My stud of a brother, Sean, just returned from his two year mission in Korea last week.  He is reporting in church on Sunday, so our lil’ family has made the trek to the OC to welcome him home and enjoy he and the whole fam being together again.

Having just arrived home from Bear Lake Wednesday afternoon and needing to leave again Thursday nite was quite the challenge with the 3 lil’ kiddos.  After helping me get the youngest two down for naps, the designer returned to work, and I began the unpacking and laundry.  The builder was not about to take a nap, so he started helping me with the laundry…this was so sweet of him, but it also meant a longer process for me.  Somehow we got a few loads done…

Our whole ride home that morning, the builder had asked to not go home, but go directly to Grandma’s house.  So after dinner we went over, helped pick beans from the garden, and let the kiddos play a bit.  The designerhad a nite meeting, and Grandma offered to watch the builder while I took the younger two home for bed.  A couple hours later I still didn’t have the grower to sleep when Grandma brought home the builder…so naturally, I hadn’t gotten much accomplished.

But I was too tired, so when the designer arrived and helped me get the grower to sleep (finally), all I wanted to do was go to bed.

Bad idea.  It was very hard to pack while the kiddos were making more messes.  Grandma had offered to help with packing, so after a few hours, I gave up and called Grandma for help.  While we were waiting her arrival, the grower fell asleep but woke as soon as Grandma took the older two.  With 20 minutes of solid concentration (he finally fell asleep 20 minutes before  noon), I went to pick up the kiddos at grandma’s.  The saint that she is, she offered to keep the builder a bit longer because we knew he would be too much help. 

After 3 more hours of little progress, and no naps for the two kiddos at home with me, I called in tears to the designer and asked for help.  Somehow we managed to get things packed up and out the door.   As we got in, he asked if we had everything…”i hope so,” I replied.  Of course I realized that I had only packed half of his underwear as we were driving to Grandma’s…..

(Will my pre-pregnancy brain ever come back?)

There were a few other bumps in the road: a closed auto service center, a busy jiffy lube, etc.  but we made it to Vegas and my sister’s place, safe and all three kiddos asleep!

Along the way, we listened to a LOT of Signing Time cd’s.  The dancer loves the theme song, and she and her older brother enjoy the colors songs, ABC’s, and I’m really good at…  Who knew we could make it several days of road tripping without a dvd player.  It’s been a lot of fun though, having the kiddos enjoy singing and signing together. 

This morning we went to a park in Vegas that had been in the design process when the designer & i worked for Marriotti Landscape Architecture.  We all enjoyed the park and it’s amazing design.  It was installed a few years ago, but we hadn’t been and it was great to see how much the plants had already matured.

Soon we found ourselves swimming with the kiddos in the Caesar’s Palace pool.  They had a blast, and after wearing them out fully, and seeing an old roomie (luv you Janelle), we were on the road again.  Sleeping most the way, and a bit more signing time music, we arrived in Yorba Linda, greeted Seanna, and were able to watch the opening ceremonies for the Olympics with our recently Asian returnee.  Soo worth the madness the past couple days!