Saturday, August 1, 2009

A Lemonade Day

Sometimes Bad Changeover is just that... bad.

What is Bad Changeover you say? Well it is that time every two months where my husband has one day off in two weeks. It is balanced every two months (the opposite months) where he has 1 day of work and 5 days off in one week (ie: Good Changeover). Last time on Bad Changeover I had a plan. I took the kids out a lot, there were strawberries to be picked, and we were buying a house. This time... well, the ideas just kind of fizzled (or were all used up in planning my art class and the beach trip that never happened. lol...).

So this afternoon, I find my self lonely, being irritated about being lonely, and all of my friends having the weekends with their husbands and children and were busy. So we had a day. A day that started out not so hot and had a super sweet ending.

This afternoon, Logan woke up from nap super grumpy and Cyan was whiny about something or other... so I told them we were going out. I just knew that we had to get out of the house... didn't know where, and didn't really care, but if we stayed in the house, the afternoon was going in the them being brats and me yelling at them direction. And that wasn't ok with me.

So into the car we go with packed snacky dinners and water bottles... everyone is wearing shoes (last time we did this, Logan wasn't wearing shoes... that wasn't near as fun.) and so when I asked them where they wanted to go, he yelled "Go see animals!!!" The zoo. It's free for us because we have a yearly pass... ok, let's go to the zoo. When I said yes, a chorus of cheers came from the children that were in my car. Loud, cherry voices that I hadn't heard all day long. It was great.



I was a little worried about the zoo trip because it was already 4:30pm... I thought the zoo closed at 5. But luckily, I was wrong... we got until 6pm to hang out and play with the critters. :) At the zoo we ate our dinner and had some ice cream as a treat, then we piled into the car, and immediately Logan screams "No going home!!!! We NOT go home!" He does this a lot. It is annoying... but because we were making this lemon day into one with lemonade I said "Where do you want to go?" He said "Da.... BEACH!" Uhhhmm... The beach is three hours from here. But water is not. So I decided to take a trek down 5 mile drive to Owen's Park for a little water fun! Logan was SO thrilled when he got out of the car and saw a 'beach'!

Then on our way home, I wanted to check on the status of the blueberry patch. There is a free blueberry patch in the very center of our new city and since I was already going from one side to the other, it was just a bit off our already long drive home. The blueberries were not ready yet, but the kids enjoyed their time picking the few that were ripe and eating them.

One thing we did find just a little ways from the blueberries were ripe blackberries. So I pulled over and the kids and I got a bucket full of those. Pie was requested and I don't know if that will happen or not, but I have put it on my mental queue for Monday.

All in all, for being a crappy day, it had a great ending. I am now about ready to go to bed, having gotten home at 8:30pm and full of berries (ripe and not so ripe) ready to start my Market day tomorrow.

In other kid related news: All day today, Cyan was toting around my point and shoot camera. She took some pretty neat pictures and it really shows what she sees from her 8 year old point of view. You can check it out here.

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7 comments

Jenny said...

Just picked my blueberries yesterday. They were huge due to all the rain we've had. Wish I could find some blackberry bushes too...

Tom said...
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erika~ the inspired mama said...

oh, YUM! the blackberries look delicious :) looks like you all had a wonderful day! my hubby is a restaurant manager so he is always working weird days/hours... i am usually flying solo with the kids on weekends :( i agree, it sucks! too bad we don't live closer to each other, we could hang out during bad changeover!

xo,
erika

sarah in the woods said...

You did a really great job. My husband just switched to second shift and the evenings are getting so l-o-n-g. We try to get out of the house too.

Val in the Rose Garden said...

Yes, Don will be on second shift for the next two years. Sigh... better than nights. Becuase at least on his weekends we are on the same schedule (waking up in the morning, going to bed at night. ;) ) and that way we get to get up and do stuff... but heck... it makes for the longest evenings!

Val

Val in the Rose Garden said...

Erika, I wish you were closer too. :) That would be fun to have a bimonthly date with a friend for the sucky changeover. ;)

Val

Valerie @ Frugal Family Fun Blog said...

Sounds like you made some tasty lemonade out of this situation indeed! Love how you improvised the trip to the beach. Logan must be such a cutie!!!

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