July 15th

You know the importance of this date, right? (And that it has nothing to do with my expiring milk . . .) It's the day Harry and Voldemort face off for the last time. Are you a fan? Or do you hate it? We're fans, and as such, we've been having a movie marathon this week leading up to the big day. (Younger children excepted, of course. They've been doing/watching other stuff.) It's been kind of helpful, indulging my kids in the dreaded screen sitter, because I've been trying to get ready for this camp--taking multiple trips to Costco, stuffing my freezer with boxes and boxes of 24 pack ice cream bars (among other things), and gradually hauling it all up the canyon to the camp. (Me and my two compadres will be feeding between 250-300 people Wednesday through Friday morning, so we spent a final $700 at Costco today for the last few things.) But kids sitting in front of the tube for too long really drives me nuts, so I'll be glad when this crazy week is over. (Both the marathon on the screen as well as in the kitchen.)

Two unfortunate events happening while we're at camp that have Kate steaming mad: Owl City is coming in concert tomorrow night, and Brandon was invited (along with us) to a private showing of HP7 on THURSDAY night, before it comes out for all the other little people on Friday. Cool, huh? Only we can't go, so really NOT cool. Kate has read the whole series twice, some of the books more than that, and is a really big fan, so she's a little bit miffed. She will survive it, however, and we'll go see it on Saturday. (I'm not a big enough fan to take her to a midnight showing on Friday. I'm a slave to sleep!)

It hasn't helped that Brandon has been getting his hiney kicked at work again. He came home tonight at 8pm (after leaving before 7am), and said, "I must be getting punished for something," as he took a call that sent him back into the hospital for some other craziness. It's now 10:30, he's still not home, I'm still not completely packed, the house is in shambles, and I think I need to get up at 4:30 to make sure I'm really ready to go by 6:45 because I can't move any more today. Can you tell blogging is my de-stressor?

Ahhhh, volunteer work. Good for the soul, but sometimes a killer on the body. (I'm taking our queen size blow up mattress since we'll be sleeping in the lodge attached to the kitchen. Yay, me!)

To top it all off, all four of my children visited the dentist yesterday, and he insisted we get rid of Rachael's binky. So we did. Last night. We put the binkies out for the "Binky Fairy" to take to her new baby cousin, Liv, in California, and assured her that the fairy would leave her some dum dums. She didn't got to sleep until 11pm, and then woke up wanting it before 7am, never going back to sleep. I brought her into bed with me to try to console her and get her back to sleep, but she just kept crying and crying, "There's no Binky Fairy on this planet! I want my binkies!" (I'm not making this up.) Then I had to wake up Will from a slumbering stupor to go to the one camp he signed up for this summer, and when we got there they said it had been cancelled due to rain, so he was tired and crabby all day . . .

Ya, it's been a bit of a long one.  

Wish me luck at camp. I'll try not to poison anyone. Except maybe myself.  See you on the 15th! 

All four of them in the chairs, in age order: