It’s Friday!

[mommyatty]

Today is DD’s 13th birthday. She had her dress rehearsal for her theater camp today. This weekend is all about the theater. Tonight we are going out to dinner for her birthday. Tomorrow she’s going to see the other cast in their play, then the cast party, then her first performance that all of her family and friends are attending. Sunday she has a matinee performance. I have two tickets for that one.

[sdlaura]

I’ve been mostly checked out this week because it’s the last day of our dude ranch vacation. It’s been pretty incredible, but now it’s time to pay the bill and I’m having sticker shock (it has been a good value in terms of what we got in horse riding, food, childcare, entertainment etc, but still an very high absolute number). For some reason I thought the deposit I put down was 50% instead of 35% not including taxes and 18% service charge.

Anyway - We fly home tomorrow from Denver and then don’t have any more family trips until late October - and I’m looking forward to being home and saving some money.

My 13-year-old nephew is flying cross country today to CA because he thought it was cool that my daughter did that last month on her own. My parents will have him for the week until my sister and her two other kids fly in next Saturday. Sunday we all go to a Padres game and DS1 has a basketball game. Then I head to a conference next Monday-Wednesday in Park City. Not great juxtaposition with this vacation but then no more work travel for a few weeks.

[dglvrk2]

mommyatty,Happy Birthday to your DD!
sdlaura,A good friend of mine lives in Park City and really enjoys the summers there. (Less crazy than during ski season, she says.)

This weekend will be nice. We are having a few neighbors over for dinner momentarily. They're early to bed people, so it will be an easy night. Both DDs had fantastic but exhausting camps this week. I can already see the grumpiness in DD2 and DD1 needs her alone time for preventative (grumpy) maintenance. H and are are doing a lengthy mountain bike ride/fundraiser tomorrow and leaving the kids home to rest and hopefully not be grouchy with each other. Tomorrow we will go to dinner with my parents and nephews. There may be a difficult conversation about my sister's upcoming celebration of life....I'm already just trying to calm myself. On Sunday, I'll drop DD1 off at a week-long (overnight) music camp, which is about 90 minutes from our house. I'm already looking forward to the quiet house and some QT with DD2, who enjoys only child status whenever she gets it!

[rere]

We took my mom's boyfriend out to dinner tonight. Ds wanted to see him before he left Monday.

Our not so neat neighbor is throwing himself a 40th birthday party tomorrow night. Hes calling it his name poluza. Complete with food trucks, bands, a Facebook page. Hes created a field party setting, put up lights, stage, porta pots. It sounds interesting, so the entire family plus Dss best friend and 2 of Dds roommate are heading over. I'm anticipating them all I'm my basement tomorrow night.

Hopefully Sunday we will cook some steaks for Ds before he heads back to base. 1 more month until he starts school only 4 hours away.

[twinmomma]

We have a very busy weekend in the works.
DH’s family is doing a family reunion weekend. Last night was the kick off dinner at MIL’s. I had to rush straight from that to go see a musical with all the kids since we bought tickets way before we knew about the family reunion. We didn’t get home until after midnight!

Today is more family reunion activities in the city. But DH and I have already established we want to be home by 7 at the latest so we can chill at home before bed. And then tomorrow is the final family reunion event, which is brunch at DH’s restaurant.

We’ve got family from Scotland and China staying with us throughout all this. DH and I are just helping make all the foreign kids’ dreams come true with American snack foods haha Sugary cereals, Cheetos, all kinds of fun stuff they can’t get at home. We are leaning heavily into the cool aunt and uncle vibe lol It’s exhausting, but so fun to see all the kids get to hang out and learn from each other.

[mommyatty]

twinmomma- a tip… don’t get them Hershey’s chocolate if they have grown up elsewhere. My friends who didn’t grow up here and their kids all say it has an aftertaste that’s like vomit if you didn’t grow up eating it. But one of my BFF’s has two daughters who absolutely love to taste test the billion Oreo flavors when they come visit. It’s a big highlight of their trip to buy all the new flavors to taste and rate.

[sdlaura]

dglvrk2 yes park city is really nice in the summer! We went once on vacation when DD was little, and I went to this same conference last year. The conference is in deer valley and it’s a great hotel but not ideal for seeing the rest of park city. My coworker/BFF (who was also at the dude ranch with me) and I who are both going to the confeneve also have a mutual friend who is temporarily living in park city and just had her first baby at 43, so hopefully we can see her too while we’re in town.

mommyatty My kids love Hershey park and the chocolate, but I did grow up close to there!

[k3am]

DD has been with her cousin for almost a week. It’s very, very weird. I’ve taken the opportunity to go through her room and organize and purge and it’s been nice. She’s having a great time but developed a mystery brown spot on her forehead, that’s making her self conscious and sad. Her aunt misinterpreted it as homesickness and offered to fly her home early, at which point DD thought they hated her and wanted her to leave.. which couldn’t be further from the truth! Thankfully the emotional side has been rectified. Hopefully whatever it is it starts healing..

We just finished up our first champs for DS’s swim and my goodness was it a lot. But it’s done and he improved his times in all events, won two of his heats, and got second in the third. He is solidly at the top of the worst swimmers 🤣 but that’s not too shabby for a kid who didn’t know a stroke until April.

And now, we shower off layers of sunscreen and try to rest. I used to think ice skating was hard because of early mornings, but swim is early mornings (not as bad as skating!), full days in the sun, and gobs of unhealthy food. DS’s team likes to say that they may not win in points but they win in spirit and it’s totally true.

[vasc]

My DD turned 12 on Tuesday and today was her friend birthday party at our pool. My ILs are here for the weekend to participate in the party. It’s her 9th year in a row having a pool party and we’ve basically got the hosting down to a science.

DS(8) is being a jealous PITA about not getting any gifts or attention himself.

[186momx]

I took a 3hr nap today and no one bothered me! My sister called me last night just before 10 asking if I was okay and was evacuating. She gets alerts for emergency incidents on her phone and my neighbors called in a vegetation fire. Cue me scrambling out of bed and investigating. Firetruck did come but no sirens. No burn out area this morning but between being woken up and then not being able to fall back asleep, I was tired. These are not nice neighbors so we won't ever find out what actually.

[mommyatty]

sdlaura- I love Hershey’s chocolate too. I was very surprised when a friend from Scotland described the aftertaste as “having sick in your mouth.” And a bunch of friends from Europe all went “Yes, exactly!”