Father's Day, and Other Happenings

Life has been busy.  It's been hectic.  It's been crazy and exciting and rushed and insane.  The house we live in officially went on the market a few weeks ago, which means we've been attempting, with mixed success, to keep our house at the height of realtor perfection.  I have never been particularly neat (although I would love to be), and with two small children in the house, it's been challenging.

So.  Last week another realtor contacted our realtor and said he'd like to show the house Saturday evening.  Naturally, we have to be out of the house while it's shown.  We elected to just sit in the park across the street while it happened.  We waited and waited and waited and waited....

At last Paul called our realtor and he said he'd been trying to reach the other realtor, with no success.  Extremely annoying, to be sure! 

Then yesterday, Father's Day, our realtor had an open house planned for our house.  Paul told us it was from 1 - 4 p.m.  Our house was still mostly neat from Saturday, but a few things needed to be touched up.  We all felt the pressure of time.  Tempers were short, and sometimes got lost.  Matthew watered the garden with Henry, and then, bless his soul eternally, took the small ones and Noah out of the house and to the park, so that Paul, Carol, and I could clean in peace.  And wow, we made it look dazzling.  I even finally managed to get the study cleaned up.

We were out of the house before 1:00, and we made our way to Minto Brown Island Park in Salem.  We figured it would be a good place to hang out for a few hours.  I had to make a run to the store for a few necessities, so Matthew again took the children (he amazes me!) and Noah took Lili to the dog park.  That's right; we had our dog with us, too.  Around 2:15 I got a text from Paul:  It turns out the open house was actually scheduled for 2:30 - 5:30.  We'd been out with the children for an hour and a half, and THE OPEN HOUSE HADN'T EVEN STARTED YET.

To make things more difficult, the kidlings were tired of the park.  I thought of my parents; I had really wanted to go see my dad on Father's Day, but I thought they might still be in Seattle.  My mom's brother is in the hospital there.  I figured I should call anyway and find out.  And...they were home!  I asked if we could crash their house with five people and a dog, and my mom said, sure!  Bearing in mind that they live in a single-wide trailer with a very small (but thankfully fenced) yard.  And two of my sisters (one with her husband and two children) and one of my brothers were already there!  Haha!

So there we went.  The children were charmed by Lili.  She is very sweet and playful.

 My brother-in-law grilled steaks, one of my sisters made a delicious Asian salad, my mom made fabulous baked potatoes, and we had a fabulous time.  Hurray!  And Happy Father's Day, Dad!