I’ve been planning this post for about a week, and the inspiration/time just didn’t come until today. The change in the weather last week made everything hit the fan, and kept us all out working some late evenings. This weekend marked my oldest son’s 8th trip around the sun. If you ever want to make a breakfast to impress your kids, stack a pile of powdered donuts on a plate in the center of the table with some makeshift toothpick flags that say “Happy Birthday” and watch their eyes light up. Hostess (cupcakes), you did it again! Once the boys were all jacked up on sugar and cherry Kool-aid, we set out for our weekly trip to the recycling station and grandma’s house only to find that grandma was out at the farm helping plant corn. So, it turned into a day of apartment inspections with their dumb old mom. That’s right! Happy birthday (sucker)! Actually, big brother wanted some time to himself, and the only gift he really requested was some time way from his little brother (no joke)! So, I dropped little brother off at Uncle Tom’s accounting office, and big brother set out with me to do some inspections. Together, we are like a K-9 unit, sniffing out marijuana smokers, changing smoke alarm batteries, and switching out furnace filters ahead of our cleaning crews. At one stop, we were in the second level of an old house where we ran short on 9V batteries. I sent him down to the car to get another package, and he ended up finding part of his birthday present in the bag…multiplication cards. Man, was he upset. Heard about that horrible gift the rest of the day. Thank goodness he got hung up on that and didn’t dig any deeper to find the “some assembly required” robot in the bottom of the bag. Mom fail averted!
We ran into a good friend next door at one of our inspection stops. While I was inspecting, he ran up on her in the garden and scared her half to death. He got a birthday present out of that deal to tie him over until the evening party. Another successful stop! We enjoyed a Dairy Queen lunch so we could pick up the party cake and headed down to Uncle Tom’s to check on the little one. Of course, he had been a “perfect angel.” Sure wish he acted like that in my presence.
The afternoon brought much of the same as the boys napped and our WFR team worked to get apartments ready for new tenants. It was unfortunate that the temps soared to “surface of the sun” highs with gale 
force winds to really get all of that loose trash piled around the dumpsters moving through town and smelling good. My poor husband had to spend a bulk of the day in the field working on equipment only to find that he got to spend his time after hours using his truck to pick up trash and haul it to a secure area where it wouldn’t move until the garbage crews came through this week. Yummy. He was in a super good mood until we got a couple of beers in him.
Finally, we got everything situated for the day just in time to rush home for a small party to celebrate the birthday boy. The adults were all a little strung out from a long, hot day of planting corn and beans, but the kids hopped off the bus (literally) like they could go all night. We were able to shut her down by dark, which left just enough time for the boys to put together the birthday gifts with dad before bed. They all love to draw, build, create, and invent. Nothing beats the sight of them all laying on the floor in their jammies reading the instructions and looking for the right pieces. The perfect end to what Logan says was the perfect day. And, if that’s how he perceives it, then it must have been. It doesn’t matter what we do, but we make a dang good team when we do it together. Welcome Home.
