It Finally Happened...

What? What finally happened? A moment of peace that I can use to do a real Blog update.

Yes, I've had Blog posts recently, but they were pretty much filler-type stuff. At least that's what it feels like. Ever since October 30, when I went to the Bombay Hook NWR, it's been go, go and more go. Or so it seems to me.

But I shouldn't waste the time whining, right? I should just do the dang Blog post already!

One of the reasons last week felt so hectic is that I was working on a pretty large proposal (for my employer). I'd hoped to join Hubby mid-week at the WV place, but this was a pretty demanding project that required extreme focus. Since I don't have an office in WV, I was afraid Hubby and the girls would be too much of a distraction for me. So I stayed put at the MD abode until Friday night.

When the girls and I arrived at the WV place, I was quite surprised and delighted to discover that Amy had brought the kids up to visit for the weekend.

The kids were in bed when I arrived, but they were all happy to see me bright and early on Saturday morning (they got up at 5:30 AM, much to their Mom's chagrin). Amy tried to keep them quiet and in bed. After taking the dogs, including Klondike (our granddog) for a quick walk, I went and stole Joey from Amy. Then I told the older kids they could get up, but had to be quiet so Mommy could sleep.

Brianna and I spent quite a bit of time doing word search puzzles, and playing squares and tic-tac-toe on her little activity pad.

Notice the dog on my lap? No? Well, take note.

There's something that's very cool about three little kids being happy to see you. Not just like, "Oh, look. It's G." They were all excited, like, "Hi, G!"

It's neat. When you have kids of your own, you get that when they are little. Then they grow up to become teenagers and mostly you feel like you are just being a pain in the ass. Of course, you probably are, but they are teenagers, after all. Teens bring the evil, or at least all sorts of exasperation, out in a person.

So it's cool to have little ones smile when they say your name.

They were each even trying hard to get some lap-time. As you can see, I had a pretty full lap already. They just got as close as they possibly could to watch the YouTube videos I was screening on my notebook computer.

Perhaps the most entertaining one for me was You Spin Me 'Round (by Dead or Alive), which the kids know from The Wedding Singer movie. Seeing Gaige emulate the dude's 80s dance moves was priceless. I can still see his little face looking all puzzled when he asked, "Is that a boy or a girl, G?" I would have gotten up for the camera, but I was sort of pinned down. And that would have ruined the moment. Know what I'm sayin'?

You did notice Belle still on my lap, right?

Joey eventually got tired of the videos, but somehow Brianna and Gaige managed to get on my lap, with Belle, to continue the video screening. Even Belle couldn't resist YouTube; we were watching some of my favorite Brittany (the dog breed, not Spears) videos at that point.

It wasn't the videos keeping Belle on my lap, by the way. It was Klondike. It takes Belle a while to warm up to new dogs. Especially big ones. And Klondike is B-I-G. How big?

Really big. Much bigger than my little Tinkerbelle.

After lunch, a trip to the store for me and a nap for the kids, we got to go outside. Mike did fun stuff like air up Amy's tire.

The kids and I spent a good bit of time gathering kindling, and logs and prepping the campfire, which we planned to ignite after dark.

We did a good job with the prep work, as you can see. And once it burned down, we got to roast marshmallows!

Joey was a giant, sticky mess. Note the glob hanging off his face.

Brianna had reason to look unhappy here. Meg had just stolen one of her marshmallows!

Gaige wasn't quite as messy as Joey. And he's old enough to wash his own face.

Hubby, being the good Pop that he is, took Joey up to the house to get him cleaned up.

On the way, he stopped so that Meg could help get some of the excess marshmallow off of Joey's hand. Hubby was watching Meg so closely, he didn't notice Belle sneak in to help clean the excess off of Joey's face!

After Joey left the fire, Amy got to play with his fire stick.

The next day was gorgeous, so I got to take pictures of everyone outside.




These are just a few of the many pictures I took. To see the rest, you'll have to go to my Picasa site.