Each season I spend an entire day documenting our life. This day was a little different in that our nephews were with us for the weekend, but they were featured a few years ago in a day in the life when they were in town so it seems appropriate that they made an appearance again. Thanks to Ellie and Addie for hosting this Day in the Life round up. 

Sunday, July 9th, 2017

Riley is 7 years old

Jesse is 42 and I am 45

Lucy the cat is 13

Mason is 18

Cade is 15

Frank, my dad, is 89

The night before I head up to bed just after 11 pm after a late night watching an outdoor movie at the local rec center (Sing) with Riley. They were supposed to start the movie at 8, but waited until 9 when it was dark enough and then ran into a technical issue so we left by 10:20, before the movie was over, as it was way too late to keep my 7 year old up. And let's honest, it was past my bedtime too. At any rate, once home I went to bed and made the mistake of bringing my iPad and therefore, did not turn out the lights until 11:30 which is way past my regular bedtime... and then my mind raced for a bit before I actually fell asleep.

 3:48  - I wake for the first time, go to the bathroom and go back to bed. I'm annoyed that it's too cold with just the sheet on, but too hot with the comforter. Try to find a middle ground so I can fall back to sleep.

5:25 - I wake from a dream where I am with my friend, Josie. In the dream I'm trying to fall asleep and finally look at the clock and it says 5:35. I'm annoyed that I am still awake, but when I wake from the dream, I am relieved that I was actually asleep.  Kind of amazed how close in time the dream time is to the real time. Out of habit, I get up and go to the bathroom, but don't really need to.

6:48 - I usually sleep on my side, but at some point I roll over on to my back. It feels good to change positions, but it usually results in a cat jumping onto my chest and then nudging her face and wet nose against mine. The thought of that this morning makes me turn over to avoid the cat attack, but she never comes up to bed anyway. I toss and turn and realize I might as well get up.

7:28 - Out of bed and head downstairs. Everyone is still sleeping which is super late in our house, but we've all had some late nights recently. We also had our 15 and 18 year old nephews staying at our house this weekend and they were up late with Jesse and one of Jesse's friends. I assess our messy house, check Instagram and TimeHop, make breakfast, and sit down to eat. Riley comes downstairs at about this time. She grabs her Nintendo and plops herself down on the couch. 

8:07 - My husband comes down stairs and notes that he didn't go to bed until 2 am. Our schedules are waaaay off. He makes his breakfast and then I announce that I'm doing a day in the life today. He grumbles for a moment, but then gets over it.

8:27 - I decide to go on a walk before it gets too hot or rains. It's supposed to be 86 today, but it's only about 67 right now. It was supposed to rain, but now the weather forecast has changed. I'll risk it and hope for the best. I ask Jesse if he wants to come (and bring Riley, of course), but he declines. 

I decide to walk around a local park that has a pond. It's often my go to walk, but I change it up a little and wander through a wooded area first. The path leads back down to the pond and I have a choice to take the short way home or go around the entire pond. I have to pee and the clouds are looking somewhat ominous, but I've got a spurt of energy I didn't have before so I take the long route around.

I get to the far end of the pond and decide to take pictures of some flowers when it starts to sprinkle very lightly. I make no rush to move forward and hope that it doesn't start pouring. Eventually, I start moving again and notice that the park is starting to get busier. It was peacefully quiet, but it looks like some soccer games will be happening today. Luckily, the sprinkles stop and it doesn't end up raining at all this day.

9:19 - I arrive home from my walk and find Riley and Jesse playing our new game, Pokemon Monopoly. We have a kid's Monopoly game that I like because it doesn't take hours to play, but Riley played this one with her cousins the day before and it seemed to take forever.  I grab some granola and eat it in front of the computer while I cool down, and then jump in the shower.

