When Dad's Away...

Monday:

We met up with the Brown's at Park West. Hannah and I walked and the children played. That night after the kids were in bed I hosted a dessert night. Brie, Hannah, Sherry, Megan, and Ashley came over to help eat all my leftover birthday cake.

Tuesday:

In the morning we met up with the Brown's at the Mirehaven park. That one isn't as good for walking, but it was good to mix it up a bit for the kids. In the afternoon we went over to Painted Sky to meet Hyrum's teacher and drop off his school supplies. Hannah and the girls came over in the evening for dinner since Jeb was out of town dealing with the Animas River spill. We had fresh tomato sandwiches from Hannah's garden and the kids ate a hodge podge of leftovers. 

Wednesday:

Abraham's preschool teachers came over for a home visit in the morning. They gave me all the information I needed and got to know Abraham a bit. He is so over the moon excited. He has to wear a uniform so I had him try on Hyrum's pants from last year and he declared himself ready for action and pretty much thought it was the best moment of his life. Everyone was getting a bit restless after lunch, so we headed over to the dog park to climb trees for a while. 

Later in the afternoon we met the Brown's down at the splash pad. Unfortunately, It wasn't working, so the kids just ran around the park in bare feet and swim suits for an hour.

Thursday:

Hyrum was up, dressed, and all ready for school at 6:20 am. At 8:30 we walked him over to the bus stop and off he went for his first day of 1st grade. Abraham was up and dressed for school almost as early, but he doesn't start until Monday and that was the source of quite a bit of grief for him. I then spent the majority of the day doing all the chores I neglected during the week. We played at the dog park for a bit while waiting for Hyrum's bus to arrive, read some stories, worked on Hyrum's first homework assignment, ate dinner, watched a show, then it was time for bed and just like that our week without dad was done. Matthew got home around 9:00 pm and was very glad to be back.

In between social outings and activities, we read stories, played with Magnetix, did art projects, built forts, and pretended to be ninjas. Every day the boys did some assigned chores in order to earn screen time and admittedly played perhaps more than their fair share of Minecraft. I did some Netflix binge watching myself though, so I suppose fair is relative. Mercy has continued to be a potty pro. The only two accidents she's had were more my fault than hers as I put off helping her when she asked. She's also started voluntarily putting herself down for a nap around 10:30 almost every morning. It was a good last week of vacation, and probably the easiest I've had with Matthew away. Now, back to real life...