Oct. 30--Work Day

This morning Nathan and Luke had their online history class, and the rest of us did school and got the house back together from Tuesday.  When we come home Tuesday around 5:15, everything just gets dumped everywhere, and there is mad chaos as we try to get Nathan and Luke off to CAP, everyone else fed, and Micah and Drew down as early as possible since they are absolutely fried from the long Rivendell day.  Hey--I am too!  And totally exhausted, so nothing gets really set back to rights until Wednesday morning.

In the afternoon, Christine came by to pick up the boys to take them to the church so they could help our church administrator, Brian, with yard work.  The church is on a largish piece of property, with a lot of trees and bushes, so there was plenty to do!  The boys were absolutely thrilled to be using Brian's equipment.  He also has a landscaping business, so he has lots of cool stuff.  For example, the boys did not rake.  No, they used these cool backpack leafblower things, as well as one big powerful thing that was different but also blew leaves (in an even cooler fashion).  Obviously, I didn't get all the details, but much fun was had, and Luke even said he thought they should go help Mr. S. every Wednesday afternoon!  Plus, they got Dr. Peppers at the end, so that was just icing on the cake.

Christine and I had to work out this complicated way to get the boys where they needed to be, because even the big van is no longer big enough for all of us!  She came over to our house, left Elena to play with the girls, and took all 8 boys in our big van.  She dropped off 7 of them, then took Isaac to meet someone for a Boy Scout thing.  Then she came back to our house, dropped off the big van, and took Elena plus our girls back to her house to play.  Then I went back in the big van with Drew and Micah to pick up the boys, dropping the McC boys off at the their house and picking up our girls.  We can no longer take the McC boys in the big van with all of us--we only have 2 open seats, even without Bob being there!  We're not moving up to a 15 passenger van though.  There's no storage in the back at all!

After dinner, baths, and putting down Micah and Drew, Bob and I went out to buy new shoes for me.  I've had the same pair of running shoes (which I don't actually run in, of course, although I do a lot of walking, LOL) since November 8, 2007.  That means I have walked in them through 3 pregnancies!  They have been very faithful and comfortable shoes, but alas, they are finally giving out.  I bought another pair of Asics, also with purple and white.  The only difference is that while the old pair was a size 8, the new pair is an 8 1/2.  So now my feet, which were size 7 or 7 1/2 up until I started having kids, are now officially at least a whole size bigger.  Oh well. May this pair last another 6 years--I hate shopping!