Memoriable

"Memoriable": Something memorable that happens on Memorial Day. Jodi made up this word (accidentally) a couple of Memorial Days ago.

Here are some of our memoriable experiences from this year:

Saturday we got a phone call informing us that some Star Wars characters were visiting Costco. Darin took the older kids while I stayed home and nested and David napped.

Sunday we had Darin's mom over for dinner and we asked her to share some childhood memories with us. We laughed a lot and learned a lot of neat facts about Grandma. After dinner we went to my parents' house and played games. Then we talked about memories from our childhood and learned a few new facts about my parents.

Monday morning came earlier than we were ready for, but we eventually got everyone up and dressed to go hiking. (Darin went to wake Sean up and said, "It's time to wake up. Are you ready to go hiking, Buddy?" Sean sat up and said, "yeah" then his head hit the pillow again and he said, "Actually not so much.") Darin drove us to meet up with my family (he was still nursing an injured calf muscle so he took his mom to buy flowers for family grave sites while we were gone) and we started the journey to Bridal Veil Falls. The weather was gorgeous!!! It was such a beautiful walk. Here's the group before we set off:

We all made it to the falls (although I was REALLY feeling it the next day--it was still worth it)
Darin came to pick us up and we went with his mom to the cemetery to put flowers on some family graves.

Darin's mom joined us for my family barbecue in Alpine. We had fun eating and visiting, singing Happy Birthday to Michelle, and witnessing frosting wars between the teenagers. We were also reacquainted with Timmy. He is a CPR dummy that has been part of the family for several years and he freaks me out every time I see him. He is normally fully dressed and propped up in a human looking position. This was David's first time meeting him, and he wasn't quite sure about him. Rylee took him to see him and David grabbed on to Rylee's shirt for dear life. Timmy was moved to the trampoline and was the subject in many photos. Here he is sunbathing in a speedo and socks with the other bathing beauties:
And here is Timmy and Kamryn's engagement picture:
After the barbecue we headed to the swimming pool. The kids had a blast (well, most of them)! It felt nice to be in the water and let my muscles feel some relief from the walk earlier in the day. David absolutely hated the kid area with the falling water. He especially hated the giant bucket of water that tipped out, so we stayed far away. It took several "dumpings" for me to assure him that the water couldn't hit us from where we were. Every time the buzzer would go off indicating the bucket was about to tip, he ran to me and held on.

I think he must have some devastating memory about gushing water. He absolutely detests the car wash, too. Right before we left I went with him to the slide in the kid's area to try and help him get past his fears. I quickly realized that there was no way I would fit in the slide with him, so Rylee went to the bottom of the slide to catch him. Right then the pool check bell went off, and I had to act quickly...so showing my stellar parenting skills, I basically shoved him down the slide to Rylee, screaming the whole way. I had an immediate flashback to A Christmas Story, and could see the whole scene from David's point of view. I was Santa, shoving him down the tube yelling, "HO, HO, HO" and he was the wide-eyed boy. Basically, I'm an awesome mom, and it took me a good ten minutes to calm him down. He kept saying, "That was scary" and sobbing. I felt about this big (my fingers are very close together). When we left, he fell asleep in the van after eating a laffy taffy. After his nap he woke up and I put him in the tub (still very worried that I had made his fear of water even worse) and I talked to him again about the slide incident. He smiled and said, "You're not a mean mom". It was as if the angels put the very words in his mouth I needed to hear. If only I could be so quick to forgive. I guess I needed to get that out. Here are some photos of the other kids.

Apparently an entire day with cousins wasn't quite enough, so when my kids found out that Jodi's family was going to eat Chinese food they invited themselves (and Darin & I) to join them. We had a yummy dinner, then showered, got into pajamas and enjoyed a very relaxing evening after a very long day. It was memoriable, indeed!