What? No Pictures?

I heard that it was "Forget Your Camera Week" so, not wanting to be left out, I participated to the best of my abilities the last 4 days! The camera stayed put, in it's cubby, just like a good camera should. You'll have to get this update in written form only but I'm sure you can handle it...right?

On Thursday, my sister showed up and kidnapped my two hooligans, before heading down to the horse show in Eugene. Sounds like Trevor, Noah and Oliver had a pretty good time and did well sleeping in the living quarters of their new trailer. Ollie gave Aunt Nana, who hasn't had to deal with a 2 year old for 3 years now, a reminder of what it's like to have a toddler around. He even had a meltdown and in her desperation to make him happy again tried buying him off with a stuffed animal. It wasn't until she realized that Oliver was saying, "brother" and not, "water" did he settle down a bit. Because Shana had the boys, Joel and I invited some friends out to Chino Saigon for dinner and then to Berbati's Pan for a show afterwards. A birthday dinner and show for Joel. We had a great and fun kid-free night!

Friday morning, Joel slept in (remember no kids and a late night) but I got up and went to work then headed down to Eugene to pick up the three boys. Here's a tip for you, don't drink an energy drink when you have 2 1/2 hours of driving on I-5 South ahead of you. I will occasionally have an energy drink but it's usually before going out for the night not before heading down to Eugene. I'm also, usually (hey, I said usually) pretty good a dealing with traffic and other drivers, don't get me wrong, I have my moments but for the most part I'm a just-deal-with-it kind of person. Anyway, the energy drink got me a little jazzed up and I found myself irritated and yelling at people most of the way to Eugene. At one point I found myself rapidly tapping my fingers on the steering wheel wondering if I took one of the MANY "slower traffic stay to the right" signs and tossed it through the back window of the car in front me if they would finally get the point? Luckily, I contained my disdain to the van but I learned that I will be sticking with the lattes when needing a little boost before a drive! Anyway, I got to Eugene and hung out down there for a couple of hours before packing up the boys and heading back to our house. We all went and watched Noah's karate class, ordered pizza for dinner and played until bedtime.

Saturday morning the boys all slept in then had a quiet morning with cartoons and a hot breakfast. Around 10am we headed to Ben and Christie's place to visit and swim! Their pool is great and they boys had so much fun! Noah built up his confidence by swimming in the deep end and going off of the diving board. He is a VERY cautious swimmer so it was fun to see him finally loosening up a bit. Trevor, keeping his life jacket on the entire time, did a little bit of swimming, lots of floating and tons of torpedo retrieving and tossing! Oliver stayed in the shallow end and enjoyed bossing us around when he needed or wanted something. His favorite game of the day was to throw the torpedoes into the deep end then to tell Uncle Ben to go get them. When Ben would disappear under water for a while, Oliver would sit on the edge asking, "Where Uncle Ben Go?" then when Ben would pop up, hands full of torpedoes, Ollie would yell, "YEAH!! There he is!!" Ben and Christie were going to a friend's wedding so we had to leave around 2pm and head back home. When we got home, Oliver went down for a short nap so I grabbed Noah and Trevor and we rode our bikes over to the new Sonic Drive-In and got some slushies during happy hour (2-4pm drinks are all half price!). Around 4:30 or so, Grandpa Jerry and Grandma Lavelle showed up to take Noah and Trevor to Debbie's 40th birthday party. They stopped for dinner on the way, got to swim at the party and stayed up late not getting back to Grandpa and Grandma's until after 10pm. Joel left here around 7:30 to go ride in The Night Ride and that left Oliver and I to fend for ourselves for the night.

It's the last day of a busy extended weekend, the boys are headed back here, Shana and Ron are probably packing up the trailer and getting ready to head back North stopping here to pick up Trevor before making the final leg home. Joel will probably take Noah over to the Nautilus Fit Jam that's going on this weekend and I have some baking to do for our church's Vacation Bible School that starts tomorrow. I have a feeling that bedtime will come a bit earlier than normal for me tonight...

I apologize, again, for not having any photos to post.