Crazy Saturday

Today was a full day. So full, Art finally crashed, but more about that later. First, Zachary had a soccer game at 10am. We piddled around, and then panicked that it was so late, as we were eating pancakes at 8:30. Basically, I ran out of time to shower, nor did I finish getting all the lunches packed. So I had to drop Z and A off at soccer, and come back home, thinking it would just take a few minutes, and we'd be back before or right after the game started. Why pack lunches? Because "the plan" for the day was to go from soccer to Blackberry Farm, our community swimming pool. Today is "Cupertino Day" where residents can get in free and a free BBQ lunch for the first 500 people. We wanted to leave right after soccer. Of course finishing the lunches took forever, and I ended up missing nearly the whole game. We got there with probably 10 minutes left. So sad!! Especially because this is the game that Zachary has been most looking forward to. They finally played, or "versed" as Z says, the Green Ninjas, which has Dylan from Zach's first grade class, on it. They destroyed the Green Ninjas. Art said Zachary had two very deliberate, nice pass, assists. His playing has improved so much! He is getting the flow of them game, being more aggressive getting the ball, and being more careful to pass the ball to someone rather than just kicking it down field. It is fun to watch this age. Zachary is sad because next year, most of his team mates move up to U10 instead of U8, where they are now, and Zachary will play again next year.

Immediately after the game, Zach and his team mates took the kickball Zachary specifically brings to all games AND practices now, and ran off to play...Four Square. They are all so obsessed! We were finally able to drag them all away and head to the pool. We were very nervous that it would be completely packed and either it would be miserable or we would not be able to go. As we were driving there, we saw signs in the neighborhood from the parks & rec that there was no Blackberry Farm parking on those streets. That just increased our anxiety. THEN, there was a parks & rec guy standing near the entrance to the parking lot, and we pulled up asking if they were full to which he replied "not yet". Ugggh we thought. But it was shockingly shockingly no crowded!! For a free day, with free food! As Art pointed out, free stuff is less appealing to the higher and higher income brackets...but we love it! We even made it in plenty of time to snag 5 passes for free lunch. Score! I told one of the ladies the other day that I sometimes feel like I am still in college, getting excited by the prospect of free food. :) Granted, it was not great food...not like at Apple. this was the very basic hamburger/veggie burger/or hotdog offering with a bag of chips and a cookie (which was yummy!). Still...not terrible, and again, free. :) We dumbly left our sandals at the pool when it was time to eat and had to walk across a wooden bridge which was way too hot on our feet, then into the trees a bit w/ sand and gravel. what were we thinking? Still, it was an enjoyable enough lunch and the boys all ate their food with little complaint.

I am saddy about the pool. It just isn't going to work out for us to be members this summer. I am so grieving our wonderful Skokie Water Playground!! Blackberry Farm has two pools, but neither of them has zero entry for Yannick. The shallowest is 2.5' deep, which is too deep for him. Meaning I have to hold him the entire time. No floaties allowed except for coast guard approved life vests. It is great for Zachary who can both swim in the deep end, and go down their one slide. Wyatt however, after walking up about 100 stairs, was told he is not tall enough to do the slide. So no season pass this year. Which mades me very sad - summer is such a time to go to the pool. Of course we can always go to the Y, but it loses that "summer" feel since it is indoor. I will have to check out the area playgrounds that have water features, which a ton do. Of course generally, if there is water, there is also SAND...uggh. What a mess! We will do some exploring. I also looked into joining some private neighborhood pool clubs, but the memberships were outrageous. One is a pool and tennis club wholly owned by 250 families, and you have to buy in your 1/250th ownership from a family selling it. Most memberships are selling for $3000. $3 0 0 0!! On top of that is $245 a quarter membership dues. Yikes. Makes the one whose membership fee of $700/yr seem like a steal! Blackberry farm is $190 for the 5 of us for a season. I digress.

We had a good time at the pool. Zachary wanted to stay in the big pool where it was nearly empty, but Wyatt could not really touch comfortably there, and had to stay in the smaller pool, so we were split as a family for awhile until Zach wanted to go down the slide a few times. Then he relented and stayed in the smaller pool, where he and W had a wonderful time. We finally left a bit after 1:30 to go home for a bath and naps.

A nap for me too! Until Art woke me after an hour to "check on me" which was code for the big kids are up, don't you want to get up too?

Since I had gone to the trouble of packing a picnic for us all, I insisted we go to some new playground to have a picnic and some play time. Zachary pleaded to go back to Blackberry Farm's playground, which you could see from the pool. Art was reluctant, thinking the playground was "lame", but we went anyway. Back to Blackberry Farm as everyone was clearing out of the pool and it was being covered.

The playground turned out to be pretty fun.
First of all Wyatt did the monkey bars BY HIMSELF for the first time!! I wanted to take a video of this momentous occasion, but he did not want to do it again. Next time.
Also, we had brought a lot of balls - a four square ball of course for Z, a soccer ball for Y, and a baseball and bat for W. I played baseball with Wy and then with W and Z for a bit. Then picnic dinner - yea, finally a picture!

I am not sure what we are all doing except being goofy.  Especially Art who is the king goofball!

One thing we all enjoyed during our dinner was some sort of duck fight, or perhaps game. It is unclear. It appeared that two ducks were chasing another, different species, duck. They were all yelling/squawking at each other, and flying off and landing, all the while chasing this one duck. Zachary, whose favorite animal is the Duck, got sad for the one being chased. Still, it was one of his two favorite things when I asked them later in the car to tell me their favorite parts of our outing.

One of my favorite things was looking up into this palm tree. The picture does not do it justice!

We played for a bit after dinner, during which there were 3 trips to the bathroom, and one diaper change. All three of our boys had pooped within 10 minutes of each other. Gross, yes, but also very interesting - something in the food? Their metabolism? Something else? Then off for a short nature hike. We found a little stream, and they spent some time throwing rocks into it. Then Art started to feel badly, so we went home. It was nearly time for bed anyway. When we got home, Art went straight to bed, not feeling well still and I started getting the kids ready for bed. While Z and W worked on their teeth and jammies, our little guy needed a quick cuddle with Dau.

Nick getting a bit of a cuddle, though I am not sure Art even knew about it; I think he was already dozing off.

I got the kids ready for bed, we read bible stories and prayed and then they went to bed. I went in to check on Art and he roused for a bit saying he did not want to go to sleep at 8pm, but when I came back a few minutes later, he was asleep again, so I just left him. ALL NIGHT, it turned out. When I finally came to bed at 11pm, this is what I found

Not only had he taken over the entire bed, as usual, he also seemed so out of it I decided to just leave him alone and not risk waking him by getting into bed and shoving him out of the way. AND, in case he was getting sick, I did not want to catch what he had. So I grabbed my pillows and my covers (what?! he's always too warm!) and bunked down in the guest bed. Which brings me to the most interesting part of the day - only to me of course. Dexter. Dexter starts meowing around 9:30/10pm each night because he wants to go to bed, but not alone; he wants us to come to bed then too, which we rarely do. So when he doesn't stop meowing, he gets thrown out of the house. Tonight, as I was going to bed, I opened the door to see if he wanted in, which he did. He walked into our bedroom, and I fully expected him to bed down with Art. BUT NO...I had to take this horrible picture in the dark, just to prove that Dexter chose ME!!

That is my body all curled up under the covers in the guest room, and there is Dexter sleeping at my feet. I awoke around 6am to find Dexter asleep next to me, using my arm as a pillow. Very sweet.

For the record, Art slept nearly 13 hours, and might have slept more if I had not woken him at 8:30am!! Then he felt totally fine....crazy!