One Crazy Day

Today we attempted one of our marathon days. For some crazy reason I like to take my kids to do all sorts of fun things. I tend to over do it sometimes - ok most of the time. We often will leave the house at 8:30 and head to the gym - then do a fun kid centered activity and also try to pile some errands on top of that. Often we won't return home until 6 o'clock at night. I don't know why I keep attempting this. Usually about 50% of the day is successful. Friday was one of these days. Here was our itinerary:

1. I woke up at 7am in a very foul mood. Russ had been working till 9 or 10 pm every night. My kids had been driving me insane. But I figured a day of fun was better than staying cooped up in the house. I got everyone ready quickly and was out the door by 8:30am.

2.. Spin class at the gym.
This was great. Back in October I made my teacher a CD with about 70 songs from my ipod. Finally on Friday she had designed a workout using 15 or so of my favorite songs. Everyone loved it, the workout was really tough and when the teacher pulled the CD out at the end of class she said "This is the rockenist CD EVER!" Yes I felt cool.


3. Off to Kiddie Kandids because we have to get every kid a FREE birthday 8x10. I had to drive the truck that morning so when we got there I had to quickly take everything that I had from the bed of the truck and move it to the cab so none of it would get stolen. Then we rushed inside to make our appointment. The picture itself went well - as you can see below with Bryton's funny "Mr. Incredibles" poses. For once it only took me an hour to get in and out of Kiddie Kandids - instead of the usual 3 or so hours.

4. As we walked out of Kiddie Kandids and headed across the parking lot to our truck I noticed a door was wide open. I couldn't even blame this on my kids - it was the driver's side door! I told my children to take note - "When I tell you that you're driving me crazy I really mean it. Only a truly insane person walks off and leaves their car door open with hundreds of dollars of gifts inside!"
A long list of behavioral expectations for the Festival of Trees followed.

5. Lunch and shopping at Costco. I would have preferred to go to Costco last, but Russ wanted me to have 2 new tires put on the truck while we were there. This was sure to take longer than just my few errands would so we planned on eating at the Costco food court to take time. Unfortunately the Costco tire woman would not replace just two tires on my 4 wheel drive truck because they would not match the other two tires which did not need replacing. Some lame explanation about 4 wheel drives needing to have all the same tires. Tried to call Russ at work to consult. No answer. Tried Russ' cell - he had left it at home. Proceed with shopping in hopes he will get my message and call. Phone never rings - later I learn he called and texted several times but for some reason my new phone switches to silent mode each time I recharge it - which is like every day! So we finish at Costco with no word from Russ and therefore no new tires. But lots of toilet paper and dishwasher soap and plenty of other supplies that I have to transfer to the cab of the truck at each of our 3 additional stops on our way home.

6. Festival of Trees - luckily we arrived early enough to still snag a parking spot. After many free refills from our drinks at Costco we stopped at the bathroom 3 times during our 2 hours there. But my kids were amazingly well behaved. They stayed close by me the entire time and even stopped touching the white chains surrounding all the trees after I explained how many germs were on them. I got all the oohs ahhs and excited yells about each new tree that made this whole day worth it. We loved this High School Musical tree and the glass sculpture tree was my favorite - it had lights under each green disc that would like up in sequence with music. The ginger bread houses/castles were amazing as you can see.

7. Kohls. Here we needed to do some returns, and pick out a gift for Russ as well as a few other people. After the good behavior at the festival maybe I was expecting too much. It was a nightmare. Imagine all the bad behavior you have ever witnessed in a store, put it all together and happening to one mom and that would be about right.

8. Wal-Mart. Grocery shopping. Grumpy, hungry kids with way too much energy still. Way to much candy in this store.

9. Home. Finally arrived home at 6pm. On the drive home I notice a text from Russ (which I didn't know came in because I still hadn't figured out how to get my phone off of silent) asking if I remember to stop by a different tire store to pick up the tire for his Acura which was being repaired - and was the entire reason I drove the truck at all today! Of course I had forgotten. I think I am now certifiable.