Special Olympics!

K, I've got about 10 minutes of energy left in me, but I wanted to quickly write up my crazy day. It started at 5:30 this morning when I woke up to jump in the shower. Jason woke up as I was rummaging around getting my clothes. I got him situated with a movie so that he wouldn't go roaming around the house waking people up and showered. After Jason and I were fed, I took him over to Cindy's. I was able to see the kids for a bit - Shelly is still pretty sick - and I was off to begin this next adventure.

Honestly, I can't remember what happened this morning...It is a jumble of random last minute set up details, finding out where everything was happening, and meeting the bus drivers. Melody (my cohort over transportation) and I had to figure out the bus schedules, making sure they didn't go over 10 hours - it was hard since they had all just driven 6 hours to get here. Then we had to worry about who needed to get where and when, and if we had enough time and drivers.

The biggest problems of today:

-Forgetting to send a bus to certain hotels, we had some people waiting for an hour or two

-Lost luggage, a good Samaritan turned out to be not such a good Samaritan, since the luggage actually went to a different hotel...

-One of the bus drivers didn't have a hotel reservation...he got it figured out, not too sure what went on there..

-Making one bus driver go over his 10 hours because we were bad at communication

-Getting yelled at at the end of the night because of the 30 minute wait for a bus

-Lack of cones for blocking off where the buses were parking, so we had to stand all day in the spots telling people to move

-Going far too long without food because we had to figure out the above problems

The biggest ups of today:

-Getting to know Melody really well (we spent all day with basically just the two of us at the bus drop off/pick up), we have a TON of inside jokes now

-Spending time with the Special Olympics athletes

-Having a radio and listening to the funny things that were said

-Ranking the bus drivers by likability

-Having Nilla show up with food for us!

-Being asked if we are free to come back next year to work it again (TOTALLY!!) and it's only the first day!

Day 9

I am tired! Today was set up day for the Special Olympics, which start tomorrow. I got to lug around chairs and tables and set up soccer goals for 3 hours today, it would have been longer if I hadn't had to go get Jason. Shelly is sick - she barely responded to me when I said hi - and Cindy didn't want Jason to catch what she has, so Jason is asleep on my floor. I have to be at the Colliseum at 8 am tomorrow morning and I doubt I'll be home before 10 pm. So basically, I'm not gonna be doing anything other than working the games till Saturday. This is gonna be fun! I'll see y'all again on Sunday!

Aunt Katie's friends - Day 8

I'm pretty busy the rest of the week, so I wanted to spend a lot of time with the kids today. I only got Shelly and Jason, Emily had to nap, but we had a blast!

We went for a walk to campus cuz Rachel wanted a picture of the "Satan" statue. Nilla wanted in on the fun, so she came with us.

Here is the infamous statue. Shelly is trying to have the same shape.

We stopped for a quick snack break

Shelly being Shelly

They loved putting things in the gutter. Jason is trying to catch them, at one point he was crawling on all fours trying to keep up with them.

Fun statue-thingy in front of the Centrum.

We hung out here for a bit while the kids crawled on them.

Hi my Shell-Bell!

Jason is pointing out that he is taller than Nilla

Shelly eating her snacks

After our walk, we went to my house to eat some dinner. When we got there Emily (my roommate) was home with her sister and nephews. Shelly instantly struck up a conversation with the boys and had fun playing with them. Jason was so shy that he wouldn't leave my side. He ended up coloring at the table on my lap for a bit. Finally Jason was comfortable enough to play with Emily. They had fun chasing each other around the house till Emily had to go.

During dinner Shelly was telling us how she was sooo tired and mid sentence she stops, points out the window and yells "birdy!" - she forgot about how tired she was. After dinner we went and played soccer with Shawesome, Nilla, and a whole bunch of friends from the ward. Shelly had lots of fun playing with everyone there. They were really good with her, it was cute to watch. Jason didn't want to play soccer, he just wanted to watch and be chased by whoever was sitting out "resting". At the end everyone was sitting around talking, being entertained by the kids. Jason went up to almost everyone trying to get them to spin him around or flip him. Nilla tried to get Jason to ask Sean to flip him. Jason got right next to Sean, did a 180 and ran back to me saying "no!". Apparently Sean is very intimidating, who knew? :) Jason warmed up to him after a bit, enough to let Sean flip him about 40 times.

I asked the kids if they had fun with my friends today. They thought my friends were so cool and fun. Shelly told me "you have a lot of friends...like 50 of them". Both Shelly and Jason were sad to leave, but it was bath and bed time. They were out cold before I had even finished reading a chapter of scriptures.

Kidlets - Day 7

Well, turns out that Aunt Katie's tough love is quite effective. The kids slept all the way through the night for the first time since Wednesday. That's pretty much all of note from today.. It was a normal, boring kinda day.

