, the kids caught up with Dan at home and the woman who'd dropped the kids off came back to get me. By that time, of course, I looked (and felt) like I'd been standing in a shower with my clothes on, handy tree notwithstanding. I suppose I could have gone back to the shelter of the building, but I was already wet (and waiting for Dan to come back), so I stayed.

The good thing about living in a desert is that the occasional rainstorm (and drenching) feels more like an adventure than a nuisance.