home again. life again.

Coming home after a trip to Liza's is always a reality check for me.  The kids do well, but not.  Doug does well, but not. Doug said before we went to bed, "We are glad that you got to go, we always are, but we need you, so, we're always glad when you come home."  It's true.  I realize it. We all do. The house is always clean.  Schedules are always kept.  But, things are never the same for any of them while I'm away. I always feel a certain amount of guilt because I do feel like I need to be here, but on the other hand, I am Liza's mom and Aylabelle's gram and they need me at times too.  And I want to be with them!  I guess that it's just part of the package that comes with raising two sets of kids.  No complaints, just the facts.  It is good to be needed.

So, when we woke up on Saturday morning, I was more than happy to spend the day with the kids.  Doug had to work overtime, (always a blessing) and was gone until later in the afternoon.  Zee and I made blueberry pancakes and visited all morning.

Perfect timing... Zee was downstairs doing something in her room when Carol called, so we made a quick run to Sonic for a coke.  Right as we were at the delivery window, Grace called and said that she was ready for a ride home from her Bella Retreat!  We were half way there to Smithfield!  So, we ran up to the high school and grabbed Grace.  She had a wonderful time at the retreat and was very happy to be with her mom again!  Carol dropped us off, she put her things away and we were immediately busy learning to play Tenzi together and talking about the week.

While playing Tenzi, we were playing the round where you close one eye and yell "Argh!" out loud with each roll.  ZJ came back upstairs and stared at us like we'd lost our minds.  A few minutes later, Quayd came up wondering what all the fuss was about.  We all decided to hot tub together for a while.  It was still snowing and we love hottubbing when it snows, so we had a great visit about the week together.  While in the hot tub, I was offering to make homemade pizza and the kids suggested that we all go out and use Nana's gift card to Chuckarama for dinner.

No sooner than we were out, Doug called to say that he was on his way home.  He was good with going out for dinner as a fun beginning to a family night.  It is so rare that all three kids are home on a Saturday night!  We had dinner, where the kids discovered that if you mix the vanilla icecream with blue slurpees, it tastes like Gelato.  I said, "$14 a piece and all they really wanted was slurpees?"  Oh well, Merry Christmas from Nana Ruby, they were happy!

We came home, all got our jammies on and I taught Doug how to play Tenzi while the kids were doing their thing for an hour before we all watched The Martian together, then all of the extras.  That was my "souvenier" from this trip... I always bring home something.  They were excited to see it again.  And actually, the extras are as fun as the movie. Doug and Tenzi... hmmm... he isn't competitive enough for a game like Tenzi.  I will always win.  (wink-wink)

We were in bed pretty early, 11:ish and again, it felt good to be in my own bed.  I'm glad to be home. Laundry is calling.  Church obligations are demanding.  Tax prep is screaming!  I'm dreading the early morning school runs on Monday morning. BUT, I'm GLAD to be home!  It hit me while in St. George, I really do not enjoy getting up and making that run every morning.  Life would be much easier on me if they all went to the Logan schools.  BUT, Quayd and Grace will finish up, so I have one more year with Grace and I'll be done with the early morning runs to get them to Smithfield.  But, that also means that Grace will have graduated.  I'm not ready for that either!    Times moving too quickly!

A week or two ago, on her birthday, Grace got a new smart phone.  She's been using her original phone from her fourteenth birthday which had no capabilities other than texting.  She has been so happy to have Facebook on her phone.  Her Bella teacher challenged the girls to look for the good in every day.  It's an official "happiness" challenge where they post on FB every single day their happy thought for the day.  Here was Grace's on Saturday.  I love that she's embracing family so!  Almost every day, there is some mention of family.  Not every moment is bliss, that's for certain!  Three teens in the house means that there are some days where I want to just sit down and cry.  But, for the most part, these kids value family!  That makes me happy!  This post brings tears to my eyes:

Day 11: so my mom is back!!!!!! It was so great to see her.  I love her sooooo much, and she and I had so much to talk about. Honestly nothing makes me more happy than my family being together....  so for the remainder of the day we played a game called tenzee which I seriously recommend you buy. And watched martian. Its great. But yep having my mom home makes me so happy! ‪#‎happy100days‬ ‪#‎bella

Life is good!  So are road trips with your bestie to see your daughter and her family!  So is coming home to the rest of your family and laundry and reality.