Labor Day....

Means summer is ending, and school is starting...

As you may know by now.. I LOVE summer... and I HATE winter. Labor Day always sort of signifies the end of summer. Even tho in Oregon, we can have decent to great weather until October 1st. It is still basically the sign of dark times to come.

On Saturday I had decided to head across the mountain, to go to Central Oregon where my dad and step mom live. We really dont get to see him that much and when I find a pocket of time to escape the valley, I do. Labor Day was that chance for me and the boys.

So after working all day Friday, we packed up early Saturday and set our sails east!

I am pretty systematic about when and how I drive longer distances. I generally plan them around a meal. So that way when we depart town, we grab something on the way. This means a good 30 min of the children eating, or complaining about eating. Either way, they are occupied.

In this particulr case, we left around 10:30, and grabbed an early lunch at 11 am. My boys are 7 and 9, but they still nap. Yes I know I am lucky. But I sleep trained them early, and in particular, for car rides. I created a song play list of Jack Johnson songs for my pregnancy, L&D with Brady, and then for EVERY car ride. That carried over to Jax. So, when that playlist begins, it pretty much lulls them both to sleep.

After they have slept they can play on their Kindles. Even after one or the other wakes up.. they usually spend 15-30 min, taking in the sights. Basically the boys are well behaved and relatively quiet from Salem till Sisters. Sometimes even longer, if I am extra lucky. At that point we have just over an hour of a drive, so they can manage on their Kindles for that time.

We arrived at my fathers house around 3 pm. After hanging out a short bit and getting all my items inside, I insisted on going to the store. I do not expect anyone to accomedate mine diet or my childrens. So, I like to go buy some of their favorites for easy snacking, and beverage enjoyment. Mostly self service items, which keeps the overly oblidging grandparents out of the kitchen trying to give in to every whim.

We picked up a pizza after the store, had great conversation and got back to the house to find a few friends out back.

Lindie (stepmom) came home from work not too long after we got home, and from that point the evening was TV watching, and conversations. The boys were happy to hang out and do their own thing. Yet again a reminder that they are not spawns of the devil.

I had asked them to get ready for bed, and Brady had asked if he could read to Jaxson. I said sure... and he also knows this buys him some time from going to bed right away. However, it is certainly something I can work with.

Precious moments like the one below, make it all worth while.

Lindie works for Sunriver, at one of the Real Estate offices and over sees the vacation rentals. Therefore she was busy over Labor Day weekend working. The upside was the one on one time I was able to get with my father.

He knows me well, and knew that Saturday I would want to go shopping. I shop.. that is what I do. But I really have a hard time saying no to the Factory Outlets.

Because we had not seen them since just after Christmas, my dad had missed both of the boys birthdays. This isnt uncommon, so when ever he sees us, they always takes

them shopping and lets them spend money on whatever they want.

This is a special time for them with him and I know it brings him a lot of joy to relive those moments, when he did that for me and my brother.

Anyway.. try as I might... I was not in the shopping groove. I had recently hit the Factory Outlets with my faux daughter, and bought pretty much everything the boys needed. I managed to find a great designer handbag on sale.. but outside of that.. I just wasnt in the groove.

The problem was, my dad had plans on getting take out and bringing it home for dinner. Well, we had reached town. I took my dad out to lunch and then off to shop. I think we ate at 1ish.. and left to go shop around 2ish. By 2:45, I was done at the outlets. We needed to burn time, and I am good at burning money. So there was a Ross near by.. I went in and attempted to find things to spend money on. I was mostly a failure at this. I grabbed a few things.. but again. Just wasnt feeling it.

We sat in the truck for awhile, and I finally said.... isnt there a park near by? Lets go take the boys to play for like an hour... and so we set off to find a park. We stumpled across one in the Reed's Market area, and set the boys free!

Finally it was time to grab take out and head back home to have dinner with Lindie.

Lindie didnt have to work on Monday, and typically one of the nights while I am there... she will stay up late with me. We can stay up till 4 am just chatting about everything under the moon. But I figured we would sweeten the deal this time and do some facial peels and facial applicator masks.

One of the perks of being a distributor, is always having product on hand!

I wish I could say we were drinking, but that was not the case. We just have a good time together and so our attempt to capture a picture looking like crazy people.. we could not control our laugher. We ended up with this.. and really.. we look horrible. Horribly funny, but horrible.

Anyway, per our usual.. we stayed up till the wee hours of the morning, doing what we do best.. talk.

I feel pretty fortunate to be able to get along with my stepmom. More importanlty, get along with her well enough to sit and just talk for hours upon hours. Its like talking to a friend.

Monday came far too fast.

Just as my systematic departure to my dads, I am equally as planned out and scheduled to leave. Again leaving around lunch time. I knew the traffic would likely be shit, no matter which way you sliced it. So it didnt matter what time I left... it was going to be hell.

Thankfully the boys didnt have school the next day, but they did the day following that. That meant, not only did I have work Tuesday, I had to take them to work with me.. plus get everything ready to start school. We were mostly ready. it was the matter of washing jeans.. so they would shrink a bit to fit their skinny little asses.

While their year starts to ramp up with school, my work season starts to dwindle down... just like summer.