Stay-Cay-Day-Tres (that's a silent "s" in Spanish ;)

I suppose it could be four, but it was our third day off together in a row, so we'll stick with my fun, catchy title (hee hee :)

SO that toy I bought the gerbil? It was a complex system of tiny, colorful sticks held together with tiny, colorful pegs inside of which a wooden ball was enclosed. If you think of those plastic toy balls that shrink down really small, but can expand up to an exercise ball size--you'll kind of have a picture of what it looked like. Graysen dropped the toy in the cage for Gandalf to play with--30 minutes later the critter had COMPETELY disassembled the entire thing and had buried the pieces in his cage. This furry guy is seriously high energy, constantly trying to dig his way out, chewing on his water bottle's plastic lid . . . things that make you go, hmmm?

We did some reading (ahem, after the fact) and learned that gerbils are meant to live in glass aquariums, in wooden houses, with no plastic to be found in their cages. Drat. Yes, you know what that means!!! Ugh!


First we sat the boys down and explained how we hadn't done a very good job providing the kind of home our gerbil needed. We gave them the option of taking him back and swapping him for some of the (freaking adorable) little dwarf hamsters we'd had our eye on (I think this is what Buck wants for Valentine's Day :) For awhile, they were willing to make the switch. Then I reminded them, that we'd made a commitment to take care of this new animal. We probably hadn't prepared as well as we should have, but that was our mistake, not his. Is it right to quit on something you made a promised to because it isn't working out the way you planned?

They decided, no, they should take care of their new (high-energy) pet. Well, sometimes our mistakes cost us something . . . in this case about $60 to completely re-gear the critter and provide him a new home (you realize that this means we once again have an EMPTY cage in our house . . . augh!! :) So, three of the four pitched in money and Buck and I covered the rest. Brennen tried to reassemble the toy Gandalf made quick work of, and we built a shelf into the giant block stand where the hamster is now housed. Musical cages, these critters are playing :)

After all that got settled (Gandalf seems much happier now) and the other cages were cleaned (our new Saturday chore--by *our,* I mean the children :), Buck rounded up all the target practice gear and to the backyard we went. Graysen has been asking to use the bb gun for weeks (he's wanting to practice calling in squirrels with his squirrel call from Christmas, so he can hunt them with the bb gun). Buck recently purchased a new bow for Caelan and Gabby, since the other bow seems to have shrunk since we received it ;) They tried that out with the bright pink arrows first, then moved on to the bb gun targets (which I think looked like Elmo, lol!)

Around three o'clock, the girls' friend Elaine came over to stay the night. They've been planning this baking/neighbor blessing party for WEEKS! The funny thing was, when she arrived, the neighbor kids were out playing in our cul-de-sac, so they all came in too, to meet Gandalf. Our kid population doubled in about five minutes and I told Buck, "We're being invaded!" He said, "I know," and pulled the blanket over his head on the couch :)

Because we have three ovens, the girls decided our house was the best place to bake the five different varieties of cupcakes, shortbread, and treats they have been dreaming about. I'm sure 500 texts have been exchanged on ingredient lists, craft supplies (they also made treasure bottles with treats and encouraging notes in them), and rock painting materials. They got right to work! And--they were very good about including the boys. Brennen was in charge of keeping the phone lit up to read the recipes from Pintrest while the girls were getting everything mixed and the ovens heated. Graysen was reading a book, but he later helped with the decorating, I'm told :)

Buck and I snuck in before five and put together dinner for the kids. We had made plans for our Valentine date, and okayed it with Elaine's mom for the girls to be home alone, keeping an eye on the boys. She was fine with it, so Buck and I left around 5, planning to get dinner before our painting class. Ugh. I guess everyone in town decided they wanted to eat at the same time as us. The first restaurant (which didn't take reservations) had a 40 minute wait; we walked next door--lines so long we could barely get in, so we drove to the sushi place Buck has been wanting to try. I was worried about this, given the kids were home and if he had any issues with shellfish exposure, we'd be in emergency status with a guest over and it just seemed too iffy.

Well, we were seated almost right away, and then we waited and waited. Got some soup (it was not very good) and waited. We were hungry. So at 6:12 our waitress said it would be another 20 minutes. Our painting class was at 6:30. It was a 15 minute drive away. So we left. Still hungry. I was so disappointed and frustrated; I was not a good Valentine's date (in tears). We'd gone to that side of town because it's the only place we can pull cash without a million dollars in fees, and we didn't even have time to get that accomplished!

So, we drove to the painting shop. We were the only ones there, besides the instructor. She said there was just one other couple and they were running late. She was friendly and upbeat, so I told her about our evening thus far. She said, "Just order from next door! They have amazing food. You can eat it while you paint." My mood immediately shifted. I was picturing us having cereal at 9:30 PM in a house full of kids who'd been baking for hours . . . nope, a quiet dinner, just the two (three, if you count the paint lady) of us. Buck ordered fish and chips, I ordered a Reuben, and she was right--it was delicious!

Our nearly complete backgrounds

Our very black trees

Our surprisingly cute final product!

The other couple eventually showed up--by then we'd just painted our background. It turned out we didn't have enough paint to saturate the canvas, so we ended up repainting our background and were right on track with the other couple. Then we had to paint our background again, because the second round looked really splotchy.
The paint lady gave us a huge puddle of glitter-teal paint, and that fixed us right up!

We spent the next two hours painting happy little trees, pretty pink petals, and a carved heart that meets in the middle. What started as a very emotionally challenging night out, ended up a nice time together, trying something new and different.

When we arrived home--the kids had cleaned up! The dishwasher was running, the baking sheets were in the sink, plates of goodies were lined up on the counter, the root beer bottles we've been saving for weeks were all decorated and stuffed with treats--wow! Everyone was happy, everyone did well; my internal turmoil at leaving them home (which contributed to the stress of the earlier evening) will hopefully eventually fade.

They all headed to bed and we returned Elaine and a whole lot of goodies to her parents at church this morning. Now the boys are playing football with the neighbor kids in the backyard, and I'm catching up on the blog. Not a bad week for our crew :)