Life.

What a week.  What a weekend.  I had fully intended to get back on the blogging wagon with my short burst of a few posts a week or so ago.  Then life happened.  As in, new state mandated standardized testing for kindergarten in which I spent no less than 8 completely dedicated hours assessing my students this past week.  And I'm still not done.  Then a college friend of mine succumbed to the aggressive cancer she was first told about 6 short months ago.  She was 28 when she died- and one of the few truly wonderful women without a fault that I can identify in this world.  It's been a tough week.

We drove Friday night after work to our home state to attend the funeral on Saturday.  Luckily, my MIL lives 30 minutes from where it was, so we had a babysitter for the day.  Unluckily for us, but that looonggggg car ride meant that our still WON'T SLEEP IN THE CAR twosome fell asleep Friday night at 11:30 pm.  Slap-happy overtired toddlers can be entertaining, but stressful too.   (My favorite part was telling Anna to "hang on" in a gas station bathroom  and after grabbing the coat hook and dangling her feet, said "I hanging on!"  Also unluckily for us, but Anna forgot she was potty trained and peed in her car seat, with several hours to go to our destination.  Luckily for us, my MIL had a washer we could use when we arrived.  What's even more awesome than driving with two overtired toddlers for 6 hours and then doing laundry at midnight?  That it was all so we could attend the funeral of my 28 year old friend the next day.

We returned home on Saturday night because I was determined that we would a.) go to a pumpkin patch this year and the wet weather had prevented it so far plus my husband will be on a work trip next weekend so it was Sunday or never as a family this year. b.) have some good aspect of the weekend so it wouldn't completely blow and c.) rake our leaves because our leaf pickup for our area starts Monday and again, the wet weather had prevented it so far so it was now or never.

Anna had yet another accident in her car seat  with hours to go in our drive on the way back and so I waved my white flag, bought diapers at a gas station and told Sam and Anna that we now wear diapers for long car rides.  At least that meant we weren't stopping 5+ times for icky gas station bathroom breaks.  Sam and Anna went to sleep at 10:30 pm (so at least a little earlier than the night before) after again, NOT SLEEPING IN THE CAR ONE SECOND and the side effect meant they slept in the next morning until 8:30 am.  We salvaged our weekend with a perfectly fun time at the pumpkin patch Sunday morning, decent naps to catch up on their sleep deficit, ample time to get the millions of leaves in our yard to the curb, 8 loads of laundry,washing and changing sheets on three beds (and I thought changing the bedding on cribs was a pain), and pumpkin carving since Daddy's leaving town in a few days until Halloween morning. 

Whew!

I have high hopes for a less stressful, less of a downer week.