Up to No Good

A few times a week I'll sit down and attempt to write something new here, but I haven't really thought of anything new for a while. Or I'll think of it when I'm in the shower or the grocery store, and it'll be gone by the next time I'm sitting here again. Oh well. I thought I'd at least write about what we've been up to in my blogging absence. Maybe I'll even post a few pictures one of these days. My sister April and her 3 kids came to visit last week, and they brought my dad along for the ride. They arrived Monday evening in time for dinner and bed. Tuesday morning we went blueberry picking. It was the last week of the season, and I was only able to find one place still opened for picking, so we did that in the morning. I thought it was fun. Also hot. I had tried to take the kids earlier in the season, but I always tried on days they had no berries ripe, so it was nice to go as a larger group. It certainly went by faster that way. It takes a lot of those tiny little berries to fill up a gallon-sized bucket, but we did it. We got home and wondered what one does with a gallon of blueberries. I had said I would make a cobbler, but we couldn't come up with much for the rest of them besides freezing or putting them in cereal or muffins. My very clever and spoiled dad decided that he really likes cobbler and I had enough to make one every night. So I did. 4 nights in a row. To be fair, he told me after 2 nights that he really wasn't that serious, and I didn't HAVE to make it every night, but he didn't turn it down either. So you know, my dad is a lot like a large child and does not do well when he's away from my mom, so I did this as a way to keep him happy-ish. I still have blueberries left in the fridge. Anyone in the mood for some cobbler? I've had my fill for a while.
While they were here we pretty much stayed in the water. Wednesday and Friday we went to the Jones Center. The kids really liked that, but man does it ever get crowded in there sometimes. Noone told me that you could just drop your kids off for a swim and leave them unattended, but I swear only about half the kids in there were affiliated with an adult the second day we went. I also didn't know that very small white bras counted at swimwear, but I guess I'm just not in the loop when it comes to these things. Very small bras don't even count as bras for me, but that's a post for a different day. Or not. By Friday you could tell everyone was pretty tired. Wednesday we all went repeatedly up the stairs and down the water slide. Friday I think only one of us did it more than twice. I think we were all tired from being out all afternoon Thursday. That was the really fun day for me. We rented a boat on Beaver Lake for the afternoon, and I got to show my family part of why we like it here so much. The water was really high from a rainy summer, but also clear and beautiful, and it was a perfect day for being outside. We packed a lunch and slathered on the sunscreen and had lots of fun, though if you ask Alex, he would tell you the best part of the whole day was peeing off the boat into the water. All the boys had to do it at least once while the boat was moving, but Alex would actually get out of the water to do it off the side instead of just doing it while swimming like everyone else. He got some kind of a kick out of it. He even had to give it one more go from the marina after we dropped the boat off. I wish I could take that much pleasure in the simple things. Oh well. Saturday morning our company left at 4, avoiding the tear-and-sob-filled scenes we have with Kylie any time someone leaves at the end of a visit. So, that's what we've been up to. This week we've been doing a little bit of school shopping for supplies and clothes, swimming a little bit, and being as lazy as we can get away with. Kylie starts school in about 2 weeks (I think), so we're getting in the last few late nights and lazy mornings we can manage before the minivan swings back into early morning action. I wish you could put sleep in the bank for when you can't get enough later on.