Lake Housing, Jury Duty, and a Thursday Monday

I am still going to bed way too late and getting way too little sleep. I can't even blame it on the baby in the house, or the other two kids- they're all in bed by 7:45 and we don't see them again until 7 a.m. or later the next morning; no, it's all JP's booming business and his neverending overflowing inbox of lesson requests combined with his inability to send an email without obsessing over it and my inability to go to sleep without him. On the upside, that overflowing inbox is what's paying for our new kitchen (more on that later; MUCH more, I'm sure. with pictures.), so I'm trying not to be yelly about it.

Since JP is so busy and swim team is over for Landon, this past Saturday morning I threw all three kids in the car with some swim suits and pj's and drove them to my parents' lake house for the weekend. No one loves a car ride like Claire loves a car ride- all her family in one small space? What could be better?!

Landon was immediately reunited with his rope swing and proved right away that he is SO MUCH stronger than he was last summer. Swimming has seriously toned him up and he could hang on to the rope really far out over the water. He's lost all that baby boy softness, which would be sad, except that he's 7 and I still have a squishy baby with glorious thighs of thunder to chew on.

I even got in the lake! When JP isn't around I have to step up and remind the kids that they do have two parents who know how to swim. I was wearing a one piece swimsuit and then I saw my mom in her bikini and was like dammit, I can't let my 57-year-old mother completely show me up, so I went back and changed. I love Claire's grin here- she is never happier than when she's physically connected to another person, and it's even better when that person is a Gigi.

And then I had to show Landon that I know my way around a rope swing. Ropes and swings and jumping from high elevations into large bodies of water dominated a lot of my childhood.

Claire kept watch, shouting out praise to her Landon every time he popped back up in the water after a jump.

On Sunday, she was jumping in all by herself. She takes a little longer to warm up than Landon, but she's a pretty fierce little four-year-old once she's assessed the situation and decided to embrace it.

There was some golf watching with Papa. And Cora's all what could you all POSSIBLY be looking at that isn't me?!

I love this picture. The big kids were running races back and forth across the lawn and Cora was watching so intently you see her little thought bubble that someday SHE was going to be a big kid and then she'd win ALL the races.

I'll spare you the other dozen pictures capturing a portion of Landon's 300 rope swing jumps, but it was a really fun weekend. We missed JP, but in September, he'll get to come with us and it will be even better.

And then the weekend ended with Cora not feeling so good (she was fussy Sunday night and both JP and I realized that she'd never really been fussy before because we were both so flabbergasted by a normal baby that expressed tiredness by crying anytime you set her down; it is MUCH harder to get things done when you can't set down your ThirdBaby) and me having jury duty this morning. My first ever jury duty! I was actually a little excited. And then I got picked for the jury! And THEN I was nominated as foreman and THEN (THEN!) I discovered there's been a Jimmy John's lurking in downtown Fort Worth that I never knew about and I could have been walking to all this time to get my #12-EZ mayo instead of driving my car 2 miles down the road and over a bridge to get it when the cravings got too strong to ignore. I have missed out on SO MANY SANDWICHES. And so much walking! And I love both sandwiches AND walking. There will be a lot more of both in my future.

But back to the jury duty. It was an interesting experience, and a good one. The case rested just after lunch and then we deliberated for another an hour and a half on negligence, liability, and damages. It's not often you get 12 adults in a room who disagree on things and rather than glossing over those disagreements and talking about how hot it is outside, you have to explain your thoughts and ask questions of each other and deliberate. It's a great exercise, really. When we first got in the jury room we were 6-6 on whether the defendant was negligence and 30 minutes later we were 11-1. We only needed 10 for the verdict so we moved on to damages. I found everyone to be very thoughtful and earnest, though it was still fascinating to see so many different slices of life that would normally never cross in one room. Good times, a wonderfully short case, and now I'm out of the jury pool for two years.

I ran home to change and grab an extra bottle for Cora and the brownies I made Sunday night, picked up the girls at school, and took us all to Landon's outdoor end of swim team party at JP's pool. Then, after the girls and I dropped off the brownies and made sure Landon was good to stay with JP, I realized I locked my damn keys in my car, so I had to drive JP's car all the way back to our house for the extra set while Cora cried and cried, drive back to the pool with the extra keys, arriving late enough to watch Landon get his award after all (high point!), pile the girls BACK in the car, now with a wet Landon who forgot his swim suit and swam in his real shorts instead, for our fourth trip between our house and the pool, started dinner, fed a starving super sad Cora her bottle and tucked her in bed, and sat down with the kids and their organic mac and cheese and side of fruit- a Thursday night meal if there every was one- at 8:45 p.m. and thought holy hell is it really only Monday?

JP got home at 9:30 after being at the pool for 13 hours and we ordered Thai for dinner because if the kids got to eat like it was the end of the week and the fridge is empty, then we did too, and now it's 11:15 and I'm about to take his laptop to type out the responses to the rest of his emails.

Tomorrow night I'm going back to houzz perusing and range shopping.