Seeing buckets...

And will likely be seeing them for a while in my mind.  John is great, btw, at hitting the bucket.  :-)  Great basketball player too, maybe a correlation?  We've finished round two of the throw-ups around here, and waiting for round three... four... and five.  Am sure they're coming, just as sure as I was this rain was coming...  and raining it is.  On round three of it, and supposedly tonight will be the worst.  Praying the hillsides stay relatively intact above our local communities.

Even with the rain and the throwing up we had a very nice weekend.  This visit from my best friend was the nicest we've had in a while.  The twins are older so they can now join in on activities.  Plus,  we had no real agenda since Carver's birthday stuff was all canceled, and it's just plain less crazy around here since John and Jamie will actually sit down sometimes.  :-)  It was nice to watch Vicki get to know them as children, not just crazy toddlers, but more importantly as unique individuals.  There is still plenty of crazy going on, just much more manageable and fun...

Poor Carver spent one day of it on the couch, but at least surrounded by all the rest of us who were basically trapped in the house due to the rains.

 

Must be what it's like to have children in a place that snows.  :-)  We played a LOT of hide and seek, some indoor (and outdoor when the rain would stop) T-ball and just wrestled around.

Instead of the big plan to take Carver and his friends to see IMAX Avatar and out to dinner, Vicki and I took the twins to see Alvin and the Chipmunks, which they loved.  They sat still through the whole thing until John got antsy in only the last five minutes.

They also went along with all of us, plus Elvi, out to a restaurant and AGAIN behaved beautifully.  I can finally see a light at the end of a long tunnel.  Maybe once I am working again we will really be able to go out to restaurants, movies, events etc, all of us together.

We took the boys to buy baseball supplies, though we had no idea Carver was on the verge of being so sick... He wanted to come along, but threw up all over the parking lot the minute he got out of the car.  Then wanted to come in the store, only to have to run out and do it in a little dirt area around a tree, poor bub.  Got home, got him situated on the couch and Vicki took the twins outside to give the baseball T a try.  They'd never done it before, but from their first swings were wacking balls across the street.  Ah the skills of  second children,  they seem to know how to do almost everything like this much earlier...

 

I also had an 'adult' night out, which I think was much deserved. :-)  We had dinner at a very cool, stylish Argentinian restaurant with delicious food.  But most of all I just enjoyed having another adult in my house who loves my children.  Vicki really adores them, and they can feel it.  Everything felt calmer and more manageable, maybe just because the ratio of adults to children was just that little bit more even.  :-)

These pictures are from her camera, btw... She took one of her 'roommate' Carver while still asleep the morning after being sick.  I love the light... but mostly that he still looks exactly like several sleeping pictures I took from the same angle when he was just a month old.

She left Tuesday after helping with some stuff that needed doing around here - including getting two new tires for the mini-van.  Then probably before her plane landed, it was John's turn to start getting sick.  No sleep last night for Elvi or I, as then Jamie woke up around 3AM and wanted to know where John was... and had trouble settling back down.  John's bout was much worse than Carver's.  He lay there without speaking and kept throwing up and throwing up...  the littlest sips of pedialyte would come back up so we finally stopped giving him anything and he was finally done by the wee hours of the morning.  Carver was exhausted the day after his bout, even though he only threw up maybe four times, but John is bright and active today...  Maybe a miracle will happen and Jamie, Elvi and I won't get it.

I'm stressed cuz have missed two days of work, (one last week cuz of me being sick, and one this week cuz of the boys) but couldn't be helped and it really is mine to come and go... I just need to get my hours.  But what worries me is getting 'id'd' as a mom with little kids, meaning someone who will have this kind of thing happen frequently.  Other interns have absolutely no responsibilities but to themselves... those of us starting over with new careers have nothing but other responsibilities.

And then after putting in a new electrical panel last month, thinking my electrical problems were solved, Elvi saw a tiny waft of smoke come from a kitchen outlet yesterday.  Not good.  :(  And now maybe from the rain, I'm not sure, there is a bad sort of chemical smell in what I call the 'sunrise' room.  This little room addition my father and a handyman built about two years ago.  The smell seems to have come from another outlet on an exterior wall.  It's never been there before, does not smell like burning, does not smell like mold.  Smells kind of like wet leather with a chemical aftertaste.  Called the electrical company and they say they don't have people who will come to work in this kind of rain.  Both are grounded outlets, and have turned them 'off' and not plugging anything in to them, but probably won't have anyone seeing them till Friday...  I hate that there is always something around here.  Need a new oven, frig is leaking, have two older cars... Not a good combination with no paycheck, and now this.  :-(

Doesn't help that I am always kind of blue whenever Vicki leaves.  For a couple of days I see what it's like to do this whole parenting gig, run a small plantation thing kind of with someone else.  I do have Elvi, but it's different.  But then a few days pass,  I get my mojo back, and I'm fine again doing it by myself.  So that will come... it always does.   :-)

Oh and forgot... also in a blech mood because I have to go to a dressy 50th birthday party for my middle sil this Saturday night, and all my plans to try to lose this X-mas weight and bloated feeling have again fallen by the wayside as they always do because of Carver's Birthday and Vicki's visit...  Have no idea what I am going to wear and always feel so overweight and dowdy with this group of the beautiful people... all very thin and toned and monied...  But I have to go, have to hold my head up high.  Just no idea what to wear and no ability to buy anything new. :-(  ugh.