Lagoon 2013

In August, some of the big kids and I drove up to Lagoon. Thank you to Grandma Martha for entertaining the little ones at her house. It gave Sam the opportunity to torture me on all his favorite roller coasters.

The moment before Caitlin's first roller coaster. She was actually fearless from that point on, and accompanied Sam on all the rides.

Sam bought everyone shakes when it was time to go. This was definitely one of my favorite days of the summer.

winder farms

There are times when you want to surround yourself with people you trust.  A team, a support system. My lawyer... my therapist... my dentist, dermatologist, hairdresser.  So one afternoon, last November, a knock on the door brought two gentlemen into my personal network.  The more outspoken of the two reminded me an awful lot of a younger, thinner Al Roker and smiled with such warmth and enthusism, it seemed like he had floated in with the Autumn sunshine.

"I'm your new milkman," he said.

The sound of which seemed to fill a need I hadn't known I'd had. 

So not half an hour later and I was the owner of a shiny, silver Winder Farms cooler, and making note of his instruction. I was to place it on the front porch every Monday night, so they could fill it with eight bottles of farm fresh, hormone free milk,  the thought of which filled me with idyllic excitement.

This was the first morning we walked out to find milk on our doorstep.

Who knew that the milkman could also bring chicken tamales. Y muy ricos tambien!

So buying hormone free milk is a bit more expensive than buying the store brand, but I have found, as the milkman suggested at his first visit, that I have saved money, not having to run to the store to buy milk. And the kids like the milk so much better than store bought, that they are willing to stick to the eight bottles per week. That means they have started to notice and regulate their own milk use (and abuse) in order to make it last through Monday morning. That's been a good thing.

Now we've begun to recognize the sound of the milk truck arriving around bedtime (ahem...) late bedtime on Monday night.

So what's happening here?  This is the scene of my children stalking...maybe this is reverse-stalking, since their actually spying on him coming to our house...the milkman.

Now it's our weekly tradition to wait for the milk Monday night.  I get lots of help when it's time to put it away.

This is comforting.

This week the cheesecake was on special. Ten dollars off! I can't wait to try it.

lagoon day

Remember Kermit's song "Why are there so many songs about rainbows?'  I used to love that one.  And here's another thing, so many songs about stormy weather, following the sun, stuff like that.  Wednesday night the wind blew heavily all night long and I hoped it was blowing our storm southwest.  In the morning the sky was still dark with clouds. It was still raining and I even saw a lightening strike or two, here where we are.  But in an opposite corner of the sky, and this sky here is so big,  as I've said before, and this was in the northeast corner,  I saw a tiny patch of sun.  So we all agreed that we would drive to Farmington, come what may, because we had been counting down the days all summer for August 5th to arrive, the day of the Grandpa and Grandma's stake Lagoon day. Fourteen dollars off times ten, for our family, was worth waiting for.

So that's when I thought about life and tiny patches of sun among what seem like impossibly dark clouds, knowing full well my thoughts were terribly cliched, but still kind of feeling emotional about the analogy.  Because there we were putting the faith of nine children into that patch of sun, that grew brighter and larger as we headed northeast, and turned into a completely sunny day by the time we got to Farmington.  I thought about so many things that seem hopeless, but are worth pursuing if we put our faith in even the tiniest patch of sun.  Not so original, but it was meaningful to me.

So here are the pictures from the big day. 

Sam took Will on this one. Will was terrified. See Sam back there. He will always be a kid at heart.

waiting to get on the train in the little station

The big kids spent the afternoon and evening with Uncle Joe riding Wicked, the Colossus, exploring the rest of the park.

I spent the whole time in the little kids' section. I was grateful to have Courtney and Zoe's company. Grandpa and Grandma came to help with all the grandchildren too.

On Lagoon day it's easy to convince the kids that  the soda and red vines were our lunch and dinner.  I was grateful that Aunt Judy threw in some ham and cheese too.

What a blessing to get to spend such a fun day with Aunt Miriam and Uncle Bryan too.  I was grateful for their help.

Little cousin Bo had enough of waiting outside of the haunted house.

After a few minutes he cried "He's staring at me" and demanded that we move. Can't say I blame him.