Well, I am mid volleyball season and barely have time to breathe, yet here I am typing when I should be practice planning/laundry folding/picking up toys/ wiping down dirt/ starting another load...you get the point.  Nothing like the anything-but-that frame of mind.

Wayne has headed out for his third week away.  I've been mum up to this point, not wanting to whine, nor wanting to let the world know that we females are alone with only a drooly lab to protect us.  Well, the cats too, though I'm not counting on them to help in any strategic defense.  I will warn you that I sleep with a knife nearby and my Mama Bear instincts are ferocious.  Anyhow, Wayne is in Jersey for 4-6(looks like 6 right now) weeks for training.  We both work in glass manufacturing, specifically scientific lab ware.  It's cool in a How It's Made kind of way but can be monotonous.  Opportunities to travel are very far and few between so it's great that he has this opportunity.

Not so great is that it is smack in the heart of my season, a time when typically I'm the one whose gone all the time and he feels like a single parent.  Now we both are gone and Gran and Pop are picking up the slack with some help from Aunt Tia.  Mon-Wed, almost the entire 72 hours is like a mad rush of mixed responsibilities.  Thursday and Fridays are my days off so I catch a little break there.  He gets to come home on Thursday nights arriving around 9ish and heads out early Sunday afternoon.

There are good things....hold on while I try to remember what they are...well, the girls do s.kype with him every night, a few times a night.  That has been great so they can stay connected.  Plus, we seem to put a greater effort into family time on the weekends since he is not with us the rest of the time.  And it makes Thursdays a really happy day.

All you single parents out there, I don't know how you do it and not fall over from exhaustion.  I can do it, as we all know, you do what you have to do.  But doing it alone isn't as much fun.  And Willa came down with a fever this weekend that will hopefully not, but likely will, spread to the other 2.  I got my flu shot early this year( for those of you who remember, I had the flu(swine) last year during sectional finals).  And promptly after that, started feeling the onset of a cold.  I usually pick one up once a season, but truly feel like I do not have time for it this year.

We are so busy that I really have little time to bust out the camera.   So here are some pics from our recent past that haven't had any mention as yet...

Elizabeth and Ben Leman, our dear cousins from Virginia, came up for a brief visit to take some furniture back with Elizabeth who will be living off-campus this year.  Whatever the reason, we were happy to see them:)

We went to a good friends 2 yr. old birthday party where these cupcakes were served in leu of cake.  How cool are they?!?!

And I snapped this lovely pic of my eldest lovely there too.  Something about the lighting and her simple smile makes me love, love, love it.  She's looking a little less little girl by the day, though still able to fit into her sneakers she wore last Fall, but they're tight:)

Country Fun

I grew up in the suburbs.  It's what I know.  I have a strict 'Thou-Shalt-Not-Live-More-Than-15-Minutes-Away-From-Wegmans' Policy.(For you non-locals, Wegmans is the best supermarket ever)

But every once in a while, it is so very good to venture out into the country.  In this case it was Perry, NY for an End of Summer party hosted by some friends we met while camping at Yogi Bear earlier this Summer.  The girls were running from the time we got there till we dragged them into the car after dark.  It was about an hour drive and 30 minutes in they both started pointing out everything that meant we were getting close; the 'blue things'(that would be the distant hill according to Willa), the cows, the goats, the horses, the barns.  Just about everything was pointed out and noted as a sign of nearing our destination.  To say they were excited was an understatement.

Space.  That is the one thing that the country has over my my lovely close-to-Wegmans existence.  The house was situated on a lovely hill, surrounded by fields.  The two little girls in residence there, were the owners of some super fun things that the girls LOVED!

Starting with this John Deer kid mover.  Oh the fun they had motoring all over the yard.  Although, you'd have to remind Willa often to look where she was driving, as the spectator in her tended to look around instead of where she was driving.

They also had chickens!  Something I've been trying to convince Wayne we could have for about a year now.  He has repeatedly shot down my suggestion.  On our drive out, I saw a farm that had coops for sale, they looked nice but Wayne wouldn't stop so I could take a closer look:(  The chicken were very entertaining, almost like a drive-in theatre.

And speaking of chicken, our hosts made the best chicken  ever.  I may have to resort to bribery in order to get the recipe.

