August Long Weekend

We have had a packed few days! Friday night we had good our friends Ryan and Laina come and spend the night. We bbq'd after the kids went to bed, had a fire, and really good conversation like we usually do. We were really honoured when they asked us if we would be the guardians of there 2 sons, should anything every happen to them and if they could put that in their will. We were really touched and we of course said we would. Since our flash on our camera is broken, I don't have any pics from the evening, but Saturday morning we had a nice breakfast before they headed out. Darryl and our great next door neighbour finished up some work in the backyard and we invited them for lunch and enjoyed the afternoon. Darryl whipped down to meet my Dad who had borrowed our van to move my bro and his wife, then went to IKEA to pick up a big boy bed for Carter, not that he would be in it anytime soon, but we wanted to finish his new room before his new sister arrives and moves into his current one. When he got back I had a chance to go for a late dinner with my good friend Jenna and catch up with her, which was so great (and yummy) and came home to a clean house, which was a lovely surprise, since having friends in all weekend and ignoring everything else kinda made a mess of the place, and Darryl had gotten things ready for church. Went to bed and had a great sleep.

And then it was Sunday morning. Things started off really great. Opened my eyes at 8:30am and couldn't believe we had slept that long, Darryl was downstairs writing his talk he was to give that morning and finishing up his Sunday School lesson, I got the kids in the bath, put my EFY CD on, had breakfast and we were all set. Then when it was time to leave, we realized we had forgotten to put the seats back in the car. We tried to quickly get those captain's chair back in, since one of the car seats is a built-in one, we really had to get these in. But with no luck. Time was ticking, Darryl was speaking and didn't know quite where he was on the program. We had to get there. So we got the bench seat in, buckled the kids in seat belts and made the very short drive to the chapel. I know, not exactly parents of the year. We get there, Darryl flies in, and I snap a cute picture of the kids walking into church. Chlo loves that Carter has scripture now too,(we picked them up in Palmyra) and she always says they are "same same" and asks to hold his hand when the go into church together the past few weeks, so this morning I remembered to grab the camera and capture it. So cute.

Well, things went from picture perfect, to bad to worse. Turns out Darryl wasn't on the program to speak, the kids had all the snacks eaten before the sacrament was even passed, and they whined, and they cried and they screamed for a good 35 minutes. We made several trips to hall, got several drinks, had a few bathroom breaks, debated taking a drive and coming back, but decided against that as we quickly remembered, no car seats! I called it quits. We had both told Chlo if she couldn't listen to Daddy and me and behave then we couldn't send her to nursery, and we try really hard to follow through if we make a threat, so I packed them up to go home. As we were driving, I was crying, she was crying because she wanted to see her teachers, who she loves and her friends. Carter just laughed the whole time, probably because he thought it was so great he wasn't in a car seat! That made me feel even worse and I cried some more. At that point I kinda realized as I pulled into the driveway, that taking church away probably wasn't the best punishment. I sat in the driveway and thought about turning around and going back, and just as I thought that was a good idea, Darryl pulled in is mom's car. He had asked his friend to combine Sunday School classes, borrowed a car, and came home to see how we were. Which was sweet. But now I was too embarrassed to back. Friends had seen us in the hall yelling at the kids, his friend who was teaching for him now knew I couldn't get a grip, my mother-in-law now knew because we had the truck, Darryl's brother had seen me crying in the parking lot and offered to drive us home, I was just too embarrassed to go back at this point, even though I really wanted to, it was a joint meeting, which is always nice cause I could sit with Darryl, and Chloé was still desperate to go to class and see her teachers. We went into the house and regrouped, packed a picnic, and headed to an afternoon ward in Brampton in the chapel next to the temple. And I am so glad we did. We started over. Carter had a much needed nap in the car and we attended a lovely sacrament meeting for the second time that day. Afterwards, at are picnic at the temple, we had a true "tender mercy" moment. As we were eating our lunch, Chloé and Carter`s nursery leaders showed up behind us! They live in Orangeville too, just happened to come and see the gardens at the temple before they headed off somewhere else. They told Chlo all about what they had done in nursery that day, and she was so happy to see them. I am really grateful the Lord gave us a few second chances on that no good, horrible, very bad Sunday.
The next day we had a great time at the ward picnic, Darryl was going to have client come to our house at 3pm, but she cancelled, so we spent the better part of the day there relaxing and watching the kids have fun. We went to Matt and Sarah's after for pizza, and I just felt really grateful to have spent the whole day as a family just enjoying each other. Life is good.