Star Burst/cloud burst!

Saturday was indeed a busy day. Lynned came out to visit and we had a good time together. It is funny; she and I have a great relationship. In some ways better than she and her sister K who have all this emotional baggage between them. It becomes so little kid snarking at one another when they are together. I think maybe Lynne wishes she was more like K and this is the source of the relentless picking at her that she does. But whatever. She and I don't have that history so we just have fun. And things that bug K don't necessarily bug me. Like Lynne watches waaaaaay more TV than we do in our house. And she watches what I call the "way back machine." TV shows from when she was a child. (think Chips, Marcus Welby, 8 is enough) She sometimes gets into a rut where she starts quoting from these shows to you. I sort of ignore it. If it starts to bug me I have this really dumb look totally perfected. Let my jaw gap slightly stare a moment without speaking, finally say "huh?. . . . (long pause). . . OH! you mean some TV show?" Tends to stop it! Also it isn't hard for me to perfect the look since I usually genuinely have no clue.

We did all our errands with the kids, stopped by work to see K briefly as usual and came home and unloaded and I made one and all lunch. Then KC wanted to show her his scrapbook so she spent time looking at that and then it was time for her to hit the road.

I spent the rest of the afternoon packing for the starburst festival we were walking to. I packed rain gear as it was a possibility of showers. I packed a blanket to feast on. I packed bubble toys, football, frisbee and badminton to keep children happy. I packed enough food for an army. I made 2 quarts of lemonade and packed that. With the exception of all the toys which I put in a back pack, I fit EVERYTHING in the two baskets underneath our double stroller.

KC was beside himself with excitment. He awoke actually at 5 a.m. too excited to sleep with the double dose of fun that day---Auntie Lynne AND starburst! LOL I had to keep finding jobs for him to do while i packed so that the time would pass more easily for him. Finally, at 4 p.m. we were ready to set off. KC alternately rode with Lissa and walked till we got to the busy area. There is one short section where there is no sidewalk and extreme caution must be used. I made him ride all during that but then once we hit sidewalks again he was off and running. We found a nice picnic spot up by some big old pine trees that ring the local football field where the festival is held. We set up camp and the kids began eating as though they had not seen food in years. LOL Then we played and played. We didn't walk around all that much as it is hard to push the double stroller on uneven terrain and through the large crowds. Chet stood near us but not with us, a weird compromise that gave him a feeling of quasi independence. Some teens were part of a diversity scavenger hunt. They had to get pictures of themselves with people of many different ethnic and racial backgrounds. Chet had his pic snapped a bunch of times because he is Asian Indian and he totally adored this 15 minutes of fame!

KC was excited because he saw his Spirit Play teacher working the concession stand. He waved like crazy to her; it was too funny. This was the first year Lissa really had much of a clue as to what was going on. Last year she was on me in the sling and didn't really have a grasp of much of anything. She so wanted the little boy on the next blanket to play football with her, but at 5 he thought himself way too cool to play with a 2 year old! LOLl

Finally about 7 p.m. the exhaustion of his day hit KC like a ton of bricks. He said he was tired and I dropped one side of the stroller. He lay down, I covered him up and he fell asleep. He didn't waken when the police on ATV's rode past, when kids ran by, when this boys sleeps, he SLEEPS!
Meanwhile, Lissa and Rob are running around and Chet is still getting his picture snapped.

About 8 p.m. the skies open up. We are not talking drizzle. We are talking serious down pour. I have KC covered in a rain coat but his legs still get wet. Ditto with Lissa. Rob refuses to keep his rain coat on. apparently rain coats are not cool when you are 13. However I personally don't find getting wet and chilled "cool" either so I was not amused. The rain lasts about 20 minutes. I decide along with a horde of other folks that I am not going to wait it out.

I explain to the older boys that we are walking home. Now THEY are not amused. But there is a starburst festival every year and I remind them that we go every year. Grudgingly they help pack and we join the throng who are not hearty enough to wait till 9:30 in the cold and damp.

We get home about 9 and shortly thereafter here a very short volley of fireworks. My guess is that they did a very abbreviated display becuase charges may have been getting moist. I still wasn't sorry we left early.

Despite it all, it was fun in a crazy zany way that maybe you can only understand if you are a member of my crazy zany household. And I figure i got a heck of a work out. It is about a mile and a half each way and I had to be pushing about 70 or 75 pounds of children and gear in the stroller!