Out of town, VBS, and moving out all in one week

Shawn was out of town for a week in California and Denver seeing some Phish shows and visiting friends.  The kids and I had a great week.  We had lots of fun in the midst of some chaos that made up our week.  Here they are wearing their little Mountain tee-shirts Shawn brought them back from Telluride CO. 

The weekend Shawn was gone fun and relaxing.  On Sunday Symeon had his first vacation bible school adventure at our church.  He did really well the first night, telling me he was a big guy and wanted to be on his own.  I was a bit sad but super happy for him.  VBS was at our church and was run by all the women we know at church including all the youth group Mom's and all the youth so Symeon was in good hands.  They all encouraged me to go have a cup of coffee they took my cell and told me he would be fine.  To be honest I would not have left the first night except that all meat was served at the dinner they had and I was starving so I left with Marin.  After an hour I returned because I could not take it anymore.  He was fine having tons of fun and I wanted to let him have his fun so I watched from a distance and he did great.  The following nights had their ups and downs, as the week went on he became more and more tired so he was reluctant to have me leave which was fine with Marin she was itching to be a part of the group.  She joined in playing games and getting rowdy with the mostly boy class she was in her element.  One night we were getting ready to go and Symeon said Mommy "mine stay home" I could tell that exhaustion had set in so we stayed home and played out side together.   When Shawn returned we went to the family night which concluded our first week of VBS.  We look forward to many more it was so much fun for us all.  Here is his certificate and class. 

As the week progressed there are bound to be a few snags.  The babysitter I had lined up for the first day was not able to babysit because she found a job so that left me in quite a bind so I called a friend who did me a huge favor and watched the kids while I went to this rather important meeting I had scheduled.  Then on Tuesday we had to move our of our apartment for the third time so some work could be finished.  We had done this two other times in the past month so the kids knew the routine but it was still a ton of work to get us all packed and get the apartment prepped.  Once again the kids managed really well if I don't count a very ugly incident at the public library.  Marin and Symeon both snapped and started pulling down magazines off the shelves and chasing each other while Symeon yelled "mine and babes are rowdies Mommy"  I wanted to crawl under a desk but I grabbed them both picked up the mess left the library and we had a long ride home with me telling them it would be quite a while before they returned to the library.  ( On a side note when we returned to the library about 3 weeks later Marin lost her mind again and began running and squealing in utter delight and Symeon thought she wanted to be chased so he began chasing her her laughing and squealing every bit as loud as her.  Some people in the library were laughing but others were giving me the judgmental look like oh that women can't control her kids.  I realized most of the people were laughing like I remember when and most the people judging could not have been parents.  Needless to say they were both disciplined and we will not be returning to the library anytime soon.)  But back to the original story we stayed with friends over night and the kids did great. 

I must admit the day we had to move out was a hard day for me I had a crisis at work, a computer that would not work and a 2 year old who would not nap.  I was up later working on a project for work and honestly I was utterly exhausted.  My dear friends who have been married many years and raised four wonderful children loved on us, listened to me, played with the kids and basically showed us God's love in a tangible manner.  I am so grateful for the amazing people God has placed in our lives to minister to us at just the right moment, especially when we are so broken and exhausted. 

Overall it was a good week but we were really happy to pick Shawn up from the airport.  Marin asked for him about 50 times a day and finally Symeon said, "Babes  Daddy in Denver" like gosh how many times do we have to explain this to you.