goodness

I certainly did not anticipate,

when I posted pictures of myself on Wednesday,

that it'd be almost a week before I got back here!

Lots of busy going on around here,

and I seem to take a bit longer to recuperate from it than most people;

I got up this morning thinking maybe we could take the day off school,

but then remembered that we'd already done that twice last week,

so I'll just need to soldier on.

Thursday and Friday I got to help precious friends with a wedding.

Brandon had the kiddos all day Thursday - by himself!

None of our other kids, at fourteen (and just turned 14, at that...) have ever babysat 4 younger siblings.

Heck, none of them even had 4 younger siblings at 14...

They did just fine, but I did worry a bit ~ all day is a long time

and Lexi can be a bit of a challenge, to say the least.

I came home at 4:30 to a reasonably clean house, which was a huge blessing.

When we arrived at the boys' TKD class and hour later, 

we found out the that it had been cancelled,

so I called Tyler and told him he should take us out to dinner.

He agreed :-)

After dinner, they all headed to Timberline (formerly Riverwalk) for apartment ministry

and I came home and plopped my butt in the recliner.

I was getting really thirsty right about the time that Tyler called to say they were heading home,

so I just waited for someone to bring me water.

(my foot was hurtin' real bad, Pa)

After we got the kids to bed, I relocated to the couch and we watched a movie with Brandon.

Friday started off nice and leisurely - I slept in, did some laundry, and enjoyed two cups of coffee

before scarfing down breakfast (that Tyler cooked :-) at 11:15.

I had to run pick up race packets

and meet the Taggs at the church at noon.

Then it was nothing but flowers for me for 5 hours

(I am so stinkin' slow!)

while Tyler took the kids sailing.

As soon as I got home, I washed up the breakfast dishes 

and made a pot of soup

and we vegged out in front of Kung Fu Panda 2

then headed to bed so we could get up early....

Saturday we were up before the crack of dawn

for our second Survivors Challenge 5K.

Needless to say - I didn't run

but Tyler and Brandon did

and they both improved their times from last year,

even though their training was severely lacking.

(Tyler has just been so busy with work lately!)

Tyler came in at 29 minutes and 48 seconds (12th in  his age group)

and Brandon was 7th in his group, with 25:52
(and ended up in the paper too)

They've got another 5K this weekend and Brandon is hoping to shave 2 more minutes off his time.

After we got home, the runners napped

kids played

and I worked on getting us (mostly me) ready for the wedding.

We went early to the wedding, so I could put ribbons on the bouquets

and be available for any other quick jobs.

The wedding was short and sweet and beautiful

and then we enjoyed visiting with friends at the reception.

Knowing the value of friends who stay to help clean up,

we did just that.

We were recently gifted with a (ridiculously generous) Sonic gift card,

so that's what we had for dinner before coming home for another early bedtime.

Not much had been done to the house since Brandon and the kiddos picked things up Thursday afternoon

so it was an absolute wreck when Tyler and Brandon left for church Sunday morning.

By the time the kids and I left the house 1 1/2 hours later,

it was still a wreck, but the boys got their bedroom cleaned 

and we got the living room picked up.

Tyler ran to Sam's after church

and the kids and I quickly blitzed the house,

so that by the time he arrived home,

it was pretty well picked up

so we could be lazy rest in the afternoon

before Kacy (Tony was working) came to spend the evening with us.

And now, it's time for me to be thinking about what all this week holds for us...