one to remember

why haven't i been blogging much? apparently life has been busy...ha! just a "real mom moment" that i have to record lest i someday forget. mike was working out of town for a couple of nights...and, of course, the morning he left our van started having issues again. in an attempt to be a helpful wife (and not stress him out while he was many miles away and unable to come to the rescue right away anyway), i decided i could manage to get the van to the shop and the four kiddos back home by myself. good idea, right!? (snicker....)

the shop is a little over a mile from our house...i figured i'd treat the kids to lunch at the pizza place nearby and then stroll on home (my plan was luke in the ergo, jilly and kate in the stroller and elizabeth walking....good plan). well, two things went wrong...#1...i realized i had to take the carseat out of the van with me (just in case i needed it in an emergency)...so he had to be a stroller rider, and i'm not proficient at getting jilly on my back in the ergo by myself yet, so that meant she had to ride...bumping kate to the status of walking. oops! #2...the pizza place had moved. add to that the fact that the entire town we live in is under construction, meaning i had to take a longer route...and the 90 degree temp, and, well, you can see where this story is going. ;)

at one point i realized we had to get across the train tracks...however, all easy paths over the tracks took us several blocks in the wrong direction...so i had to unload the stroller one kiddo at a time and CARRY the double stroller over the tracks. yep...while my four children waited on the other side of the tracks (elizabeth and kate carefully clutching jilly's hands so she didn't take off!).

it actually was really humorous.

did i mention it was 12:00 when we dropped the van off (remember, i was planning lunch immediately)....ha! so when we passed papa johns i ordered a pizza...the guy said, "its going to be 25 minutes..." and then maybe he looked more closely at my exhausted crew, and he offered to waive the delivery fee AND take 20% off and just bring it to my door as soon as he could. and to further "make amends" for the long hot walk i even popped in family video and rented "tinkerbell"...all in all, it will always make for a good story...AND we did have a fun, relaxed afternoon. (and a few more days at home without the van. :)

...might i mention that it wasn't too scarring, once daddy returned and the van was fixed the girls eagerly rode their bikes on the trip to pick the van up. (note to self...bikes and a cooler evening make for an easier trip!) :)