A Busy Weekend!

The Sharon Mennonite Softball Tournament in Dublin, Ohio takes place every year over Labor Day weekend. Mike jokes that he has to play in it to renew his Mennonite Card. The truth is, it's just a lot of fun, watching softball and visiting with people. This year I had a tough choice to make. I knew it would be a hard year to take the kids down. On Saturday Mike plays 4 games all spread throughout the day and Sunday has a minimum of two games and if you win them you keep playing on Monday. Corban, Sydney and Jared are at a wonderful age where around home I feel like we have a lot more freedom to do things that we haven't easily done in a long time. However, they are at a tough age to keep them busy all day with little to no help and nothing familiar around. None of them would be content sitting in a stroller for more than 5 minutes and I can't take 3 little kids swimming all by myself. There is plenty to do but I would have been absolutely worn out and a worn out mom is generally a grumpy mom and a grumpy mom usually leads to a grumpy family. We would have loved to go down with Mike but I decided that for this year at least, we would stay home. So, I planned to keep us busy to help the time fly by. Saturday was pretty normal day. We got grocery shopping done in the morning and the kids were really well behaved. Then we even got nap/quiet time in during the afternoon. I had promised to take the kids to the Hartville Kitchen but I forgot it was a holiday weekend and that place was packed! At Corban's suggestion we ended up at the Lake Varsity Diner, a little restaurant that we love. Jared didn't eat much and Sydney was her usual self (which means everyone else in the restaurant knew her every thought), but I had a really good time with the kids. Sunday I managed to get us all up and to church on time! After church my friend Jamie came over and we took the kids to the zoo.

I had so much fun this time at the zoo! This is a smaller zoo which means it is much easier to get through it and it is generally less crowded. We brought the wagon (which Jamie was nice enough to pull all through the zoo for me) and the kids hardly sat in it. However, unlike what would have been the case a year ago, the kids did a wonderful job staying fairly close to each other and to Jamie and me. It was so fun to see all 3 kids really enjoying the zoo! I can't wait to take them back again! Which is not generally the way I feel after we spend the day at the zoo, LOL.

My little penguins

Jamie sitting with Corban, Sydney and Jared. Jamie helps me all the time with the kids and they absolutely adore her. She's one of the few grown-ups they ask for when she's not around.
Sydney thought she'd give Jamie a break from pulling the wagon.

I always get a picture of Corban in front of these bears. It is fun to look back and see how he's grown and how he poses differently each year.

Mike came home on Monday at lunchtime and I ended up falling asleep on the couch! We really missed Mike, but I think we all had a wonderful, very memorable holiday weekend!