long post for a long weekend

I haven't posted in 2 weeks. I should go back and date things correctly, but to be honest, I rarely know what day it is. I'm pretty sure that's why Ava makes several attempts on Sundays to convince me that she CAN and IS going to go swimming and to the mall and to the store-all of which, we don't do on Sundays.
I'll go back as far as I can remember--which isn't that far.
Wednesday...or was that Thursday...the 1st, whatever day that was...Wednesday, was Caydon's 10th birthday. HOLY COW! I can't believe he's 10. We went to the Junction to see Ice-Age 3-D as a family to celebrate. Ava sat through most of it--but wanted nothing to do with the cool glasses. I can't really blame her, they give ya a bit of a headache. Simon did really well also. After, we went to Pizza Factory, where Chris and I ordered a dish to share. We got a shrimp pasta dish...yeah the fish was spoiled. I've never tasted anything so disgusting in my whole life. I am officially a Pizza Factory hater. I was up all night with food poisoning. I took the time I had, awake, and unable to sleep to organize my toy room, clean my kitchen floor and go on an ant killing spree. I haven't seen many since. woo hoo! I honestly didn't sleep at all. My kids got up about 6:30 am. Chris went to work, but came home early about 1pm. This was in hopes that he could watch the kids and I could sleep. So I got permission from the boss to take off early, and about 20 minutes later the Xmission connection to inwest crashed and Chris had to go back to work. Sleep was just not in the cards. I have to say for being up so long, I functioned rather well. I finally crashed at 5:30 and slept until 8. I helped get the kids back to bed and hit the sack again.
Friday. 3rd. We had a great, long, adventure day. Ava woke us up about 8:30 and we began packing for the zoo and family camp out. Ever year, we do a back-yard camp out at my folks home. We hit up the zoo about 11:30. Our plan was to get there at 9, ha-ha-ha. It was a VERY hot day. We totally misunderstood my mom's bragging about their strollers at hogle, and thus did not pack one. BIG MISTAKE. This led to me pushing Ava in their stroller, and Chris carrying Simon in a snuggie front carrier thing. It was very hot. very crowded. and not my idea of a good time. The zoo is totally a under 80 degree day place. We stayed for about an hour. Saw the leopards, elephants, rhinos, monkeys, camels, giraffes, bears and some birds. We then drove out to my mom's neck of the woods and met up with them at their community pool. This is the one that was built for the Olympics so it's super rad. Ava loved it! We stayed until like 5:30 swimming and playing. Then we headed to the folks home for hamburgers, hot dogs, and a contest of who could stay up long enough for fireworks. We were all too tired to really enjoy them, but we set them off anyway to Ava saying "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH DO ANOTHER ONE!" The tent...yes...it was a bit cold for my expectations, and windy! I'm not a big camper. I like camping, until I'm actually camping. Ava snuggled up to KK and Simon slept all night. I was up every couple hours shivering. Covering Ava-as she INSISTED on kicking her blankets off. Ava was up at a bright and early 6am. I took Simon and her inside and fed Simon. I then passed out until Chris practically carried me into the dining room for breakfast about 9:30. We took Ava to copperton park around 11:30 to play and stayed for about an hour--then we packed up and headed back north.
4th. party in hooper. We were one party filled family. We went out to hooper about 3:30 for more swimming and partying. Ava was in HEAVEN this weekend. She wore me out big time. We had FABULOUS food and company. :) I love the get togethers. Leah made this amazing american flag cheese cake. It was lovely and tastey. I was ready for bed at 7:30, but we stayed until about 9. Ava fell asleep about 2 minutes after we strapped her into her car seat. We hadn't even finished loading our stuff in the car, and she was snoring.
5th. After such a long weekend, I was not really wanting to go to our 9am church meeting. I had every intention of sleeping in. Heavenly Father, however, had other ideas, and for the first time in ages, Ava was up early on a Sunday. See, usually, Ava wakes up between oooh 6:30 and 8:30 on a weekday, but Sundays we are usually waking her up at 8:45 running to church--she's slept in until 10 before on a Sunday. this Sunday however, she walked into our room about 8:15 with a bright smile saying LET'S GO TO CHURCH!!! Look, there's daddys' suit. Ooooooooooooh kids! So, up we were and we got to church for great meetings. I loved the lessons and obviously, really needed them. Thanks Ava for being a great example to us! We took family nap about 2:30-5:30. I love family nap. Mostly because I get to nap in silence. Then we went out to see Dave and Sandi. We had party left overs, played barbie, trolls, watched Ariel and How to Catch a Theif with Kerry Grant. Good times all around. I was exhausted at 10:30 when I put Simon to bed, but once I laid him down became restless. It's now almost 1am. Well there's a run down of recent events. I'll post some fun pictures we got this weekend at another date.
-side note-
JoJo aka Joanna Neeley is getting sealed August 14th in DC. I really want to go. Chris has said. ok. lets go. the whole family. now, I'm scared. I haven't been home in 4 years. I'm really scared that A. no one will really want to see me. B. the kids will hate flying. hate driving. and thus I'll hate the whole week. C. i wont' want to come back. hahahaha oh man. PA. to go...or not to go.