"Happy" 4th!

The girls and I spent our 4th of July once again with the Goodiers, Jill Terry's parents. It seems to be a tradition now that Kev will never be around for that holiday ever again. Seems to be tradition with the Scouts in our ward to sign up for this week of Scout camp-- the leaders don't have to use up as many vacation days. It's been great going to the Goodiers' house-- we get to be with friends, swim, eat really tasty meat, listen to Nancy tell stories (to where her plate full of food ends up practically untouched), and watch Kim's hubby and Russell light fireworks (hey, some were legal). Oh yeah, and there always seems to be some glamorous ordeal dealt my way. I told Jill, "I don't know what it is about your mom's house, but I always have some crazy fiasco here!"

She replied, "Maybe it's actually just because Kevin's gone-- a test to prove how strong you really are." Perhaps...

Last year I decided to bring some homemade lemonade as my contribution-- heck, lemons were all we really had on hand, actually. We pulled up to the house and I began unloading children and bags. I had placed the pitcher on the floor of the front seat, completely surrounded and held steady by bags and towels. In grabbing things out of the front seat, I completely forgot that the bags were the support-system for that pitcher. Yeah, I pulled at a bag, and watched the pitcher tip over, as I reached for it yelling, "Nooo!" I swear it was all in slow motion. The floor turned into a lake of lemonade. I rushed to the door with my children, and after a quick greeting and introduction, asked if they had any spare towels to soak up the mess. We all laughed, and Kevin (Terry) and I spent the next hour cleaning up the mess. Thankfully, the Goodiers happened to have a carpet cleaner on hand.

This year, I skipped the lemonade and cut up a cantaloupe instead. What on earth could go wrong with a cantaloupe? Nothing. And nothing did go wrong... with that. After we had all eaten, the adults sat around talking and resting before the "good" fireworks, the boys were outside messing around with the smaller ones, and the babies ran around the house looking for trouble. Allie was out on the porch, alone and minding her own business, entertaining herself with the toy space shuttle that had been sitting on the table. She's obsessed with space shuttles. I had just brought Sami into the dining room and given her a cookie, when Kevin T. walked out to the porch. Suddenly he poked his head inside.

"Uh, Krissy, can you come out here for a minute?"

"What's wrong?" I walked out, and he picked Allie up and turned her around. I gasped. Her shorts and the backs of her legs were covered in poop. She had gotten the runs, of course, while wearing underwear since she is finally potty training. Pooping in the toilet has yet to happen, though, and having diarrhea while being stuck on a porch all by herself doesn't help anything. Kevin carried her to the bathroom, placed her in the tub, and I proceeded to strip her down and wash her up. Unfortunately, she had used the spare pair of underwear in the bag, so I had to put her in (ugh) a diaper, since it was all I had. Jill had gone and fetched my bag of, well, everything for me, and tried to do all she could to help the situation. After washing Allie and rinsing out her clothes, I then had to scrub the tub clean with Soft Scrub-- you can understand why.

I'm just wondering what will be thrown at me next year while Kev's away. Actually, I don't even want to think about it. I'll deal with it when the times comes.

Oh, and to top things off, I counted eleven mosquito bites on my arms and legs from last night.