Barhorst Brewed: June 11-July 2

It's tough being the littlest one. The big girls had VBS a few weeks ago, and Kaitlyn never ever got to stay. Since the Wey boys were also attending, Elesha and I traded off giving rides. Kaitlyn also never got to stay with Mrs. Wey. And then, to make a sad situation even sadder, Aunt Jillian had work most days, and Kaitlyn didn't get to do that, either. She spent her mornings with me, telling me how it was Kaitlyn's turn to go to school and Mrs. Wey's and work.

A Gretchen mispronunciation: accilently.

A Kaitlyn mispronunciation: ehferma (elephant)

An Olivia update: She started both long vowels and subtraction last week.

We recently went to the zoo with the Weys and toured Africa. It was a hot day, but that made the African animals more cooperative and active than usual, which was a pleasant surprise. The lion even jumped right up to the window, startling all the kids standing there, before flopping down in front of it for admiration. The giraffes were (as always) a big hit. They're so big and really have nowhere to hide in their enclosure. Also there's a viewing deck where you can pay to feed them lettuce, so they tend to be pretty close.

Last weekend we went to Cleveland to visit Keshia, Tyler, and Rudy. It lined up with Rudy's birthday, so Keshia threw a luau themed party and decorated box cars for the girls to all watch Moana in their own personal drive-in. They all had fun playing and painting and dancing in their grass skirts. I will probably have a pictures only post soon once I get a chance to go through all the pictures that Keshia sent me. I told Murry about how I did so many prostrations right before Kaitlyn was born, and she told Keshia and me that we better get working on our Easter crunches so that both our babies would come while she was there to watch all the other kids. We declined. :/

After Cleveland, the girls and I headed to Pittsburgh to see the Bossards. Their new house is only two hours from the Palsgroves, so the drive was relatively painless. The girls were three across in the back-seat-moved-to-the-middle and we Bryan and Jillian packed the back of the van full of Bossard belongings from the basement. The kitchen table didn't actually fit in the van, so Bryan took that and the rest of the basement Bossard belongings to Pittsburgh in his truck on Saturday before meeting the rest of us in Cleveland. This means that the Bossards are out of my basement! Anyway, we spent Sunday night and all of Monday just visiting and hanging out. The cousins played together and Justine and I unpacked a few things that I'd brought and decided where furniture was going to go. We took the kids up to the empty attic and ran them through an exciting series of games and races, managing to get several good cousin pictures in the meantime. Again, those will go up when I get a chance.

On Tuesday the movers came to drop off boxes. I spent the morning keeping children in the playroom while Justine and Joseph directed traffic. After lunch we put on a movie and I began the task of unpacking (mostly dumping boxes of toys into the playroom) while Justine double checked everything with the movers. Then the real work began. Over the rest of Tuesday and the beginning of Wednesday, we managed to unpack the kitchen, dining room, playroom, the boys' bedroom, the bathroom, and part of the living room. Not everything was put away in a permanent home, but it was all out of boxes. We were impressed by the packing skills of the kitchen guy especially. We were unimpressed by all of the labeling skills -- sharp knives were found split between a box labeled plasticware and another labeled canned goods. On Wednesday afternoon I needed to leave, so I stole some cardboard from Justine, rigged a shelf for the portable DVD player, and loaded the girls into the car. The movie was supposed to be saved for a little later in the trip, but Kaitlyn took an early nap on the couch and was awake enough that we started the movie as soon as we hit I-76. The last two hours of our trip were cranky, at least until all three girls fell asleep within half an hour of home.

Things we learned:
-When you get Justine's early rising boys together with my comparatively late to bed girls, everyone goes to sleep late and gets up early. However, if Kaitlyn and Walter are sequestered away from the rest of them (and each other), everyone tends to get a bit more sleep.
-A pile of grass clippings and a ride-on bulldozer will keep all six children happy for about an hour.
-If you don't care about organization, having each child fill one of those fabric cubes to the top with toys will get the playroom relatively clean in a short amount of time.
-It takes seven cups of oatmeal each morning to feed everyone breakfast.

We spent Wednesday evening at home and then went down to Sidney on Thursday afternoon so that Bryan and I could squeeze in our La Comedia date before Bean is born. We were originally scheduled to see this show on July 9, but I called and got our date switched to opening night in hopes that we would make it. :) The show (Beauty and the Beast, which, incidentally, is the first thing that Bryan and I ever saw at La Comedia nine years ago) was good, but the trip was made more memorable by the drive home. We were with the Weys in their van and every warning light on the dashboard came on, one after another. Then all the dials dropped to zero even though we were still traveling along at about 65 miles per hour. Jon lost the ability to accelerate and moved over to the shoulder in anticipation of having to stop. The headlights dimmed so much as to be useless, so he turned them off and was rewarded with a renewed ability to accelerate. We probably would have made it to that next exit, except that another car had broken down on the shoulder and we couldn't pass them safely. Half a mile from the exit, we gave up and stopped to call a tow truck. The tow truck driver suspected a bad alternator. Bryan's dad came to pick us up, the Weys took our van home, and we stayed in Sidney until their van was done in the shop the next day. While we were driving we were joking about how after the show would be the perfect time for me to go into labor because Murry already had the kids. As the van slowly lost power, we thought maybe I'd go into labor five minutes after we stalled on the side of the road. However, we ended up right next to a hospital, so clearly that was too convenient and no baby came. The night was pleasant, though, so the timing for a breakdown wasn't too bad, all things considered.

Yesterday (assuming nothing happens after I schedule this post) Bryan and I went to a wedding in Toledo. The girls stayed with friends and then Jillian picked them up for dinner and bedtime. Related note, Jillian got her license while I was in Pittsburgh. She took the whole driver's test in Bryan's giant truck.

Today we're back in Sidney for a pool party, and then I think we're planning on being mostly home until Bean arrives. Maybe I'll work on my Easter crunches this week. :)

Pictures, all out of order:
36 weeks: