Long day, good night.

What a day.  We got up late as usual, I miraculously found the files containing birth certificates and immunization records, and I headed off (with Rachael) to the kids' schools for new student registration.  I left Kate and Will in charge of moving all the packing paper from the living room to the basement.  Not sure what we're going to do with it once it gets down there, but I'm sick of looking at it every morning and I want Brandon to think we actually worked up here when he arrives on Thursday!

The elementary school registration was no problem, except that  it turns out the five billion shots required in California are different than the 5 billion shots required here.  Hep A - all my kids need the Hep A shot.  And I had JUST told them I was certain they wouldn't need any shots this year since we had SO MANY done in California.  Kate surprised me by saying she wasn't worried about eating lunch alone or finding her way around that big Jr. High building -  she was worried about getting that stupid shot.  (That led to a discussion about how shots compare to childbirth, and that pretty much ended the conversation.)

Off to the Jr. High.  I ended up waiting for over an hour to talk to the counselor about Kate's electives and all that good stuff.  I didn't know that was going to be part of the process today or I would NOT have brought Rachael.  At one point I shamelessly asked another mom for 50 cents so I could get Rachael a Rice Krispy treat from the vending machine.  (It brought on a sudden flashback from my own days at Washington Jr. High when a certain group of girls would always stand near the exit at the end of the school day and shamelessly ask for "fifty cent" to get Now and Laters - remember those?)

Long story short, I've still got some business to take care of before everyone is squared away for school in a week and a half - the biggest being finding a pediatrician and getting those lovely shots.

The second half of our day was MUCH more fun.  Our good friends from California, the Newtons, are at Aspen Grove family camp this week and called to invite us up for the evening.  We had our Reynolds family reunion there last year and fell in love with the place, so when I told the kids we were going up there to see the Newtons they were pretty psyched.  We had dinner together, participated in "Frontier Night" (which has too many fun things to explain in detail here but, what a blast!), did some painting down in the craft tent, consumed WAY too much sugar, and I tried my darndest to squeeze in as much adult conversation as possible while still having a good time with my kids.

The added bonus?  April Perry and her family just happened to be there too - my Power of Moms friend that I just spent four days with up at BYU Idaho Education Week.  (She's actually the one that got me to apply.)

Triple bonus, Julie Newton's whole family was up there, including her twin sisters - the master minds of MMW (MormonMommyWars), and I had fun chatting it up with one of them too, the one who just got back from Haiti where she was teaching square foot gardening.

More than sleeping, more than making and eating homemade cookies, more than curling up with a good book, I love spending time talking with good, thoughtful, fun, happy people that have interesting stuff going on in their brains.  So it was a really good night.

GOOD NIGHT!