My life in a nutshell

so that last post I started almost a week ago. Lame, I know...but at least I finished it finally. We've had another week of hectic, crazy times topped with sick children. It's been a blast - ok not really, but it hasn't been THAT bad. We're trying to soak up as much Layton family time as we can. We are going to miss them like crazy when they finally drive out of here, but we will saturate our lives with them until then and maybe that will make it a little easier when they actually go. We are officially on the countdown. They are leaving one week from today. It's totally scary and SO NOT okay with me, but I'll manage.

Last week I bought myself a navigation device from woot.com (one day, one deal). It was a really good price and I figured I better purchase it now because my built in map is leaving. Joy is amazing with directions, roads, etc. I am directionally challenged. I have needed help from the minute I started driving. Joy has always been a good resource for me, especially here, she had all of Las Vegas in her head before we moved here so my map was never more than a phone call away.

A couple of days ago I had the day from you know where and I was telling Erin about it. As only a true blogger would she says, "Hey Ang, you should blog that". So here goes. The day was Friday and it started out good enough. Elise was getting ready to go back home and I was getting ready to take her to the airport. Joy had asked me previously if I would be willing to watch some of her extended family's children after a family wedding so the parents could go enjoy Vegas. I had watched about 14 kids on the two previous days and was kind of in kid-watching mode so I agreed. Plus, as a bonus, these parents were going to pay me, so I was pretty happy about that. Anyway, we're getting all ready to leave, and Joy calls. She says that they accidentally took Jacob's car seat to the wedding and we would need to come get it before I took Elise to the airport. I called Elise and she said that she would get in high gear so we could leave a little early, giving us plenty of time to get the car seat and get back to the airport. Well, as you well know, it's hard to get two small children ready really fast. Needless to say, we were on our way to get the car seat just about the time we had previously said we would be on our way to the airport. The wedding that Steve and Joy were attending was down on the strip across from Mandalay Bay. So, Elise and I are finally on our way to the wedding and Joy calls. She wants to know if while I am there picking up the car seat I just want to take the two little girls I am going to watch, saving their parents a trip back to my house to drop them off. I told her that would be fine. We are already running late by the time we get to the wedding so we grab the car seat and the two little girls (ages three and four) and we head out. Now, here comes the hairy part. Here are these two sweet little girls that have been put in a car with a complete stranger (me) and they are supposed to be okay with this. Unfortunately the little one wasn't. The little three year old starts crying before we even leave the parking lot. I felt horrible for her. I don't know if there was any prep done - if she as warned at all - and she is not a happy camper. Despite all our efforts to get her calmed down she continues to cry. I drive Elise to the airport, which is packed to the rafters, I don't know what was going on this past weekend, but holy cow, the airport was a mess. We finally find a place to park and we proceed to unload her baggage onto the curb to be checked. After I finish unloading everything that was in my van she tells me that she is missing a bag. I thought she was kidding. Oh, she's not, she left Emily's bag at the top of Joy's stairs. I finally remember that I am going to Colorado in a couple of weeks so I told her that I would use Emily's bag as one of my bags of luggage and that solved that crisis. The next crisis came when the sky cap people told Elise that she could only have two bags per checked passenger. On the way here she got three checked bags per person so they called over a manager and after much stressing they decided to let her take the bags she had. Now, keep in mind that this whole time I have been parked on the curb trying to duck the security guy and the sweet three year old that I picked up at the wedding is STILL crying. So, we finally get Elise figured out and I leave the airport. About 5 minutes into my drive I turn around to try and console the little one yet again and I see Emily's blanket on the floor behind me. Now, I know that only some of you even appreciate this but Elise would not even be able to leave Las vegas without this blanket. Emily is SO attatched to this blanket, especially since her daddy has been in Iraq. Now I am in a panic. I'm trying to call Elise to tell her that I have the blanket and going through all sorts of senerios in my head of how I'm going to get this blanket back to her, none of which are appealing to me if I can't get a hold of her on the phone. I get off the freeway to turn around and blessed day, she calls. She has realized that she doesn't have the blanket and she has come back outside of the airport so I can drop it off. With the little one still crying in the back seat I turn the car around to return the beloved blanket. After that is finished I realize that I should get these girls (and everyone else in my car) some lunch. We drive through McDonalds and get happy meals for everyone, by this time it is 2:00pm so I decide to go and sit in front of the school to wait for the big kids and these little ones can eat their lunch. Now, keep in mind that I left the house to get the car seat at 12:30pm. We have been in the car for quite some time. Right before we got to McDonalds the little one in the back seat decides that she is now good and stops crying. Halleluiah!! This day is beginning to look up. Right when we pull in front of the school and I have handed out all the lunch stuff, my previously crying three year old decides that she has to go potty NOW! I rush everyone out of the car, including Zachary who doesn't even have shoes on, and into the school so we can all use the potty. After we get back to the car I am chatting with my friend Susie in the parking lot and I hear..."Uh oh, we have an emergency. " The four year old sister has spilled her BBQ sauce all over her pants and her lunch. I race over to her side of the van and I am trying to wipe her up and cursing under my breath that I didn't ever put the seat covers back on the van. I get that as cleaned up as I can and I turn around to see that Zach has spilled his entire container of chocolate milk all over the middle seat. I am just about losing it now as I try to mop up chocolate milk with tissues as best as I can. I am pouring water and mopping up handful after handful of soggy, brown tissue from my seat. Finally the kids emerge from school and we are able to get home. Thankfully after that, apart from some serious messes we made with the preschool toys and upstairs in the boys room we had no other serious injury or crying episode. I was so ready to go to bed that night...the kids parent's finally came at about 10:30pm. They were very generous and paid me for my time. I was so glad when that day was over...so glad.

I'm impressed if you made it all the way through that story. I know that if I was a better storyteller it would be even more impressive, but oh well. At least I blogged about it, right Erin??!! Until next time....see ya!