The WiFi was just down, which created a bit of panic here at the Jedi Manor. Without WiFi, we are pushed into living like primitive chimpanzees… without You Tube and the ability to make a blog post go LIVE.
Thankfully, I have fixed it.
And by fixed it, I mean I rebooted my Big Mac, and then I flipped the switch on the box that sits on top of the fireplace. I don’t know what the proper, given name for that box is, but it seems to control everything in our house except my hairdryer. After wiping my hands on my jeans, exactly like I’d just sweat buckets and rebuilt a Volkswagen engine from scratch on my kitchen counter, I came back here to the Big Apple, and LO! We have the WiFi! This makes me feel like I should turn my resume in to Hubs’ company and ask for a job. Clearly, I’m no longer just a Level One technician, who can only reboot. Now I’m more like a Level Five Techie, who can handle that box on the fireplace.
I think Level Fives are allowed four full weeks of paid vacation and a company car, which comes without crushed Goldfish crackers in the backseat.
Anyway.
Yesterday afternoon, when the sun was a blazing ball of misery above Small Town, we packed up our water gear and sunscreen, along with sandwiches, chips and a giant watermelon, and we met our friends, Brian and Sarah, at the lake.
Brian and I have known each other since we were six years old.
SIX, y’all.
Six.
In other words, I have known him for… One… two… carry the the one… seven… eight…
… a lifetime.
Hubs and Brian have been good friends for the entire time I’ve been married to him. They share a love of everything, from good Polish sausages to the Colorado Avalanche to their thoughts on space aliens. Brian’s wife, Sarah, is the sweetest honey you’ll ever meet.
In other words, they’re good, GOOD friends of ours, and they happen to be some of our favorite people.
We all packed our dinners and our coolers and our kids out to the lake yesterday, and then we set up a base camp on the sand. While Hubs and Brian bonded over a lively discussion of the Denver Broncos’ draft picks, Sarah and I sat in lawn chairs and sighed, because neither one of us had to cook dinner.
Pass the sandwiches, kids!
Open that bag of chips, kids!
Someone cut that watermelon in half, kids!
And then we all talked and chatted, chatted and talked, and threw our heads back in gut-busting laughter, while we watched our four little people and kept counting heads, to make sure everyone’s noses stayed above the waterline.
One, two, three, four.
LAUGH, LAUGH, LAUGH!!!!
One, two, three, four.
LAUGH, LAUGH, LAUGH!!!!
Our little people had a ball. Sarah and Brian have nine-year-old twin boys, who look absolutely NOTHING like one another, and they are Thing 2’s people. They are rough and tough; they enjoy wrestling and climbing and jumping and tackling and chasing; they can throw handfuls of sand quicker than a blink and make enormous waves in a pool of water.
In other words, they speak Thing 2’s love languages.
Thing 2 is right at home with them, wrestling and tackling and laughing and smashing things.
The kids frolicked with pure happiness in the lake.
They caught minnows.
Thing 2 managed to take three of them captive with his bare hands last night, and begged to take one home as a pet.
That’s exactly what we need at our house: A rainbow trout growing in a fish tank.
We encouraged Thing 2 to practice the CATCH AND RELEASE way of hand-fishing.
Thing 2 practiced his crawl stroke.
I’m telling you, it’s hard to tell him apart from Michael Phelps in the water these days, when he’s swimming.
The kids played in the sand, which was FLAT OUT LOVELY.
Do you know what sand does to wet swimming suits?
Yes, that’s right. IT STICKS.
And when sand sticks to suits and shoes, it has a tendency to end up in your car…
… and then it ends up on your living room floor.
And your bathroom floor.
And your kitchen floor.
Pretty soon you’re just sweeping sand and vacuuming sand for the next twelve years, before you get it all OUT of your car and your house, as you wonder how the Israelite mamas EVEN DEALT with all the sand in their tents as they wandered around for forty years with children.
There was even a baptism last night, right there in the water.
Don’t worry.
After Pastor Henry had fully baptized his twin brother, Sam resurfaced for air.
And then the six hundredth water wrestling match of the evening broke out.
We’ve let Thing 2’s curls grow longer this summer, AT THE REQUEST OF THE GRANDMAS. Apparently, grandmas go weak in the knees over curly mops of hair.
Aren’t they STINKING ADORABLE?
Yeah, they are.
They also came home with four and a half cups of sand in them last night. Before I was the mother of a curly-haired boy, I was the mother of a straight-haired boy.
Straight hair does not pack sand home.
Curly hair packs sand, dried leaves, tiny sticks, and sandwiches home. You never know WHAT you’ll find in that mane of hair when you help Thing 2 wash it. This was all new to me, when I became the mother of a curly-haired boy.
While the frolicking and mayhem was taking place in the water, the scene at Base Camp was rather lively. I believe they were discussing important world events, like the Colorado Avalanche’s roster for this upcoming season.
The boy ended up getting stung by a hornet while we were at the lake last night, so he chose to loaf around with an ice pack clutched to his shoulder most of the evening.
A hornet sting can pretty much ruin your entire evening.
Eventually, though, he did make it to the water to skip some rocks, with his good arm.
That poor big boy of ours has been stung SIX TIMES this summer!! He has had a run of very bad luck with the wasps and the hornets.
And then…
… ’round about 8:00…
… when the sun was beginning to sink lower and we decided that we needed to be responsible parents who were aware of BATHS and TEETH THAT NEEDED BRUSHED and BEDTIMES…
… we packed up all of our stuff, dried off our little people, and headed back to town.
The beauty of three solid hours in the water and sand is that little people SLEEP HARD, all night long. There ain’t nothin’ like some serious water play to wear a small boy plum dadgum out.
That’s even better news than finding out that I’m a Level Five Computer Technician.
Happy Tuesday evening, y’all.