Should have posted this yesterday when I was ahead

Thursday was the best day, though now it's so long ago it hardly seems worth mentioning, except I am, because it was great. It started when all my favorite people in my office ended up randomly being able to go to lunch after claiming they couldn't and I was 30 seconds into my drive over with my one friend left standing. We tried a new place and I had the greatest sandwich of all time- the BBB which involves beer braised brussel sprouts, bacon (good thick crispy bacon), and herbed boursin cheese all griddled between two slices of sourdough and OMG you guys it was the stuff of legend. And dreams. Delicious, delicious dreams. There were also french fries and maybe a draft beer because they had Rahr Octoberfest and I was taking the afternoon off and felt like I should celebrate the coming of fall even though it was 97 degrees outside.

I was also celebrating my new shirt, which I ordered from Loft because I'd fallen in love with this necklace and had waited patiently for it to go on sale and then when it did, everything was on sale (40% off!) and I had to spend a certain amount to get free shipping because it is against my personal creed to pay for shipping, so I threw this blouse in the cart, certain I'd take it back because I'm never a blouse person, but then I fell in love with it and now I'm going to wear it as much as possible until Spring. Then I ran a million errands and got four separate compliments on the shirt and THREE on my hair color, so obviously the shirt is magical and everyone should buy one because it makes your hair look amazing. Even when you haven't washed it in 3 days and you just keep re-flat ironing it each morning when you wake up late and don't have time for soap.

THEN I accomplished all of my errands, including some complicated ones I won't bore you with, AND I only bought the one thing I needed at Costco, which is basically like running through a suburban shopping gauntlet and emerging victorious and with compliments on your hair. THEN I baked a chocolate chip bundt cake while making dinner (because I now have a double oven hidden inside a regular oven and it is amazing) and then I taught barre to one of my biggest classes ever and one woman told me my class was her favorite she'd ever taken and I came home kind of high. Oh, and before all that we met with our kitchen contractor to discuss some outdoor projects (redoing the back deck! replacing the rotted overhang over the master patio!) and I organized my closet- my scarves now have a home and all my long necklaces have been rescued from my jewelry drawer and are now hanging on the wall where they won't get tangled up with anything! I'm very pleased. Afternoons off are the best.

There were a few lowlights too. I lost my phone in Target and didn't realize it until I tried to bluetooth call my mom on my way home and my car insisted it couldn't find my phone and I was all "it's RIGHT HERE" while digging through my purse on the feeder to the highway and then realized oh crap, it's lost in the biggest store in the world and I walked down every single aisle and touched all the things. But luckily after much retracing of steps I found it thanks to a very nice woman who'd come across it while going through a stack of toddler skinny pants (totally forgot I'd stopped there) and stood guard while waiting for a store employee to come by to hand it off to. Thank you kind woman, you salvaged my excellent day. And then while making my cake I turned the kitchen aid to 10 instead of 0 after I lifted up the beater and chocolate batter went EVERYWHERE. But I found these at Target and they changed my life and I was so busy eating them I didn't even mind cleaning all the chocolate off every surface of my kitchen and my new blouse (which, as it turns out, does great in the wash).

buy these. hide them. refuse to share.

I took off Friday afternoon as well (all the managers were gone at training; it was a good time to catch up on my personal life) and picked the kids up from school which was super fun because I got to hear Claire's teacher tell me how adorable she is and Landon's non-stop monologue about the book he checked out in the library on Maine because "now I'm going to check out books on places we should maybe go so I can tell you about them." He read to me the whole walk home. Luckily, Maine was already on my list.

I made ganache to pour over my cake and as it turns out, it's super easy to make! And crazy delicious. I'm now putting ganache on everything. Once I stopped licking the bowl, I packed up and fed the kids, and then when James got home from lessons we piled everyone + Tex (+ the cake!) in the car and headed off to the lake for our last trip of the summer.

ganaaaaache

We arrived late, tucked the kids in bed, and followed them pretty soon after. Saturday dawned bright and sunny and we were off- swimming, boating, fishing, exploring, rope swinging, jetskiing, and more.

There was also tubing and Claire let us go way faster than every before and then Landon asked to go alone and he let us go crazy fast, zipping across the wake, ending in first ever crash.

He handled it well.

His second crash was a bit too spectacular and there were a few tears, but when we tried to fish him out of the water he insisted on tubing again, so off we went again at a breakneck pace. I love it.

Claire took over as Captain and did a bang up job getting us to shore.

Mostly (entirely) because Papa secretly steered underneath the wheel.

In the meantime Cora tackled the super steep staircase that leads to the new lake house's second story and awesome big kid reading nook, which is obviously the place where Cora needs to be.

Big kid Cora, lover of books, conqueror of stairs. She never stopped making me nervous while she trekked up and down, but I eventually became inured to my fear of her falling to the point where I just occasionally yelled out "careful!" while sitting in my kitchen stool.

My brother bought a new fishing boat, so he took the kids out after dinner, but I don't have pictures of that because no one takes pictures in my life except me. Gorgeous sun set in the background, shiny boat, excited kids with fishing poles- super glad I don't have any images of that.

Cora did not swim, but yelled "YAY!" at everyone else while they did

Sunday was also great- more fishing and swimming and exploring.

Then a lot of napping on the drive home.

Tex might not wake up until Wednesday

We unpacked and planned dinners and then I made this soup. It was delicious but took over an hour of work and I'm not sure it fully paid off. It was good enough to make again, but next time I'm using a rotisserie chicken. Cooking and shredding your own is overrated.

And now, we begin another week. The kids were all in bed 20 minutes early without a sound, so tomorrow morning may be difficult. I'm already sad I can't take another afternoon off. I've decided working for 4 hours a day is really the way to go.

~ ~ ~

Exciting update since my pictures took too long to upload last night and I had to go to bed: Landon woke us up at 3:12 a.m. to tell us he had just thrown up "lots of times." This is maybe only the fourth time since we became parents that a kid has thrown up, so we can't really complain, but oy, it was a long time before we got everything cleaned up, Landon re-settled on the couch with a bucket, and the two of us back in bed. Then James woke up and started throwing up. The boys were clearly down for the count, so I whisked the girls and their superior immune systems off to school, called in sick to work, picked up a Starbucks, and have hunkered down with my washer and drying running nonstop.

I think Monday was just jealous that I enjoyed my Thursday - Sunday so much and decided to ruin everything. But I got to introduce Landon to the Harry Potter movies and catch up on my emails, so suck it Monday stomach bug, all is not lost.