Playing Catch-up

So much has happened these past three days. I guess I should go through each day. I'll do a seperate blog for Sunday (today).

Friday "The Big Day":
We left for Warwick (my hometown and the town with the testing center where Shaun was supposed to take his GMAT) in the afternoon and got there at about 1. Shaun's test was actually scheduled for 1:45. I dropped him off and apparantly, since he was early, he was allowed to go in early to start it. While the boys and I were waiting, we went to my old high school to visit with my former chorus teacher. She was definitely one of my favorites and the one that I had spent the most time with, considering that I had her as my teacher for all four years, I had after school rehearsals with her at least twice a week, and not to mention going to all the chorus competitions and performances. I was only able to catch up with her for a little bit since she had to leave a little early that day. But she was so sweet and gave the boys each little stuffed animal hedgehogs. I was also able to talk to her about my teaching voice lessons to some of her students. This was something that I had been thinking about for some time. Shaun and I even discussed it as being an option for me right now. I just figured that after all those years and the money spent by my parents to get me voice lessons from the best in RI, why not? I've become alot more comfortable with the idea of teaching after my two years as primary chorister. It is interesting how our callings in church can always help us with our lives outside of the church. That's one of the things that I love about the church. Before that, I would never think of teaching voice lessons. I was just never patient enough or even any good at explaining how to do things. Anyway, Mrs. Phillips (my chorus teacher) said that it would be a great idea and that she has alot of students that she would like to take voice lessons. I just have to make a flier and email it to her so she can pass it on to her students. So, now I have the task of making a flier. I am not good at doing things like that. We'll see how it turns out.
After that, we went to my parents house, grabbed some food and went back out. I took the boys to some of my favorite spots to hang out. We went down to the Village (Pawtuxet Village, where the Pawtuxet River empties out into the bay) and walked around. First we went to one of my favorite second-hand bookstores. Then we went to my favorite ice cream shop a couple doors down and got two scoops of Butter Crunch ice cream and a large Dell's Lemonade. Yummy! After finishing those off, we walked to my favorite park. There is a swing set there and a slide. Its one of the most picturesque places. There is a beautiful gazebo in the middle of the park (this is the same gazebo that I had one of my high school friends draw for me before I left for Utah for school). This little park overlooks the bay. We played on the slide and swings for a bit. Landon was afraid of the swing which was very funny. He wanted to go on the swing, so I put him on there and started pushing. He screamed for a good five minutes. All I could do was laugh at him. (I know...Mom of the Year, huh?) I just kept telling him in between his screams that he wasn't going to get hurt and he was ok. Finally, he got used to it and was fine. At first he gave an hysterical laugh and said, "Its fun," more to convince himself than to tell me that he was, in fact, having fun. After about an hour on the playground, we walked over to the boathouse to go look at the ducks. We looked at the ducks for a bit and saw two cute little goslings swimming around. I was tempted to catch one and take one home at the risk of having my eyes pecked out by the mother and father geese! We went out onto the dock to hang out. Landon was content just sitting and enjoying the unsteady sway of the dock. Caden, on the other hand, just wanted to run around and look at the boats and the ducks. Finally, by 4:50, I figured that we should start heading home to wait for mom and dad to come home and take the kids so that I could go pick up Shaun. Of course, I got a call from Shaun at 5:20 telling me that he was done early since he got in early to take the test. I could tell by his voice that the news was good. He got a 690 which is in the 88th percentile! He was hoping to score above a 650. For only studying for this test for two months, it was a really good score. I am so proud of him! He is applying to MIT (his first choice), Carnegie Melon (his second choice), University of Texas, University of Washington, and BYU. Afterwards, we went out with mom and dad to celebrate at Shaun's favorite restaurant, Chipotle. Then mom and dad took the kids, while he and I went to Borders to look at the music books, and then went home to figure out what we wanted to do since we were childless for the night. We decided to go bowling. We bowled four games. I actually bowled a 150 on the last game (which is really good for me...most of my girls from freshman year should remember...hahaha). It was fun since we hadn't gone bowling in a really long time!

Saturday "You can't always predict thunderstorms":

We had been planning on going to the beach since Monday. We realized that neither of us checked the weather report. We checked Friday night and it said that there would be scattered thunderstorms throughout the day. Boo. So, Shaun got up early that morning and went to play basketball with some friends. He finally got back at 10:45 and the sun was peeking out. So, we checked the weather report again, and it said it would be clear until the evening when there would be thunderstorms. Stupid weatherman. So, we got packed up and headed for the beach. We stopped at our favorite seafood place and got some calamari (RI style...the best), clam cakes, clam chowder, and Shaun got himself a steak and cheese sandwich too...pig. Then we laid out on the beach for a few hours and relaxed. It wasn't as warm as I wanted it to be. It lingered near the low 80's, high 70's, but it was better than nothing. Finally, we headed back to Warwick to pick up the kids from mom and dad's house. Of course, we got there and mom and the kids were no where to be found. Mom didn't have her cell phone, as usual. So, after the ok from dad, we left and went to a party for our former Bishop and his family. While we were there, we talked to a new couple that moved into our ward. He is a physical therapist that was placed out here for the summer. He and his wife have a daughter who is a little younger than Landon. She's really cute. I made the mistake of "teaching" her how to "jump." When I say that I mean, I basically lift her off the ground. After about a billion times doing that, I was breaking a sweat and getting really sore. But how do you say "no" to a little kid? After that, I had to go home and take a cool shower. With the mix of the muggy air, and the "workout" I got, I needed one. On top of that, I got a little sunburned from the beach. That's what happens when I let myself get so dangerously white that I burn after four hours in the sun with no sunscreen. It never would have happened before kids. I now vow to never let myself get this white ever again.
Once again though, the weatherman was wrong. No thunderstorms that night. Sounds like the weatherman for weather.com needs to go back to weatherman school. I suppose maybe it's more difficult to predict thunderstorms. It's like life. You can't always predict the bad times. But it's always good to be prepared, just in case. And when those "thunderstorms" dissolve, just be happy and go to the beach!