The Sabbath - Day 6

I didn't see much of the kids today. I had church at 11 and Cindy's was at 1. I waited till they were out of church to go and see them. When I opened the door I was greeted by three naked babies - they were in the middle of changing from sunday clothes to play clothes. Cindy said that they did really good in church, even though it was in the middle of Emily's nap time.

Because Emily didn't get a nap, I got sick of her screaming and put her to bed early. She did just fine until it was time for the other two to go to sleep. Shelly and Jason have been sleeping in Cindy's room - instead of up in the attic - because Cindy turns on a movie for them when they wake up in the middle of the night, which is why they've been waking up in the middle of the night. I was reading scriptures to them, but Shelly was being disruptive. I ended up sending her up to the attic since she wouldn't settle down. She screamed bloody murder at me all the way up the stairs and for the next half hour - effectively waking Emily up in the process and not allowing her to go back to sleep. I finished reading to Jason, warning him that he'd also be sent up to the attic if he came out of the room.

Since Shelly was still screaming, I went up and read to her. Then we had a silent fight over whether or not she would stay in the attic - Emily was crying through all of this, bytheway - and I ended up at the bottom of the attic stairs reading scriptures to both Shelly and Emily through closed doors. After 20 minutes Emily was asleep, mostly, and Shelly was still sniffling softly. I opened the door to talk to Shelly, hoping to find a common ground and get her to sleep. I asked why she didn't want to sleep in the attic, her answer was that it wasn't as fun. I informed her that Cindy would not be turning on anymore movies in the middle of the night, instead she would be reading scriptures if they woke up. Shelly still wanted to sleep in there, so we settled on her sleeping in Cindy's room only if she would be quiet while I read a few more verses of scriptures and if she stayed in there. I let Cindy know the new rules - no movies, only scriptures if the kids woke up - and I left for the night. We'll see the results of Aunt Katie's tough love tomorrow.

Playing at the park - Day 5

Remember when I said that my roommates don't let me sleep? Well last night was one of those days again. Amy and I were having too much fun watching movies and talking. Around 2 am Amy remembered that she needed milk and cereal, so like the crazy people we are, we went to Walmart - in our pajamas. We were the only ones there other than the employees, so it didn't matter that we looked ridiculous. I think we ended up falling asleep around 3 or 3:30.. I'm not entirely sure when.

So it shouldn't come as too big a surprise that I was still asleep at 11:30 when Cindy called. She wanted to take the kids to the park, but I had the car seats. I quickly got ready - meaning I brushed my teeth and hair, didn't even bother to change clothes - and walked out the door. I'm happy to report that Jason has gotten over his hatred of me (remember he was screaming that at me last night). They were all quite happy to see me this morning.

We went to Canyon View Park. It's a cool little park with a stream running through it. Shelly and Jason loved the stream. Emily was so-so on the stream, but I think it was because it was her nap time while we were there.

Here, enjoy some pictures of the kids - cuz I'm out of stories to tell.. :)

Shelly thought she was sooo tricky playing on this..whatever it is..

Emily hung out with me in the chairs

All the kids loved wearing sunglasses. At one point only the kids had sunglasses on and they thought it was so funny that the adults didn't have any.

Not the best picture, but seriously, how awesome is Jason's face?!

Cindy bought these fun toys after Shelly and Jason monopolized the other kids similar toys at the park.

Kiddos - Day 4

This morning the kids had a video chat with Rach and Mark. They were very excited to see their parents. Emily kept sticking her head right up next to the screen trying to touch Rachel. Jason had fun for a bit, then was over it. Shelly just showed them the millions of balls that Cindy owns. I had fun talking to them at least :)

My roommates complained last night that I didn't bring the kids over, so I decided to spend the day at my house. Kami was the only one home when we got there, so we played with her for a bit before she left to go camping with her family. Michelle came on a walk with Shelly, Jason, and I - Emily was down for a nap at Cindy's - to the water fountain on campus. I was expecting it to take a half an hour tops..an hour and a half later we made it back home. Shelly and Jason wanted to watch My Little Pony so I tossed it in. The next time I looked over at the kids Jason was sound asleep - I think I wore him out.

Funny story time:

When it was time to go, Shelly kept trying to convince me that they should sleep over at my house. I explained that I needed to talk to my roommates before they could have a sleepover. She really wants to meet my roommate Emily, not too sure why, but she's dead set on it. I think that's part of why she wants to sleep over, maybe then she'll actually get to meet Emily. The sleepover might happen, we'll see.

Emily had lots of fun sweeping the backyard before bedtime.

She even went and got the dustpan all by herself

She did a decent job of getting the leaves into the dustpan

On our walk, the kids grabbed some Shakespeare festival brochures. One of them had a map of Utah and the surrounding states on it. Jason walked all the way home with that map in his hand, every few minutes he'd ask me where on the map we were. Turns out we are in the big black spot labeled "Cedar City".

Jason apparently hates me...at least that's what I gathered from what he was screaming at me from the top of the attic stairs when I sent him up to bed. He'll get over it, maybe.