September

September went way too fast for me... So much happened in this month, and so I'll try to catch them all:

Kate turned 10 this month -- I cannot believe she's 2 years away from being a teenager; ten years went by a lot faster than I thought they would! We celebrated her birthday with the family and her cousins on Saturday with chocolate cake and rocky road ice cream.  And then had chocolate cream pie on Monday, the 12th, her real birthday -- wow, overload on chocolate!

Oh, I just remembered what happened on that Monday -- that was the day my friend Arianna came to visit and brought her two younger sisters to play, and then I backed my car into hers and dented her passenger door.  I still can't believe I did that!!  I was backing out of the garage, being careful not to come too close to Jim's car, and completely spaced that her car was parked back there.  I felt so bad -- she just got her car like a month ago.  She was really nice about it, though.

That Monday was also the day I got a jury summons in the mail.  The letter said I was required to be at the courthouse on Wed, Sept. 21 for jury selection.  I have never been summoned before; I mean I've had letters requesting service, but I've always had babies or really small children to care for, and was able to be excused.  So, I went on Wed., and was actually selected to be part of a jury for a trial. I'l tell more about that in a bit, because before I went to trial I taught Lissy's preschool/playgroup a week early.

And thankfully, it was a week early! I think I mentioned before Lissy's preschool/joyschool/playgroup she's in.  She really likes it, and talks about her 'preschool friends'.  She enjoys going to the kids' houses and learning letters and doing crafts.  Anyway, I had my turn teaching, and I wasn't sure what to expect with 7 kids from ages 3 to 4.  But it turned out fine; I kind of learned as I went what worked and what didn't. And it was interesting to watch Lissy interact with the other kids. 

So, now we're back to jury duty.  I was selected for a trial that was supposed to last 3 days. I really did not want to serve, because that weekend was my sister, Cristeen's, baby shower and I was going to leave early on Friday to go down to the valley with the kids to spend the weekend.  The trial ended up lasting till Monday, so I didn't get to leave early for the valley, and I didn't get to talk about it with any family either since the jury members were under strict admonition not to discuss the trial with anyone, not even with the other jury members.  There were 14 jurors, and after the case finally rested, and it was time for deliberation; two juror names were drawn and excused as alternates.  And guess what? My name was drawn as one of them!  I was actually kind of disappointed after listening and taking notes and pondering a lot about it; I had come to a conclusion and couldn't even express it.  But I was kind of relieved, too, because the next day I had some obligations to take care of and it would have been a lot of work trying to find a substitute.  So, as an alternate I was still under admonition not to talk about the case, and wait for a call from the judge's office once a verdict was reached.  Well, guess what? I never received a call.  Does that mean they're still deliberating (for a week) or they forgot to call me???  Tomorrow will be exactly a week, so I think I'll call and try to find out if a verdict was reached yet.  And I guess that means I still can't talk about what the trial was about.  But it was very interesting and I surprisingly enjoyed my time on it.

So the other fun event of the month was my sister's baby shower.  That weekend was kind of a whirlwind of activity -- not much time to relax, but a good time to see family and also good friends!  I can't believe I haven't seen Sharon since her wedding two years ago, and Laurie C., I haven't seen in forever!  It was fun to chat.  Annie was one of the hosts of the shower and did a great job planning games, and there was yummy food, too.  Sharon made the cake, and it turned out really cute.  Here's a picture of it, but that's the only pic I took at the shower, unfortunately.

Amazing, isn't it? Doesn't even look like a cake...

We spent the night at Dave's house Friday night, then he watched all the kids while Annie and I went to the shower.  Dave took the kids to 'the train park' in Scottsdale (sorry, I'm sure there's an official name for it, but I don't remember it) and they had a blast. 

Saturday evening we drove to Buckeye to spend the night.  I played a couple of Upwords games with my dad, but by 8:30 that night I was beat and actually went to bed!  I think I was asleep before Kate and Brynna were.  The next day we went to church with my parents, came home and had dinner, then packed up to leave for home.  I had jury duty the next morning, so wanted to get home at a decent time.  We saw an elk on top of the rim crossing the road in front of us -- thankfully, crossing far enough away that I saw it in time to slow down.  It was huge...

Anyway, now things are back to normal (now that I'm not working my 'temp job') and by the way, it was kind of an eye-opening experience of what it might be like being employed.  My house was a disaster zone -- I tried to keep up with dishes and laundry, but that's about it -- everywhere else was a complete mess; I was always tired at night. Plus, finding childcare.  But I was lucky -- my sister-in-law offered to watch the kids for me, so that was VERY helpful.  And Jim took Friday off, so he could watch the kids, and that was great, too.  We've been blessed that I haven't had to work outside the home, and hopefully, that can continue to be a blessing, though I did kind of enjoy my 'work' too.  You know, a reason to wear make-up and get fixed up everyday, and feel like you're needed and doing something that uses your brain in different ways...