Another Weekend in Nampa

It's kind of a pain to have to keep traveling back to Nampa for Garrett's orthodontist appointments, but it sure makes it worth it when we are able to get together with family and friends while we're there and make a weekend out of it. Last Thursday we drove down to Nampa for another appointment after the kids got out of school and Curtis got off of work. The kids didn't have school on Friday, so that's why I scheduled it then. We stayed with my in-laws this time and arrived a little after 10pm. It took us a little longer than usual since we had stopped to eat in Pendleton and that took a little while. The roads were clear and it was smooth sailing for the drive there. Garrett drove until we got to Pendleton and then he had Curtis take over. That means I sat in the back (middle) with the other kids. The girls and I watched "Beethoven" and "Beethoven's 2nd". Jack just listened to music on my phone with earbuds.

Neither Curtis or I slept very well while staying with his parents. We'll probably bring our own pillows next time because of that. The main reason I didn't get good sleep though is because of kids not sleeping well. The first night Jack woke me up around 2:30am because he had a nose bleed again and got it on their couch pillow. He needed help cleaning it off. Fortunately, blood comes out pretty easy with just cold water and a rag. After getting that cleaned up, we went back to bed. Then Charlotte comes in around 5:30 or so and says she can't sleep. I tell her to try and so she heads back upstairs. After a little while I can hear her coughing. I'm glad I brought her nebulizer just in case she needed breathing treatments, because that's what I did next. I gave her the breathing treatment and she was able to go back to sleep. 

Curtis woke up early to go to work, but thankfully Garrett's appointment was not until 10 am so I could sleep longer. My mother-in-law had an appointment at 9am but my father-in-law stayed to cook us some eggs and toast for breakfast. At Garrett's appointment they discovered that he had two broken brackets, so they needed to fix those. The good news is that he no longer needs to wear his rubber bands. Hopefully now that his brackets are fixed, the space they're trying to close will close up and he can be finished with braces. His next appointment is May 3rd but it's a school day so it will probably just be me and him for that one.

We went back to my in-laws after the appointment and watched a couple of MASH episodes before heading out to pick up some pizzas at Walmart and take them to my grandma's house to have lunch and games with Grandma, Dad, Mom Laverne, and Joyce. They provided a couple of pepperoni pizzas and some other foods, including ice cream for dessert. We bought two big pizzas even though we didn't need that much because we couldn't decided which flavor to get and it was a better deal to buy the extra large vs the medium (they didn't have any large sizes). After we ate lunch we played some Golf and this time the boys played with us....the entire time! We played for over two hours, so that's huge. They didn't ask if they could bring the videogames and I never said they couldn't. I just didn't say anything but I was SO happy they didn't bring them and that they played with us the whole time. Everyone had a good time, even Garrett was laughing and smiling. 

She never wants her hair done but that day she decided to do the same hair style as Alice. So cute!

My two pig tailed girls.

Jack had more fun than he shows for the picture. I think he's going through that phase where sometimes he just doesn't want to smile for the picture because he's a tough teenage boy.

Curtis got a ride to work that day and it would have been too much out of the way to be dropped off at grandma's, especially since we wouldn't be staying long since we had a dinner date with friends at 5:30 pm. Jack made plans to have me drop him off at his friend Porter's house on the way back. We tried to get Alice together with Sydney but they were busy and we decided to get them together the next day. So we went back to my in-laws where Curtis was waiting. We had to leave right away since it was after 5:00 and Jack asked us to drop off his jacket to him at Porter's on the way. The other kids just hung out with their grandparents until we got back.

Our dinner was with Donna and David Fitzen. We have known them ever since we moved into our first house in the same ward. They are the parents of Logan, who is a friend of Nikki's. In all these years that we've known each other, we have never been on a double date and I decided to make it happen. When I saw Donna at church back in November I told her that we needed to go on a double date one of these times that we come to town. I messaged her a couple of days before and asked if they would like to and she said it sounded great! When making our plans we decided that we would go to Holy Cow! in downtown Nampa because we had never heard of it and were up for trying something new. It's basically a burger place but it has other things too like fish and chips, which is what Curtis and I both ordered. The food was good and we had a good visit with them. I'm so glad we finally made it happen!

 

After dinner, we parted ways and headed back to my in-laws to watch the movie "Wonka". We saw it in theaters around Christmas time and we all liked it, even the boys. It was fun to watch it again and eat some goodies. I had also arranged for Garrett's friend, Ryan, to come over after his baseball game. We were able to feed him some leftover pizza for dinner, so that came in handy. Garrett, Ryan, Charlotte and Alice played some video games together for awhile before we started our movie. They played a little bit after the movie was over also.

I had another late night with Charlotte that night. She seemed fine all day but then when she goes to bed she starts having a coughing fit. I ended up having to give her a breathing treatment and read to her from the scriptures so that she could fall asleep. I didn't get to bed until after 1:00 am. The next day I was pretty tired, but Alice woke me up early because she was excited to see her friend Sydney. I took her over there at 10 am and visited with Ashlie for 1 1/2 hours before I left. Alice kept asking me if I was going to leave yet. She just wants to play with her friend without me there, ha ha. She ended up staying with them for the whole day, about 11 hours and that still wasn't enough for them. Ashlie took them to Carl's Jr. for lunch and then to a park. They had so much fun all day.

I was so tired that by the time I got back, I just sat at the table for awhile. Ricky and Jenna showed up to visit. I hadn't showered yet since we got to Nampa so I really felt like I needed it now. Curtis and all the boys and Charlotte went for a drive to the lake. I finally decided I needed to go shave and shower while I could. Pretty much after that we just visited a little bit until the boys came back. Then Ricky and Jenna were going to head back to their house and Charlotte wanted to go hang out with their kids. I told her she needed to shower before going over since it was Saturday. She quickly showered and left with them. The rest of the day was spent watching different tv shows and then later the adults watched "Quigley Down Under" while Jack was with Porter again and Garrett played videogames.  After the movie was over, we drove around picking up kids from friends' houses.

Sunday morning we went to church at 9 am with my in-laws, which was the ward we went to while we were in the rental. It was fun to see familiar faces but I was so frustrated with myself because I couldn't remember names of people! It was bugging me but finally I started remembering names during Sacrament meeting and was able to look some up on Facebook or on the program. We didn't know that they were having a Fast and Testimony meeting that day because of Easter next week and conference the following. Our ward and stake is doing our Fast Sunday on April 14th, after conference. Jack made a goal to bare his testimony each Fast Sunday this year. Because we were out of town and that we didn't even know it was Fast Sunday, I didn't think he would do it.... but he did! We were so proud of him. Those who didn't realize we were there, surely did now. In fact, a couple of people bore their testimonies after him and mentioned "young Brother Butterfield". The girls were a little nervous to go to Primary again but they went and enjoyed it. In fact, Charlotte got two big donuts from her teacher. Jack enjoyed seeing a few friends and got a picture with them on his phone. After church, we went back to eat lunch, pack, clean and head home. We got a few pictures before leaving on Gaya's phone and she sent them to me.

It was another great weekend trip and so worth the drive and extra money spent to get there (and to pay the dog sitter).