10:00 - Monopoly game is still going. The boys are still sleeping. Oh, to be a teenager. I discover later that one of them staying up until about 3:30 am. I go upstairs to get dressed after my shower and end up changing Riley's sheets and making our bed. I found some cat hero sheets on clearance at Target and had to get them for our cat obsessed kid... even though she has more sheets than she really needs. Seriously, I have one set of sheets that I use over and over for our bed, but she has a rotation of about 6 different sheets.

10:25 - I bring clothes down for Riley and after she gets dressed I remember that I was going to give her a bath. We've had multiple late nights in a row and she needs one badly. So, she gets undressed and jumps in the shower and then brushes her teeth afterwards. Meanwhile, Jesse puts away the game that they were still playing (why so long, Monopoly). This really is a late start of the day for us, but we don't have anything else to do this morning. We normally would go to the gym on a weekend morning, but we gave up our gym membership about a month ago. Instead, I go on walks, use the treadmill at home, or try to motivate myself to workout in the living room while Jesse has access to a small gym at his work. Paying for a huge gym just didn't make sense for us anymore. Plus, the upside is that Riley sometimes works out along with me so I feel like she's getting a more direct message about how we care for our bodies than when she went to child care at the gym. 

10:44 - Riley grabs Lucy, the cat, and takes her outside. She is not an outside cat, but we'll sometimes sit on the step with her. She seems to like it, but can also be a bit overwhelmed by the outdoors so we are mindful of that. At some point, Riley grabs the chalk and Lucy and I chill on the sidewalk before I do a little weeding and then put the cat indoors. Jesse leaves for a walk while we are outside and returns before we go inside. 

11:18 - Mason is finally awake and I think Cade wakes shortly after. Riley goes inside and plays 'student resources' on my computer. It's a bunch of educational games that her school provides so I don't mind when she requests to play them. Around 11:30 I announce to everyone that we need to get ready to go to my dad's. We need to get there before they close down the roads for the parade near his house at 2:00 pm. Jesse, Cade, and Mason take turns showering. Jesse, Riley and I grab some food, and we pack up the car. 

12:11 - We head to pick up sandwiches for the boys and then go to my dad's house. While at my dad's, we hang out outside and then Riley plays his out of tune piano with her new piano book. She had a piano lesson for the first time last week and loved it. My dad offers us the piano, but we have no place to put it. While inside with Riley, I look outside and see the guys checking out one of my dad's trees. Riley and I head outside to see what they are staring at and I notice my dad created some type of contraption to help take down a branch on one of his trees (basically, a rope tied to the hanging branch, with concrete blocks and a heavy chain tied to the end to weigh it down). This is sooooo my dad. I mean, it screams 'Frank'.

Apparently, my brother hooked the rope up to his truck, but it wouldn't come down so my dad and Jesse brain storm about how to hitch it to our truck and try it out in the future. Riley isn't as interested in this thing as I am so she goes back inside to play the piano. Eventually, we end up back in the driveway while waiting for the parade to start. 

1:52 - We grab our chairs and walk through my dad's back yard and sit in his neighbor's front yard to watch the parade. This spot puts us near the start of the parade as most people sit in town (a whole couple blocks away). We don't have a ton of people near us and there isn't any shade, but it's the shortest walk from my dad's house. The Hamel Rodeo was this same weekend (we went on Friday night) and the parade is sort of part of the Rodeo celebration so there are a lot of horses, along with businesses, firetrucks... and new this year was a couple bands (like country/rock bands - not marching bands) which was a nice improvement. 

We got lots and lots of candy, but also some reusable water bottles, a size XL shirt, water, coupons, and freezer pops, which are seriously the best parade idea ever. It was pretty hot and besides some passing clouds, we were in the direct sun. I tucked one of those freezer pops in my shirt and it helped me cool down.

2:50 - The parade is over so we head back to my dad's and fix a leaning and crumbling concrete deer, and marvel at the gnarly old willow tree in my dad's front yard. We find both toads and frogs hopping around the yard and I'm surprised when Riley goes right in and tries to pick one up. I totally thought she would be freaked out, but was genuinely interested in trying to at least touch one. She wasn't successful, but she was able to touch the one Cade picked up and she proclaimed it "slimey".

