Finally, A Day Off!

Today, Gary is taking his first complete {knock on wood, knock on wood, knock on wood} day off since he started on July 20th. He's had a couple near misses already but always seemed to get called in or needed to just go to the morning briefing or the nightly planning meeting or, or, or. Today, he's home. Wooo hoooo!

We have about six days worth of stuff to do in the six hours until the boys get home from school. There are closet organizers to customize and install. There's the frog toy holder in the bathtub to glue firmly into place. There's laundry and recycling and four cords of wood to find, cut, and bring home {that's several truck loads for those of you who haven't hauled firewood!}. Right now he's off with Dylan and Ethan to the recycling dumpster to get rid of all our boxes that the movers "are on the way to pick up." We've been hearing that story for almost three weeks now. It's time to just get rid of the rain soaked cardboard filling the back of his truck!

The biggest part of this day off is that he will have all the boys by himself this afternoon! The District Ranger, i.e. his boss, wants to have a big end of summer BBQ. Since I have a Costco card and we will be needing Costco quantities, the two of us are headed to Prescott for a Costco run this afternoon. I have to admit, I'm excited to go sans kids but still a bit nervous for a four hour car ride and shopping trip with someone I barely know. I feel like I've lost my ability to communicate and relate to educated adults. She is great though. A beam of light with this move. She's really gone out of her way to help us feel at home and welcome here and I really appreciate all she's done. I'm sure I'll be able to get out of four-year-old and two-year-old mode soon enough. Hopefully Gary can also get a lot done today. And hopefully I can get all the laundry done or at least on the line before I leave!