Since We've Been Home

After I finished my vacay posts this morning I breathed a premature sigh of relief, because I still have to catch  you up on what we have done since we came home.

An hour or so before we even came home the Ward Clerk called to see if Seth could meet with our Bishop when we got home. We laughed at that because Seth is usually the guy who calls and schedules stuff for the Bishop. We assumed that he just wanted to get Seth up to speed on all that he missed in Bishopric meeting while we were away so Seth was completely caught off guard when Bishop released him and called him as the Young Men's President. That will probably be even busier than the part time job that it is to be Exec Sec but I have always felt like Seth belongs with the youth. I was shocked when they called him as ES because I thought he was going back in to YM then so I think I have always seen this coming. I was also released from Girls Camp because I don't think Seth can take time off for Scout Camp, Nauvoo trips, Youth Conference and Girls Camp. So that was our welcome home present.

Thankfully we then did nothing from Monday-Thursday of last week so there is not much to catch up on. The kids just wanted to hang out and have the neighbors over which worked out for me, because I am always in a bit of a funk when I first get home from visiting family.

Alyssa did make her first ever big purchase with her own money. She had $120 saved up when we went on our trip and she never spent any on the road. When she came home she decided to buy a new AG doll. Surprised me, but she has been teaching her doll gymnastics, which is exactly what I did with my Cabbage Patch Kids after the 1984 Olympics. So she wanted the girl of the year, McKenna because she is a gymnast but instead she got another create your own doll because they come with an online doll account now and when she got her first one they did not. She chose the one that looks most like McKenna though and she says she is getting all the gymnastics equipment for Christmas. We'll see if she is still riding the gymnastics thing by then?

She wanted Victoria to open the package


The proud new mommy with Victoria and Amber

By Friday we were ready to try to get back to life as we know it and the first thing the kids asked to do was go to the library. Man, I have trained them well. That night we also had a family outing to Ice Age 4.

On Saturday we decided to revisit the Renaissance Faire. It is only about 15 minutes from us but we have only been once, when Alex and Alyssa were pretty little, no Chloe yet, although I think I was newly pregnant with her. Anyway, we were underwhelmed. It was mostly shows and shopping. We weren't in the market for any chainmail or bosom exposing dresses and our kids were too small to sit through shows, but now they are a little better at sitting still so we decided to give it a second chance.

While Seth got us a seat for our first show I took the kids on these boats. Me and Chloe pulled one rope and Alex and Alyssa pulled another to make it swing.

Trying to pull my rope and take pictures at the same time proved to be too difficult so this is the only one that is not a blurry mess.

Our first show was Barely Balanced which is the ONLY show we sat through when we went 5 years ago. It was both impressive and funny. Some of the humor was a bit raunchy but it was the kind of raunchy that goes right over kids' heads.


The kids loved it! I had planned to take them on elephant rides and all the other kiddie attractions but they were so excited about the shows that we didn't have to do any of that which is just as well because that boat swing was $12 so that could have added up quickly.

We did play in the kiddie area for a minute, but honestly they even wanted to leave that for more shows.

This was a kids show that I thought was silly, but the kids enjoyed it.

Then we went to the joust. They do 3 jousts a day and this was the Queens Joust. We had to sit on the floor so we didn't have the best view, but it was so much fun. We happened to sit in Sir Max's section and he was the bad guy. He was super cocky and really funny to watch. He was also much faster and better than the other riders so our section was the most rowdy, for sure. He won the joust and then got in a fight with the other jousters and challenged them to a joust to the death and the queen approved it, so that was set for later in the evening.



Next up we watched the fire whip guy

Bought horribly overpriced souvenirs...the girls wore theirs to church the next day.


And then we went back to watch the joust to the death. We got seats in the bleachers this time and we purposely sat in Sir Max's section again. Again, he was hilarious.

He knocked everyone off their horses in the joust

And then started killing people

But as he tried to kill the "good guy" he jumped out of the way and Max killed his own brother.

Then he beat up on this guy for awhile but this was the goody two shoes queen's favorite guy so you knew he would win in the end.


After Sir Max fell we nearly leaped out of the stands and ran for one last show. The kids wanted to see the fire finale of Barely Balanced. I had lists of shows to see but we ended up seeing two different jousts and two different Barely Balanced acts because they were our favorites.





So I will say that now that the kids are older there is a lot to see at the Renaissance Faire. We had a great time. I do still have to laugh at the women and especially men who dress up and walk around like they are super cool. I can't imagine finding it attractive if Seth did that but to each his own.

Since then we have been to Six Flags but you have seen that a million times, and we have school shopped til we dropped. Alyssa did inform me that she is too old for Gymboree so I finally moved on to the tween stores. She was in heaven but I can't believe she is this old already!

Alright, now I can officially breathe that sigh of relief. I am caught up.

But do you know what tomorrow is?

Puppy Day!

I have had nightmares for two weeks, I have read a million books and articles about raising a puppy and I have been recording and studying every episode of Dog Whisperer. We have bought everything we need, I found a vet. I am as ready as I'll ever be and I am actually at the point where I just want to get it over with. It can't be as hard in reality as it is in my mind, can it? We'll see.