We Need a Plan

I had a glorious night's sleep last night and woke up with the realization that besides one baptism I needed to attend, I had nothing on the calendar.  In fact, nobody had anything on the docket.  A free Saturday.   How lovely. 

No, wait.  This will not be lovely.

A day with absolutely nothing going on, no obligations to be anywhere would be lovely for Abe and me.  I can think of lots of projects I would do with such a block of free time.  But the kids were not going to be content to play quietly and feed themselves while I did those projects.  The kids will trash the house, eat masses of Halloween candy, and fight, and whine.  We needed a plan.   Because of football and soccer games that took up several hours of every Saturday this Fall, it had been a while since we needed to come up with our own plan for a Saturday.  I was a little nervous-- but it turned out to be a fabulous, freezing cold, fall day.

The first snowfall of the season.  It wasn't terribly impressive, but combined with Christmas music now playing on the radio, it did set the stage for the upcoming holidays!!

We went down to the Monte L. Bean museum at BYU.  We love this museum for several reasons, but what keeps us returning so frequently is that it is free. 

I was very happy for Georgie, Cannon, and Faith to get to go to the museum.  This museum never fails to impress big kids and little kids, alike.

Bethany and Elinor took copious notes throughout the museum.  How scholarly of them.

While we were in Utah County we stopped in to visit Abe's brother's family.  Philip and Katie live in Orem and they treated us to a BBQ.  There is something empowering about having a BBQ on the first snowfall day of the season.  It's like you are saying, summer and nice weather might be over, but we're still going to have a good time and enjoy life.  Take that, Old Man Winter!

The last event of our plan today was a friend late night for everybody.  The kids each called a couple of friends and they seem to have all had a fun night. 

The 8 year-old sect is particularly giggly, but darling.

Clark put on a reptile show for a very interested audience.  Can he get a job at the Bean Museum?

The bigger girls made a treat for the younger girls.

I think the boys just tried to stay away from the masses of girls. 

And as it turned out, by having a big group of kids keeping each other entertained, I was able to do some of my projects after all.