Exhausted

This has been a whirlwind weekend. Curtis, Jonah and Ethan left for the Klondike Derby on Friday afternoon, which meant I was home alone with the rest of the kids. This wouldn't have been such a big deal except for the fact that they were on another scout campout just two weeks ago, and this happens to be the weekend before our homestudy. Ack! The kids and I spent most of Saturday cleaning, running errands, doing laundry, cooking, and all sorts of other exciting things. I also had to pick up my Bountiful Baskets and get all the food sorted, processed and put away. Thankfully, we had a little time left at the end of the day to relax, so we ate dinner and licorice and watched a movie together. Curtis and the boys came home really late, so I didn't have to see the mess they made when they came in. ;o)

This morning I got up early and prepared my church lesson that I'd put off all week, and then we went to church. As soon as church was over at 1:00, we raced home and threw together the fastest tacos ever so that Curtis and the boys and I could be back at the church at 2:00. There was a special meeting for the boys and men in our church, but I went along because Joshua was one of the speakers. It was a webcast, and he was in another town speaking while we watched him on a screen in our home church. Pretty cool! His talk was great, but he finished up by saying how grateful he is to have the parents he does and said that we had taught him well, and my eyes welled up with tears. I can't believe he'll be leaving to serve a two-year mission at the end of the summer. I don't know what I will do without him. He is such an awesome kid.

We'd left the big girls in charge of feeding the littles and cleaning up, and when we got home, I was grateful to discover that they'd done a great job. After that, the real craziness started! Normally we don't do housecleaning and laundry on Sundays, but since our homestudy starts at 5:45 tomorrow morning, we were pretty much stuck. We got all the laundry done, everyone's rooms cleaned up, and generally spiffed up the house. Curtis hauled some of the construction mess that was in our driveway out to the alley, and got all the bikes put away.

We've never had such a bright-and-early homestudy, and I have no idea how our kids are going to react to the whole thing. Cross your fingers for us. ;o)