Busy Weekend

It felt like a very busy weekend, but we survived! Yesterday was rough, this morning was a bit nuts, but tonight has been good. For Friday, the two main tasks were getting Hyrum's passport and taking the snowblower in to be repaired. Should have been simple enough, but we kept having extra steps added in. Hyrum needs to renew his passport because he is going to India next summer with a group called Youth Making A Difference. They're buying the plane tickets in December so they need passports, and Hyrum's is going to expire before they leave, thus why we are renewing it. He was supposed to do it "before the end of October" so we're late, but we got it done. My plan was to drop off the snowblower, get H, get his passport, go home. Corey helped me put our broken snowblower in the van, then off to North Salt Lake I went to Paul's Service and repair (cause they were an official servicer of Troybilt products). I was driving and mentally going over my plan, I realized he'd probably need his current passport to get a new one, and I didn't have it... soooo instead of just getting him at Skyline, I just drove the 30 min to drop off the snowblower, and then drove all the way back home, ran in the house and got his passport, then headed to Skyline. No biggie. Owen and Daniel were mad when they saw that we did all that driving and didn't even go into any store. "Not Home!! I wanna go store!" Ok, we'll go now! So we went to get Hyrum, then went to the County offices to get his passport. When we got there, we noticed a sign... Turns out that the passport office is currently being remodeled or whatever and so they weren't taking the passport photos at the office at this time. Yay, so that means we need to go to Costco to get your photos, Hyrum. Ok little boys, back to the car!! Daniel was not happy about that....

Since we had been in the car for an hour and a half already, he was hoping for more than just a lousy one minute to run around. Luckily I found a fun size package of Halloween candy - I think 10 Skittles might be just enough pieces of candy to get us through the next hour. "Daniel, do you want a treat? Come get in the car and you can have a treat!" It worked. We drove to the SL Costco. Kids in the cart - now you can enjoy freedom for 8 minutes instead of 1. Hyrum got his pic taken. We let the little boys look at the ipad screens while we waited....

Say cheese! I love these pretty boys!

Oh, and while we were here, my visa didn't work - I had some charge a few days ago that made me sufficiently nervous so we cancelled that card and my new card hasn't come yet. Luckily I did have one other visa with enough on that unused account to pay the $5 for a passport photo. And then - ugh! My membership needed to be renewed too! They let that slide thankfully, we're gonna make it!

Ok, photo done! Let's go back to the county office! There wasn't a long line for the passport. I did have to fill out the paper, not too bad. Then pay the state and federal fees, I remembered to bring a check book. Yay, done. Back to Skyline to drop H off so he could hangout with friends. Back at home, Corey and I went on an early date to Wasatch Grill, then Abi had a flute recital tonight. Corey went to that cause I was already spent from my day's adventures. So I stayed home and took a bath with Peter, and that was my busy Friday.

On Saturday, we needed to go grocery shopping. Corey said he'd go to Costco, but I wanted to go, but he said he wasn't sure I'd get good stuff (still having a bit of trouble on how to keep everyone happy food wise while my conscience fights it if I get animal products knowing how bad they are) so anyway... the kids got wind of our discussion and soon everyone wanted to come. We were going to have to take 2 cars.... "Fine, but we are not taking 7 kids into Costco..." Corey stated. Well, if we split up, then it's just like each of us is going with 3 or 4 kids, which should be doable, right? But instead Corey stayed in the van with most all the kids and they watched a movie and waited while I ran in with Abi. We needed the van to hold all the food. This goes down as one of my largest Costco errands. I was glad to have no toddlers, and glad to have Abi there to help me.

We had one cart and one flatbed. I brought home 5 boxes and my goal is to fill them all up with things to donate to the thrift store before we go for food next week. I did have to renew the membership this time, so that added to the price, and as we were checking out I guesstimated the total cost would be $700, and final bill $697, I'm getting good. They asked if I was from Rock Springs (Colorado). No, I just have 12 kids.

And then I've spent the rest of the evening getting on top of the next 3 months - I have put all of the kids concerts and performances and updated it all on 3 calendars that now on the fridge.

I impressed myself that I got this done, we are getting better at managing our large household, it is a good challenge that stretches us both. Holidays are coming up quick, here we go!