Buckle Up...It's Going to be a Long Ride.

I reeeeeeeeally should have blogged last night. Beth came to town and we had a wonderful visit. Beth is one of my ''virtual'' friends. The only way we could have had a better visit is if Angie were here too! :) Before Beth hit town, I was starting to madly shop and prepare for today. I needed to make an oriental salad for a party for Mom, along with a ''Death by Chocolate'' dessert. I toasted all the almonds and noodles last night. Cindy stopped by to visit for awhile whilst she waited for one of the kids to get off work.

Beth called and after some deliberation (and searching) for a restaurant to feed the four of her fifty-five children she brought to town, we met up at the Italian restaurant. Chris was prepping for a camping trip, plus he was tired, so I brought both boys with me. They were surprisingly well-behaved, though it could have been due to tiredness!

We ate and visited and yes, definitely took pictures. Yes, Carter was so tired he cuddled up on my lap and fell asleep. I put him down across a couple chairs so we could take some group pictures :) After our visit we came home. The boys fell asleep and I went to bed at a decent hour.

This morning Cooper was unfortunately up early, toooooooo early. Chris left for work and I somehow got Cooper to go back to sleep. Must be my favourite pillow. I managed to stay in bed until almost nine o'clock, snoozing off and on. Carter got up at some point and the little darling entertained himself until I was ready to fully face the day.

Dad was coming to pick up the salad stuff I had prepared. When he arrived he had some time to kill to pick up the bakery order at the grocery store, so I boiled up two dozen eggs that Mom asked me to pick up last night. I boiled and cooled and peeled all the eggs and put them back in the egg cartons. I packed up all the stuff in a cooler bag and Dad went on his way.

I started baking the chocolate cake for the dessert after I cooked a pound of bacon to garnish the twice-baked potatoes I was bringing to Seija and Ian's place for the barbecue. I took a blazing hot shower while the cake was baking and washed my hair. I've been hating my hair lately and have been tempted to hack it off. This happens every so often when I really need to wash and style it. Then I try something a little different and like it again. So right now I'm okay with it again.

Chris came home from work and departed shortly after for his camping/fishing weekend with his coworkers. They were headed for Dogtooth lake where one of the honchos of his workplace has a cabin.

After the cake cooled I prepared the ''Death by Chocolate''. In the process I spilled most of a package of Skor bits. Fortunately they mostly spilled into the Cool Whip container and the bowl of chocolate mousse I had on the counter. A handful spilled onto the counter and an unfortunate amount fell to the floor. Sadly I swept them up and threw them out. I had a couple more bags in the fridge, thankfully, but didn't end up needing them. I put the dessert in the fridge.

I had started to cook the potatoes earlier and finished them with a few more minutes in the microwave. I halved them and scooped them out. I mixed the scooped out potatoes with butter, milk, cheese, onion and bits of the bacon I had cooked earlier. I mixed it all with the mixer until they were smooth and scooped the mixture back into the hollowed potato halves, topping them with more grated cheese and the remainder of the bacon. Mmmmmm.

I had promised the boys I would take them to the park. I was actually hoping to take them for a picnic at the park but I ran out of time. We delivered the dessert to Mom and Dad's house. The boys didn't even want to get out of the Jeep; they wanted me to be as quick as possible so we could squeeze in a good time at the park. Our next stop was the park. The boys had a blast as usual, and for some reason they like to take their shoes and socks off there. Here are a few pictures from our park excursion. One of Carter's classmates was there, and she whisked Carter away behind the climbing wall because she ''had a secret'' to tell him. She kept telling all the other kids to go away, including Cooper. I have no idea what the secret was, but the two of them were adorable.

We didn't have much time to spend at the park, but knowing they were going to have kids to play with at Seija and Ian's house, it wasn't like pulling teeth to get them to leave. We did a super quick Wal-Mart stop since I didn't have any socks and I am still not sure if Carter started out with socks at the park or if he took them off and left them there. I do recall seeing a pair of socks on the ground at the park that looked like some we have, but I didn't want to grab them in case they belonged to some other kid that was there!

We arrived at Seija and Ian's a few minutes later, just a moment after Deidre and Greg arrived. The kids played wonderfully outside in the sunshine, which I enjoyed thoroughly. Seija was well-prepared to have four boys over in addition to her little girl. The boys were amused playing with big bouncy balls and with bubble wands. Good thinking!

We went in for supper and had a veritable FEAST! Seija and Ian fed us steaks. I brought the twice-baked potatoes. Deidre and Greg brought an amazing strawberry summer salad and a fantastic dessert. Seija and Ian also served fresh, steamed cauliflower and fried mushrooms. Mmmmm. The kids played outside a little after supper then we rounded them up for dessert. I was impressed that my boys weren't as rough as usual and listened reasonably well. :)
Since neither of the boys napped today, they wanted to come home. I had told them if we got home when it was still light out that we could go to the park by our house. Of course they remembered that detail. I drove around to the rocky hill at the entrance to the park. The boys loved hiking up the hill and enjoyed playing on the playground equipment for a bit. Then they wanted to go on a ''field trip'' as Deidre's son Connor had mentioned earlier when they were all playing outside. We walked down various trails throughout the park and I showed them where I used to go sliding when I was a kid.

We went back to the Jeep and came home. The boys wanted to watch ''Alvin and the Chipmunks''. I obliged and then proceeded to go on a crazy cleaning frenzy. I was dying to sweep and mop the kitchen floor and got carried away after that. I emptied and filled the dishwasher, making a special trip out to the Jeep to bring in SIX sippy cups from the past week or so that had varying levels amounts and varying degrees of decomposing milk in them. I was thrilled to find that two of them contained water. They definitely didn't smell the greatest but at least there were no chunks!

I washed the bowls and pans from all the cooking and baking I did today. I put all the toys in the living room in the boys' room, which seemed to be overrun with toys. I vacuumed the living room. By this time Cooper was zonking out on the couch. He opened his eyes briefly when I started the vacuum but he promptly went back to sleep. Carter, on the other hand, was still going strong. After the movie was over he wanted to watch it again. Mom gave me a ''ShamWow'' today. I remembered it and tested out its absorbency. I took frequent breaks to do Facebook updates. Once while I was at the computer, Carter walked up to me with the ShamWow in hand, asking if this was the cloth from the TV. I thought at first he was asking if it was the cloth I used to clean the TV. But he recognized it from the commercial! He started wiping things with it and I was very happy he wanted to help!

I went in the boys' room and put away all the toys. Thrilled that I found the carpet, I vacuumed it too! I went after the bathroom next and sprayed everything down. I swished and swiped the toilet but left the rest for tomorrow. I plan to continue this frenzy then. I was happy to find a brand new bottle of Mr. Clean, along with the oven cleaner. I sprayed the inside of the oven door since I remembered I couldn't even see inside the oven to see if the cake was rising today. (Gasp.)

A few minutes past midnight, Carter was still up and wanted me to take a picture with the webcam. I never use it; I had to plug it in and dust it off. We took a few silly pictures. The rest are on the other computer where I was at the time, and they are posted on Facebook just for a giggle. This was my favourite.

I was boiling hot from all the crazy jetting around. I drank a ton of water and took numerous breaks to play Pathwords or just update Facebook, sharing a few laughs with Angie and others. I finally decided it was getting late enough I should start shutdown. I grabbed the laptop and I've been blogging ever since!!! Now it's quarter after two and I'm off to do a few sudoku puzzles and hopefully fall asleep! That French Vanilla cappuccino I picked up on the way home really gave me a boost!