I pull out the stereoscope that I brought over and show it to my nephews. The stereoscope used to be my grandparents and some years ago, my uncle passed it down to me. I'm not sure how old it is, but it was patented in 1901, and my dad remembers playing with it as a kid (he was born in 1928). I have close to 100 cards (some have dates from 1899 on them). My dad's neighbor made a box to store the stereoscope and the cards in and it turns out that it's ever so slightly too narrow. Riley and the boys enjoy looking at the pictures.

3:49 - My dad suggests we go out to eat and takes us to Applebees for an early dinner. I'm starving so I'm all about eating this early and everyone else seems game. We chat about a variety of things including life in Luxembourg vs America. The boys have been living in Luxembourg for about the last 5 years and Mason just moved here as he graduated high school. Cade is visiting for the summer, but will be returning to Luxembourg in about a month.

We also talk about dreams and I share my morning dream. My dad shares that he has a lot of dreams that he hates. He shares that he gets lost in his dreams and can't find his way home. Yeah, I would find those dreams disturbing too.

4:49 - Dinner is over and we all head home. Once home, Riley plays on her Nintendo again, and the boys head out to Microcenter (computer store) to pick something up or return a part. I'm not quite sure. While out, Mason practices driving as he's working on getting his driver's license. I finally post some 4th of July pictures to Facebook, decide to unnecessarily sort the candy, and then grab a book and head to the couch. I'm reading The White Queen by Philippa Gregory. I'm kind of a Philippa Gregory junkie as I love a good historical fiction. 

5:58 - The boys are back. Mason and Cade head to the basement, which they've mostly taken over, and Jesse joins me on the couch for a little bit. He used to let the cat cuddle on him, but he doesn't have much patience for her anymore (especially since she started randomly pooping around the house), so naturally, Lucy crawls right on to his belly. Even after he removes her once, she comes right back. Jesse is not so enthused about this.

6:22 - I start to write this post before I forget too much. Riley takes another shower and I help her with that a bit. I go back to writing this post, Riley grabs a Captain Underpants book she read in 2 hours yesterday and decides she's going to re-read it. The boys are scattered across the house. 

7:44 - I find Jesse asleep on the couch and Riley is downstairs with her cousins. Earlier there were a few squirrels wrestling with each other in the front yard and now bunnies are frolicking in front of our house so I take pictures of them. The bunnies seem cute, and this may appear dramatic, but there is a bit of a bunny epidemic in my neighborhood. They are EVERYWHERE and they like to eat a lot of the plants in my yard. Bad, bad bunnies.

7:56 - Riley has been up until at least 10:30 the last couple nights so I want to get her in bed by 8:00 tonight. She'll likely stay up and read for awhile, but it's quiet time and I wouldn't be surprised if she crashes right away.

8:08 - After putting Riley to bed, I come back downstairs and realize I didn't document any of it. I don't care at this point. I'm tired, and want to eat a snack (because I ate dinner so early) and maybe watch TV. I look to see if I can find Sing anywhere, but no. The ending will just have to hang in the air for awhile. Jesse has the same idea about food and is making a bowl of oatmeal and blueberries. I decide I will eat another bowl of granola, but realize we are almost out of milk so I grab some Wheat Thins instead. I work on this post for a bit and then turn on Master of None while editing pictures from yesterday. The second season has a lot of laugh out loud moments.

9:38 - I upload today's pictures, then walk around the house and close up windows. Decide on a picture to post to Instagram and then start bedtime prep, such as brushing my teeth.

10:10 - I head up to bed and check in on Riley before I go to sleep. I have no idea when the boys went to sleep, but I think Mason went to bed early, Cade was in the basement for the evening so who knows, and Jesse came up after I was asleep.

And that wraps up a somewhat normal summer weekend day for us. Also, I realized, I didn't get a single picture of me in it and I take a ton of pictures of my daughter and my dad. Note to self: get in the picture more.