One-on-one time and technology is great when it works!!

The last couple of weeks have been jam-packed with last days of school stuffs: projects galore that have kept the kids up late into the evenings, and that have kept us attending parent-invited events during the day and at night!  It's been crazy but fun, and the best part has been that Shawn stayed home this week because there was just too much he would have missed out on family-wise.  We have attended a gymnastics recital (Maddie), a choir concert (Maddie), two orchestra concerts (Kami), a band concert (Caden), gotten kids off on at least five field trips, and attended some during-school functions - reports, etc.to name the big things...an there's more to come!  Summer vacation is going to feel so relaxing.

Shawn and I were out until 10:30 on Thursday evening at a ward temple night, and the older kids had put the younger ones to bed.  Friday morning, Nolan bounced into the room for scriptures at 6:00 already all showered and ready to go for the day.  He was glowing with excitement and reminded his dad that THIS was the big day to ride bikes to school!! Shawn hadn't even mentioned it to him for days, but Nolan had been counting down the moments:) They got a bit of a late start, and it took about half an hour to make the three mile ride to school on those tiny bicycle tires - It was pretty cute to watch them taking off with Nolan pedaling as fast as he could go and Shawn trying not to pedal at all so that they could stay together.

Shawn said that when they arrived, the class was all ready to leave on a field trip to Bear World, which is a pretty neat place for little kids to visit, but which Nolan hadn't even been mentioning because he was so much more excited to go with his dad.

I think that Shawn had so much fun that he decided to devote as much of his day as possible to having as many one-on-one moments with each of his kids as possible, because at noon, Shawn took Isabelle on a date to lunch. They had a great time.

Right after school I had to take Kami to an orchestra recital after school.  Caden had a scout camp-out that Shawn felt like he needed to go to, so he and Caden were hurrying around getting ready for that. It was time to take Kami, but I was getting worried because Maddie's bus still hadn't dropped her off. The older kids told me that they thought that her bus driver had switched up the route and she ought to be home soon. Finally I had to leave, but started calling the school on my way.  No one answered.  I tried finding a number for the bus department, and couldn't find one, so I called a neighbor whose kids ride the same bus.  She asked her daughter if Maddie had been on the bus and she said, "Yes, but the bus driver missed Maddie's stop so she just dropped her off at the side of the road (on the highway) and asked her if it would be OK if she walked home." WHAT?!?!  I started to really freak out because it had now been 20 minutes past the time that she was supposed to get home! The recent kidnappings of those three girls on the news was fresh in my mind!!  Anyways, the mother I had called and I started looking all over for Maddie.  Caden was also out on the road trying to find her.  Finally, I called Shawn who had run to the store and told him to hurry home and told him I couldn't find Maddie ANYWHERE!!  I was ready to call the police and get help finding our girl! He calmly replied, "check your texts".

Then I remembered a text coming in at about the time that Maddie should have arrived home, that was from Shawn, that said, "I have Maddie."  Normally that would have been just dandy, but all week my phone has been acting funny and that very day I had received a bunch of texts that people had sent me days ago.  In fact, Shawn had picked Kami up from a lesson on Monday, then on Thursday he offered to pick Maddie up from gymnastics.  1/2 hour after he was supposed to have picked her up, I received a text from him that said, "I'm at the Jr. high.  Where's Kami?"  Apparently he had sent that on Monday, but when he didn't answer a text I sent right back, I called because I thought, "Oh no! he went after the wrong kid!!" So my phone had been going crazy, and I thought that this text about Maddie was from the other day when  I thought he'd picked up the wrong child.  So I was beyond worried and I was still very up-tight and I let him know that he knew my phone had been having texting issues and he should have CALLED!! He felt pretty bad - the poor guy was just trying to spend time with his daughter...