Alaska

It's that time of year again. Friday morning at 6:30, Savannah came down the stairs sick. We gave her a bowl and put her in our chair and within minutes, she was throwing up. All I could think was "Of course!". Something like this always happens when Scott is gone to Alaska. There was the year all the kids got the swine flu. They were deathly sick, and I couldn't leave the house. We were all just quarantined for weeks. Scott got home days after the last kid got better. And there was the year the heating element went out in the stove, and the year the freezer in the garage stopped working. And the year Scott left me with a brand new baby (just 8 weeks old) and the year he left me 8 1/2 months pregnant. So, all I could think about was how Savannah was sick, and it would go through all the kids, and I'd be up all night cleaning vomit out of my carpets while Scott was in Alaska. Thankfully, Savannah was better by noon, and no one else has gotten sick. So hopefully we'll be ok.....

Last Friday Scott was going to take the day off, but ended up going in for a 4 hour meeting, and then came home on his cell phone on a conference call for an hour. The kids were out of school Thursday and Friday for Teacher Inservice. After Scott finally got off the phone, I took Savannah and Sara with me out shopping (around 3 in the afternoon). I needed to get some last minute grocery items before Scott left town, so we stopped at Walmart. We also went to Target. Savannah got two gift cards to Target at her birthday party that she wanted to spend. We also went to Old Navy and I got a few things (none of my clothes fit anymore, so I'm slowly having to replace my wardrobe--it's a good thing, but it's costly, so I have to do it slow). We also went to Claire's. Savannah got money from her Grandma Sorensen for her birthday that she wanted to spend at Claire's. It was a good afternoon of girl shopping, and we had a lot of fun. The boys went to Zamzows while we were out, and got some fertilizer for the lawn. I guess you could call that fun boy shopping. When we all joined back up at home, we were pretty tired. I had planned on us going out to dinner as a family, for our last evening together, but with everyone worn out, we opted for pizza at home instead.

Saturday morning I drove Scott to the airport. We left at 5:30 am. We told Savannah that she was officially in charge, but assured her that all she had to do was sleep the whole time. It was a sad goodbye. I always am wracked with worry when I send him to Alaska--worried something will happen and he won't come home to me. His trip is filled with a lot of connecting flight, and flying in cold weather and sometimes snow (there was one year he wasn't sure he'd be able to leave because they'd cancelled the flights because of snow), and driving to the port in cold weather (there was the year the fuel in the truck froze up and they were stranded on the side of a remote Alaska road). I just worry. Scott assures me that he'll be fine, but I always make him actually say the words, "I promise that I will come home".

I was home by 6:30 and found everything still dark and quiet in the house, so I went back to bed for an hour. Saturday was a busy day, and going into it I wasn't sure how I was going to make it through, but it all worked out. At 9 I had Super Saturday. I had signed up to do crafts before I realized Scott was going to be out of town. So, I arranged for a babysitter to come over that morning so I could go. But, I got a call Friday night that my babysitter was sick and throwing up, so I had to make a new plan. I got Owen up and took him with me and let Savannah babysit. I've let her babysit for short amounts of time a few times now, and she does great. The Thursday night before her birthday, Scott was out of town, and we had gone from school to gymnastics, then to football, then home at 7, and had to eat dinner. As dinner was winding down at 8, I needed to run to Albertsons to get donuts to bring into Savannah's class the next day for birthday treats. I looked at the 6 kids and decided the last thing I wanted was to drag all 6 of them out on what should be a quick errand. So, I asked Savannah if she thought she could handle things for 20 minutes if I took Owen with me. She was really excited about getting to be in charge. So, I took Owen and ran to the store and came home to all the kids in their jammies and watching a movie. The next time I left her alone was last Friday night. Scott and I ran to Papa Murphy's to pick up pizza and let her babysit for the 20 minutes we were gone.

So, for Super Saturday, I took Owen with me at 9 and left Savannah in charge for an hour. I went, got my crafts to bring home to make, visited for a bit, then came home. Once I got home (just before 10), I got Josh ready for his football game, and sent him out the door 20 minutes later with a mom of another player (he had to be there early). Then I got the rest of the kids ready, and we headed to Josh's game (which started at 11). Josh's team won again. He had another game at 2, but I didn't want to stick around for 2 hours with all 6 kids, so we loaded up and came home. Owen fell asleep on the way home, and stayed asleep when I transferred him to his crib at home. We got home around 12:20 and had to leave again at 1:20, so Owen's nap was too short for his liking. We got back to the football field and Josh played his second game of the day (and won again). Scott was supposed to be downskeeper for this game, so he'd arranged to have his brother Marc come do it for him. One of the coach's son's wanted to do it instead, so Marc just stayed and watched Josh play. As I was rounding the kids up at the end of Josh's game (at 3), Aaron was nowhere to be found. I was standing there with my arms full of Owen, the levi quilt we'd been sitting on, and 4 other kids surrounding me, and no Aaron. There are 6 football fields with a game and spectators on each field, and there was no way I could search each of them to find him. I found myself really tempted to just leave him there. I decided to load all the kids up, then go back to find him. Thankfully, Marc was able to track Aaron down and by the time I was headed back to find him, Aaron was almost to the car. He's really lucky I didn't just leave him there.

We drove home from the game and came home and crashed. We survived day one of Scott being gone, and Super Saturday, and two football games three hours apart. We survived.