Back in February, during our stake conference, my friends and I were texting a commentary of all the was transpiring during conference. It was not Mystery Theater 3000 style in that we were not being negative or satirical. We were, however having a steady stream for the whole thing. During the conference, the subject of Summer activities to take place this year was brought up. Among those activities was Trek. Trek is a trip the teenagers take to appreciate the pioneer heritage of the early pioneers. As the stake president admonished all to make sure the youth made Trek a part of their Summer, my friend Brittani texted to the group, "I feel like I am supposed to be a Ma for Trek". And that is when I felt equally pulled towards a desire to serve and offered to watch Brittani's kids while she was gone. And so, here we are, months later both of us ladies fulfilling the promptings we felt. And so I begin a mini series on this here blog: Hanging with the Hamiltons. Here's how day one went down...
WE arrived at the church at 6:30am to meet the group to begin Trek. Now, the email said 6;45 am, but I like to be early. Apparently, I am the only one who likes to be early when the call time is before 7:00 am. Seriously, we waited in an empty parking lot for what seemed like an eternity when compared to how much longer we could have laid in our cozy beds. WE sent Kate off in her braids and bonnet and went to go check on Britt's kids. When Jimmy and I got to the house, the kids were all up and getting ready for the day. It was quite inspiring to watch everyone making their breakfast and picking out their clothes because when Kate is in charge of those tasks, she takes full advantage of her independence. These kids were making oatmeal, BACON AND EGGS, cereal. Kate will make herself an ice cream sundae if I do not directly tell her to choose a breakfast food. The morning ran smoothly in terms of getting everyone out of the house. We got to the first stop half an hour early. Thank goodness I have a DVD player in the car, because Beauty and the Beast saved us from utter destruction. After dropping off kid one, we raced over to camp two. Funny, no one was in the parking lot. Hmm... unfortunately, I do not know the campus (the very large campus) well and traipsed all over the place looking for the right place. Still, no luck. Ryann said, "They changed spots. It's not here anymore! It's at Lake Forest now." From the morning that we had, I knew Ryann to be trustworthy and googled 'Lake Forest, Napa'. The top hit was for an automotive shop. I may not know much about sports, but I do know that you cannot hold volleyball camp in a place with oil drips on the floor and a mechanic named Al. Unless Al played volleyball in college and has a real passion for the sport. But I doubt that...
I sat in the car with the kids for awhile trying figure everything out. Then it dawned on me, "Ryann, did you mean Las Flores??" She shouted, "Yeah! That's the place, Lake Forest!"
We made in time to volleyball camp. That's what happens when you're running 30 minutes ahead of schedule all morning. Too bad we didn't get to see Al. The two littles got off to preschool and daycare just fine. Vivy and I spent the morning feeding our pets at home and taking care of the neighbor's garden.
Our next goal was to get everyone to afternoon activities and dinner done. We did pretty well. Again, 30 minutes early to everything! I am in the habit of giving myself half an hour from where we live. Every time we left the Hamilton's house early it took less than five minutes to where we were going. Kind of nice. We got through to the point Beast turned to the prince when we done commuting for the day, so I declare that a win.
As I was busy patting myself on the back, I came home to Jimmy with Vivy and hit the ffirst snag of the day. For the 10 minutes I was gone with all the other kids, Vivy managed to thwart Jimmy. My little crazy used a scissors to cut off her ponytail. She now has bangs that don't lay quite flat due to their shortness. Nice. It was very kind of Cara and Ryann to make me a memorial of Viviy's hair by putting it in a ziploc bag adorned with magic marker pictures and glitter.
Regardless of the end of the day occurrence, I call this day a success.
Thought of the Day: We live very far away from civilization.
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