What a week.

I just got the last of the kids in bed and have some peace and quiet. It's been one of 'those' weeks --and it's only Monday. If you call me tomorrow and I don't answer, I may be in my bed hiding under the blankets.

I had a real moment of brilliance this morning and decided to paint the entry way and hall. There are just some things you should not attempt when you have a kid like Austin. I was all gung-ho to get started so thought--yet another moment of brilliance-- "I will make some popcorn to keep him occupied while I coat the walls with stuff that can smear and ruin whatever it dries on". You can use your imagination to figure out the rest of the story!

Jeff's dad and his new wife (that's Jeff's dad's new wife not Jeff's, ha ha) came down last weekend as the kick-off to their big hunting trip. Jeff was like a kid at Christmas as two of his favorite things in life are his Dad and hunting. But of course that means several days of preparation, who am I kidding? that is several weeks of preparation. I am still pretty much mystified at the appeal of hunting. I've had Jeff explain it several times but can't for life of me grasp why anyone would want to do it. From the best I can figure it is mostly comprised of walking up and down mountains all day in the freezing cold after eating mostly uncooked oatmeal for breakfast and sleeping on a pile of rocks all night, to look for an animal that does not want to be found NOR does it taste very good if caught! Does anyone have some insight?

Thursday was our 12th anniversary, which due to the activities mentioned above, Jeff totally spaced. But to his defense, we had celebrated the week before by going down to Albuquerque.

Saturday, I found myself racing to Alamosa (about a 20-25 minute drive from home) to make it to the bank to pick up and deposit and check that was already 8 days late coming only to realize that I had left my wallet (with the deposit slip and number, along with my ID and everything else I was going to need for the day) at HOME on the counter! It was 8 minutes until 12:00, when the bank closed) and I was half-way there. This was after I took 3 small children, LATE, to my Primary meeting (did I mention I just got called to the Primary Presidency?)

Tonight I tried to have Family Home Evening with the kids--which turned out to be rather disastrous. 4 kids to 1 parent is just bad odds no matter what. Needless to say, it ended up by me putting everyone to bed--which only took slightly over ONE hour, no family prayer (who can pray when all you want to do is scream?), and no lesson to speak of (at least probably not a very positive lesson). Very discouraging.

Where are the pictures of today's events--(I know Marla is wondering)? Coincidentally, the camera is missing. My guess is it's in the mountains in someone's backpack!

Oh, and did I mention that it was 19 degrees at 8:00 this morning??