Memorial Day Weekend

I just *love* 3-day weekends. I used to love them before kids, for completely different reasons. Now, when I look forward to 3-day weekends, it's pretty selfish: I'm so eager to have Jesse around for THREE WHOLE DAYS! Still, we managed to do quite a few fun things this weekend, I think. We did the "ice activity" on Sunday, of course, but we also went for a nice long visit to the park on Saturday. The only problem with that was that I completely didn't plan ahead, and we went sans sunblock. We were in the sun for maybe 1.5 hours, which I didn't think would be a problem at 3pm - the danger hours they always talk about are from 10am - 2pm. But, Melinda did end up with a bit of a sunburn on her arms. Actually, we think the outdoor time for the ice activity contributed to it, because she really didn't complain about it before then. And we were outside at 4pm for that, which I really thought was safe enough. At any rate, she has a bit of a sunburn. Not bad by any means, but bad enough that she's really been complaining about itchy arms.

On Monday, we did two things:

First, a "wormery" activity. We got together with a friend and her kids, and dug around in her backyard garden for worms. Actually, I have to say I felt quite embarrassed. This activity was planned for the week before, but got rained out. She emailed everyone to say she'd try again for the next Monday. And since that Monday was a holiday, I hadn't decided for sure whether we'd come or not until the night before. And then I realized on Monday morning that nobody had replied or said anything confirming the date, so I tried calling her that morning before we left. She didn't answer, so I decided that maybe she was already outside with her kids and just didn't hear her phone. And so when we showed up, she totally wasn't expecting us. Apparently everyone else who had planned on coming contacted her to let her know that they wouldn't be able to come because of the holiday. And dumb ol' me just never bothered to let her know I'd still be planning on it. But she was wonderful, and smiled her biggest smile, and said how glad she was that we came! All 5 of us!! And so she quickly finished her vacuuming (oh yes, I did show up unexpected!!) and grabbed her supplies so everyone could do the activity. They had a fun time, finding all those worms! We layered dirt, newspaper shreds, and threw the worms in as we found them. The idea is that the worms will actually eat the newspaper, and you can continue to add in dirt and kitchen scraps as you see fit, and the worms will just keep on living in there! It was kind of neat to see a couple worms split in two (and keep on living) while we were digging them up, too. Melinda was tormenting one by holding onto one end for a very long time, dangling it - it finally split to try and save itself, I guess!

After the activity, we ran home to change clothes and eat a light snack, and then headed on our way towards Pennsylvania. Well, it was sort of round about. First, we had to go back to our friend's house to pick up the hat Melinda left behind. We would need it for the sunny afternoon ahead of us! And then we had to go to the store to get a new hat for Jacob (he lost his hat at one of our destinations on Saturday, and we didn't notice till Sunday), and also pick up some dessert and chips to take with us. And just as we were checking out, Melinda started having an absolute fit about how itchy her arms were, so then we spent almost 10 minutes in the pharmacy area looking for Aloe. All while she was having fits. What fun, huh?

Finally we headed up to Pennsylvania. Our friend Russ was celebrating his 30th birthday, and decided to make a real day of it, and they rented out a pavillion, had a barbeque, and even bought ice blocks for riding down the hill. We had a lot of fun up there, until Melinda's mood got even worse. She was suddenly having meltdowns at every other turn. Too tired. (Have I mentioned how the kids are now not going to sleep until almost 11pm ... regularly? Depsite our efforts!!) So we left for home around 4pm, despite wanting to stay longer and even head over to our friends' house afterwards. And she did fall asleep in the car, as we expected her to, but only about 10 minutes from home, of course. Sigh. We really thought that Jacob and Melinda both would have no problems going to sleep that night, because we really had a full, active day. But they proved us wrong, both falling asleep just before 11pm again. It makes both of us upset, quite honestly, but Jesse handles it slightly worse than I do (well, not every time it happens....), getting mad at everything, not just the bedtime situation. It just snowballs for him.

Oh, but back to yesterday: Jesse and the kids had some fun experimenting with ice blocking down the hill, but Melinda's arms got scratched up by the grass. Jacob was doing just fine, loved playing on the large playground, was having a great time, even entertained himself in the ice bucket that kept the drinks cool. But Melinda was having meltdowns about drinks, dogs (not being allowed to randomly play with them without asking), arms itching, everything. So we headed home. But they did have fun. And so did we. It just would have been more fun to stay longer and play and visit more.

And here I am today, and now Jacob's got a fever. I can only assume he picked it up from Nursery at church. It seems like he always gets sick on Tuesdays. Sure, we hung out with a lot of kids on Monday, but let's face it, most sicknesses aren't gonna get you sick less than 24 hours after you're exposed to them. And nobody we played with yesterday had a fever, either. But let me tell you, it hasn't been fun trying to keep Alex happy, keep Jacob happy, and deal with the sickeningly humid weather today. Jacob wants me to hold him, but I CAN'T, unless I want to melt in a large puddle of sweat. I can hardly sit still without melting in sweat. Plus I'm worried that he'll pass the fever on to Melinda (who continues to complain of itchy arms throughout today), or worse, to Alex.