Outnumbered

I am working on teaching Jill correct information, such as her first, middle, and last names; her mommy's first and last names; her daddy's first and last names; etc. Today I decided to start throwing in the street she lived on. So, I asked her where she lived, and she said, "Pennsylvania."

Ha.

Sometimes a week feels like a lifetime, I guess!

All eight Boling grandchildren, along with their mothers (+ a special aunt) and grandmother, spent five days in Hershey, Pennsylvania earlier this month. Of the grandchildren, two were born in 2008, two in 2009, two in 2010, and two in 2011. (My sister is due in 2012, so I can't help but wonder who is going to jump in to round out that year for us!) So, it was a lot of crazy and a lot of fun.

It was also very, very loud!

My sister flew from Nebraska to me, and then we drove together to Pennsylvania. On the way there, we ended up with our car turned off on the freeway waiting for a fatal car accident to be cleaned up. The kids were oblivious to the tragedy that had occurred, and Daniel was just thrilled to be out of his car seat.  It was raining, but we took them on walks around the car anyway. Three hours is a really long time for babies and toddlers to be in a stopped car. I am grateful that it was not 100 degrees.


I lost count as to how many men we saw go pee in the woods to the right of the freeway. There was one who went to the left and did his business on the median. Who does that?! I could't decide whether to share this in my blog, but it was creative, so I think I will. I had already been holding it for an hour or two before we were stopped, and I just couldn't hold it any longer. (Four hours is a long time!!) So, let's just say that I made discreet, successful use of one of Danny's diapers. I guess it's like riding bike—you never forget how to do it no matter how many years it has been since the last time you did! :)

Danny was surrounded by a lot of pink that week, but he handled it pretty well! 
Here he is with his cute cousin, Tabitha.

It rained every single day that we were in Pennsylvania. (It finally let up some on the day we decided to brave it and leave.) We were there just in time for epic flooding. It was interesting to stay at a resort that was officially closed. All of the sights of Hershey were closed due to people not being able to get to work and the evacuations of nearby towns. All of the adults had to be very resourceful to keep the children occupied. One diversion we created to keep the kiddos from going nuts in our rooms was a little parade in the parking garage.


We also made good use of the indoor swimming pool and walking under the covered sidewalks at the closed outlet mall across the street. The kids really did play very well together. It was just unbelievably loud. Kids are so loud! Imagine a daycare you never got to go home from. Hahaha.


One event we won't forget anytime soon was my mother's trip to the grocery store. She took the oldest granddaughter (3 1/2 years old) with her. They left around . . . maybe 10 in the morning and finally made it home around 9:30 that evening. Every way she tried to make it back to the resort was closed for flooding or sink holes. She kept just having to stop and try waiting it out again. It was crazy.

Here is Jill with the cousin she is closest to in age: Emily.

My sister and I decided to leave as planned on Friday, because it seemed like there was a pause in the flooding. One bridge over the Susquehanna River was still open, and we decided to give it a shot. We had to go about twenty miles out of the way to get to it, because sinkholes had caused road closures on the main routes. We were driving down the highway when my sister said, "was that an arm chair??" My first thought was maybe it had fallen out of a truck, but we soon saw that was probably not the case. My sister looked out the window and gasped—we could only see roofs. The arm chair had probably floated there out of someone's house. How sad. I have never really been that close to natural disaster devastation.

In other news, and this actually happened before the reunion, I got to see one of my best friends (from my youth days) that I hadn't seen in a long time. She and her family have been living the island life in Dominica for two years but are back now for her hubs to finish up medical school in Michigan. Yay for friendships that change but never end! :)

Other than that, life has just been pretty exhausting. Daniel no longer sleeps through the night and usually wakes up two to three times, sometimes four. Between that and how worn out I am from potty training Jill during the day, I feel like I have no rest right now. However, the bright sides are that one day Daniel will go back to sleeping during the night like he used to and that Jill is completely pee trained. So, while poop messes are indeed messier they happen much less frequently than pee. So yay for those things!

And seeing the flooding in Pennsylvania definitely put the flooding this past spring in my basement into perspective.

Oh, and of course, my favorite season is here, and I am loving it. Well, technically it hasn't officially begun yet, but it is feeling like autumn, and it's wonderful!

If you noticed the tutus and hair clips the girls are wearing during many of the reunions shots and you want one for your little girl (or yourself!) head over to my sister-in-law's etsy shop: Tangerine Tutus.

Comments

  1. All those girls! Wow. Cute pictures! My favorite is the one of Daniel smiling in the car. He does, indeed, look THRILLED to be out of his car seat!

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  2. What an adventure! I forgot you were out here when we were getting all that rain. Wasn't it crazy? It formed a little lake in the grounds at Sam's work that the geese of the area loved. It was deep enough for a dozen or so of them to swim around happily all day. It was so bizarre.

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  3. Yay for tutus. Thanks for the pictures, Mimi. Lucky Daniel! All those pretty cousins. I only had one girl cousin, Helen. I loved going to Salt Lake City to see her. We always played fun games, Chinese Checkers, and etc. My many boy cousins played rough. Wrassel, fist fight, even soft ball was too much for poor little Benny. They wouldn't let me bat, so I had to touch home plate and run fast when someone else hit the ball for me. My final soft ball game I didn't get far enough away from home plate, and the bat connected with my head. I didn't make it to first base, but I was never allowed to play soft ball after that. Lucky Daniel! Love, grandpa H.

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  4. Woah Mimi omg that is so crazy. How sad that all that was going on there. What timing.
    All those little cousins are so darn cute. How lucky they are all so close in age!
    Are you sure it won't be you rounding off 2012???

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  5. Ha ha, oh wow - you did it. You told the story on your blog, and four comments in and NO ONE has mentioned it. You're brave. :)

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  6. We had so much fun visiting. My only regret is that it was too short.

    Sounds like you had quite the adventure on the family outing. Yah for you girls. All those kids in a hotel for a week- you guys are made of steel.

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