Also, there was a trampoline.  I swear they jumped for over an hour!  And they weren't the only ones!

The evening was finished off with glow sticks, hide-and-glow-seek, a campfire, and small scale fireworks(technically illegal but hey, it's the country!)  What a fun day, although judging from the meltdowns this morning, we still have a few tired little ones.

1st Day of School

Off they went, fearless and happy, ready to take on 2nd grade and Kindergarten, respectively.  They each had a great first day but Wayne and I were reminded quickly of how painful the first week or so of school is.  Oh they are happy enough to go and enjoy it but really melt down quickly at home until their bodies adjust to the new schedule.  I had 4 melt downs this morning over silly things(like who got to hold a pencil at the breakfast table.  seriously.  a. pencil. at. breakfast.  No one even had any paper to write on!) and Wayne enjoyed some with them last night too.  Oh well, a small price to pay for the enjoyment of learning at school.

This morning was my first day off with the both of them gone and it took about 2 minutes to really relish the difference of having only 1 child instead of 2 home.  I got so much done!!  Here's hoping that the new schedule will produce a cleaner more organized house and some nice home-cooked meals, even in volleyball season!

Tonight we are participating in Light the Night, a fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  So after a shortish practice, most of our volleyball girls will be heading out to walk in honor of our Varsity Assistant, Rick Andre, who is currently battling(successfully) lymphoma.  Our whole family is going so we'll see how 2 very tired girls do...

Mealtime!

We've been enjoying having Ady sitting at the table with us, ditching the high chair altogether for a booster seat instead.  One less thing.

But it has provided some serious entertainment during our meal-taking. If you can, try and imagine slurpy corn sucking noises accompanying the above pics.

And ice cream is so very good, we have to make sure we get every 

last 

drop...

And sometimes the day just wears us out and sleep wins out over food...

Survival in a Blur

We are ...surviving.  I, myself, feel like I'm doing quite well.  There is something about being very busy that appeals to me.  It gives me adrenaline.   Since Wayne is in the mostly childcare roll right now, I'm sure he feels differently.  But I love volleyball and love teaching it, and yes, even loving the facilities this school has(HUGE).  It is an adjustment.  There is a bit more bureaucracy but in all, it is a positive experience and I'm finding the better facilities are letting us do bigger things.  Bigger is definitely better.

Of course, then now would be a great time for our fridge to stop working.  Discovered one night while icing my shoulder after practice and noted that the ice was wet and melty.  Just what we needed.  So off to appliance store.  Spent and hour and a half looking at fridges while the 3 girls ran around the store opening everything they could.  Kids love appliance stores and were for the most part, well behaved.  Had fridge delivered only to find that our oldish home could fit the beast but not enough to allow us to open the door.  The bottom door part would rub on the baseboard/heat vent as it opened and we could not open it all the way.  After hemming and hawing and another trip to the appliance store, we decided to keep the big beauty for its' extra 4 cu.ft. of space.  Wayne cut the cabinets to give us the extra 3/4 inch we needed and the world continued to turn, just without 5 coolers in my kitchen:)  Nothing is ever easy.

Monday this week I had my volleyball girls come over after practice for dinner and some t-shirt decorating.  A fun, loud group as any group of 14 adolescents would be.  There was much texting(I'll have to consider electronic rules) and giggles.  For any out-of-towners, we are in a bit of a heat wave.  90's all week.  The gym has been HOT!  And so it seemed a perfect night to build a campfire, and make s'mores.  Well, at least it's a memory they won't soon forget.  S'mores in 92 degree weather.  yum.

We made a pasta sauce, each member of the team dropping an ingredient into the pot.  Lots of individual ingredients combined to make a very tasty sauce.  Very much like the way a team functions.  So many different personalities combining to make something special.

We are managing, though the days feel like a blur sometimes.  Tonight is our first game so I will get a better idea of what they know and don't know, or I will see a lot of deer in the headlights:)  Like any coach, I wish my practices were an hour longer.  Wayne does not carry that same wish so we settle for 2 1/2 hrs. long.  I can't imagine what it will be like when Wayne leaves for Jersey, I'm really trying not to think of it.  For now, all is well, just very very busy!