Back to school, back online, back up your files, go back to the old post and see the trip pics I was finally able to post. Behind my back is the door to the babies' room where they just woke up and I can smell them from out here. And I should go back downstairs and do another load of laundry.
15 minutes later....
I'm back. Goodness grosscious! I should have gone in at the first hint of noise and odor. Someone (who shall remain nameless) decided that poop was an appropriate medium for art. Two babies are now clean, and the artwork is no more. Now I REALLY need to go do another load of laundry.
40 Minutes later....
Back again. Grody laundry in machine, babies fed. Now where was I?
My internet was not working partly because of a virus and partly because of something else. After Mike fixed the virus there was still a bunch of reconfiguring and who knows what that he had to do, and I didn't ask him about it because we were both so tired and stressed out last night that we ate, and vegitated in front of the TV for 1/2 hour after dinner and went to bed.
The kids had their first day back at school yesterday. Then I went to get myself registered at the local college for some courses that I can't get with my online stuff. I had the babies with me and spent 3 hours there to finally get to the counselor who said I did not have the information she needed (even though I had already emailed her with the information she needed) so she told me to go home and get it and come back within the hour so we could finish up the application. Me retrieving the information required my use of the internet. The kids would be coming home from their first day of school when I went out the second time and the babies needed a nap. It was the last day and last hour of registration, so I will just stick to my online stuff this semester.
Isaac is in 10th grade this year. He is starting in a brand new school (to everybody, not just him). There are only 9th and 10th graders there, so his class is the head honcho. Next year, when he is in 11th, they will add that grade to the school. Same thing for when he is in 12th. His class will always be the big dogs on campus and they will be the first graduating class. I am excited for him.
Emylie decided, despite formal counseling and much intense and loving discussion that she wanted to stay with her dad this year. That is the thing about split families--you just don't have as much control as a parent as parents should have. Making a stink doesn't make it better. But
I did try. I can take the rejection personally, or I can recognize that it is just a no win situation for any child who loves both of their parents and keep loving her.
Claire is in 6th and has 3 different teachers. Her homeroom teacher is male. That is her first time having a male teacher. Andrew had one in second grade. She went into the classroom on Meet the Teacher Night and saw the desk labeled Ty and definitively concluded that it was the boy across the street all the kids hang out with (along with brother PJ and sister Patience). So she claimed the neighboring desk.That reminds me, PJ is in Isaac's Theater class.
Andrew is in 4th and has two teachers. He has a couple of friends from around the neighborhood he was able to hang out with. He is excited about having his own locker.
Nobody had homework except me. About a year ago to this day, I bought a new house. At the title office there was an endless stack of papers to formalize the sale and legalize the conditions of the sale. I would prefer to do that every year, rather than back to school "closing." Each classroom had a separate set of classroom expectations which needed to be read and signed as well as filling out contact information for each of the teachers to keep in thier classrooms. Fine. But what set me over the top, was that I had to fill out the EXACT same forms I has already filled out for registration in the past month. Every one of them. WHY!!!? Then, after spending inordinate amounts of time doing school shopping (uniforms, supplies, and accessories) I get another list from each of Isaac's teachers (6?) of things he needs, because high school can't be made uniform like Elementary.
On the up side, high schoolers do not get endless lists of things they will never use which will be distributed to other students and/or hoarded by teachers. Claire and Andrew EACH had 72 pencils on their school list. 72! That's 2 per week of the school year! I remember going through as many as 4 pencils per year. Honestly! I sent my children to school with pencil bags full of miscellaneous Primary birthday pencils and novelty prints along with partly used yellow no. 2's from previous school years. And one new package of 10 for each. Let's see what gets confiscated and what they get to keep.
Anyway, it is now hours since I started this post. I have gotten 4 loads of laundry in and have 6 to go. My fans may notice that I am doing laundry on Thursday rather than the Monday I love. Back to school has me all out of whack. I am looking forward to settling into our routines.
Now I need to do my very own homework for my online classes. I have two writing assignments due by midnight, which includes 4 chapters of reading, which I have not been able to do because of internet issues and back to school busyness.
Time to get back to my life.
In seventeen days we have covered 13 states and 5,000 miles. We helped my mom move everything out of her condemned house that she had moved into it a couple of weeks before. We stayed there in Kirksville and Brashear for a full day then took off for Nauvoo. That was only a couple of hours away. She is the backroad halfway point between Far West Missouri and Nauvoo. We arrived just in time for some of the pre-pageant activities and to get decent seats for the big show. It was pretty moving which is made all the more poigniant knowing that it was such a pivotal place for many of our ancestors.
We spent the night at the White House Inn on the main street of town. Nice place. Then we spent all the next day touring the sites and attending events. I got to talk to some of the pageant cast members who gave me some information that will help me finish putting my pageant together--hopefully. We ate dinner and headed out for an all night drive. I drove until about 11pm then mom took over. I traded back in the morning and we landed at Devanie's in the late afternoon.
We hung out for a couple of days. On Saturday Nathan's family wanted to get together, so we were invited to go with. We went to Jungle Jims indoor amusement park. It was essentially a souped up Chuck-E-Cheese with a couple of fair kiddie rides. The babies went on a mini-roller coaster and had a blast after the initial fear wore off. It was the merry-go-round that terrified Amelia. She didn't fuss, she just bugged her eyes and clenched her jaw while gripping the pole. We went to church with Devanie on Sunday.
On Sunday evening we headed up to see Kim and Gwen in Idaho. While there, we took some time to surprise Grandma Leavitt with a visit. She didn't recognize us at first. It has been a very long time since she has seen any of my kids. Mom insisted that I leave her and the babies there while the older kids and I went to Yellowstone the next day. It took four hours to get there. We drove the loop around the main park and saw all the major geyser basins. We waited a long time for Old Faithful, but it did not disappoint, despite all the pre-gush teasers. We "camped" in the 
park and were ready to tackle Uncle Tom's trail which leads to a pretty stunning view of the Yellowstone Grand Canyon the next morning. By then the kids felt like they had seen everything they needed to see, so we headed out. But we could not leave without stopping at the museum in West Yellowstone to see "Old Snaggletooth." My mom had told us about how she had heard about and seen him while she worked there in the summers during college in the sixties and was surprised to see him in the museum some years later when she went back to visit with her young family. He was killed by poachers according to the sign.
We went back to Kim and Gwen's to collect Mom and the babies and headed back to Devanie's. We spent Wednesday and Thrusday at the Lagoon amusement park with Mom, again, insisting on keeping the babies. Devanie and her kids were with us on the first day, but the second day it was just me and my older kids.
Friday we went to see my Uncle Jared and his kids at Twin Falls, Idaho. He has the best matched set of kids for mine. Tyler is a girl who is Emylie's age. Jayden is Claire's age and Jackson is close to Andrew's age. Isaac will always be the odd man out. Nobody was having boys when I was. While we were there, Lee Joe managed to bring his family to see us for a few minutes. We all went on a hike together. Instead of leaving like I planned to, we stayed one more night. That gave the kids the opportunity to ride the ATV's and motorcycles. Andrew even tried to learn how to ride Jackson's little 3 speed. I think that was one of their favorite things about the whole trip.
Now we have to clean out the van so I can find the data cable for my camera so you can see what I am talking about.
