The Teenager Invasion!

July 6th, 2013

The first part of this day was cleaning and cleaning. And here I thought that doing all of the dirty stuff ahead of time would keep us from having to do so much on this day, NOT! But after a busy morning and afternoon, everything got cleaned, was all nice and shiny. Part of the cleaning was making food for various events in the coming days. Later in the evening we had dinner with neighbors that go to our church. Her husband was being elected to the Deacon board, and mine was now an elder. We thought it would be nice to get them together, so they could get to know each other better. Us women folk know each other, but men don’t make coffee dates and such. We made potato salad, the Texas style. We made a huge batch, enough to fill two bowls worth. This salad has of course potatoes, onion, red pepper, dill relish, mustard, miracle whip, salt and pepper. Otherwise we had a very yummy chicken burger with cheese and bacon. Plus hot dogs and a lettuce salad. For dessert we were treated to Rita’s waterice. It’s between ice cream and a snow cone. But much much much better. Now I have lived in PA for 3+ years, and not until then had Rita’s.  Hubby and I went home exhausted.

Sunday July 7th:

We were up bright and early, as hubby was playing in the worship team at church. So there was practice before hand. Right after church, another friend of ours, one from lifegroup, had graciously offered to help us drive down to the airport to pick up the kids. We left our area at 11:15, arrived at the airport at 12:15pm. Then we stood in line for 30 minutes waiting for a gate pass. A gate pass that we never got, as the teenagers had landed while we were in the line that never moved at all. So the teenagers decided that they could make their own way out of the airport to security. We only had to wait a few minutes and they were there. The teenager invasion!!!

I first noticed that my daughter was taller than me, *cry*! That my middle son, was yet even taller than the last time I saw him, and still taller than his older brother. Both boys had a bit of fuzz on their face. Growing up so fast!

We piled all back into our friends mini-van, and headed home. A part of the craziness of the morning was that we were making spaghetti for dinner, expecting that teenagers would be hungry after they got off the plane, which they were. It took us an hour to get home. Once home, we got our spaghetti dinner ready to serve and eat. Thank goodness for crockpots. We had invited over hubby’s brother and girlfriend, so there were 7, and then hubby’s dad decided he was going to come over. So in the end we had 8. So everything came together wonderfully. The only one small thing about dinner was, I got the parmesan cheese from the refrigerator. Usually it’s sort of stinky cheese. I started the cheese going around the table, by putting some on my plate on my serving of spaghetti. So then I think it was my oldest son, who said, why the parmesan is green. OhMyWord, Green! No way! I would have not known the difference, glad someone said something. So I wasn’t eating that plate. I wasn’t really upset about the fact that it was green or bad, but that the sauce was now not eatible. Oh well! After having a nice dinner, everyone had coffee. I made 8 cups of coffee, yes all of the teenagers wanted coffee. The family hung around for a while, we talked about the next day events and the week to come.

That afternoon after family went home, we just hung out. The teenagers were also in bed very early, as they were super tired from getting up early. That was okay, because we were tired too.

Monday July 8th,

Teenagers slept late as usual, but we did end up making them up to get ready. Today we were meeting up with hubby’s brother, and the 5 kids. Unfortunately BIL’s girlfriend had to go to school. So in turn we had 4 adults and 8 kids under the age of 18. We met up with them right after lunch, and went to a huge swimming pool near Lake Nokamixen, specifically in the state park. We had been miss lead to believe that the pool was super deep, had a diving board and slides. Well it was a huge pool, but didn’t have the entire extra’s we were expecting.

We had first stopped at BIL house to drop off food for our cookout later on in the day. And grabbed water and ice to take to the pool. Once we got there, we found out that you really could not take bottles of water into the pool area, but could leave them near the front gate. We had not been the only one to do this as there were other coolers there. I thought it was strange.

The little kids had a blast, and so did the big kids, specifically the teenagers. But their fun only lasted for an hour or so. Because we were swimming, I had to take my hearing aids out. So what did this mean, hubby and I had to sign everything to each other. At this point we had only been taking sign lessons for a few weeks, but so we were forced to use finger spelling a lot. The good thing is that I understood most of what hubby was telling me. Hubby said that when people would say something to me, then he would sign it to me, people were very understanding. I was very nervous about this.

After a while, after my kids had changed their clothes, and were bored, we packed up and headed to BIL’s house. At this point BIL dropped off GF’s girls, so it was just the teenagers, and BIL’s kids, and of course us adults.

Hubby and I both got a bit too much sun, no one else did. Don’t exactly remember what time we left BIL’s house but everyone was tired when we did go home. Teenagers were in bed early yet again. The cook out wasn’t like the normal cookout, sitting outside and playing out. Instead the food was cooked out, but we ate inside in the A/C, and watched a movie. It was very relaxing.

Tuesday July 9th,

On this day, we were just hanging out at the house. My oldest wanted to go to the skate park in Doylestown, so FIL helped with transportation. Hubby and my middle son began a game of settlers that ended up lasting several days long. In the afternoon, my daughter and middle son took a trip to MCD’s and the store. They picked up milk and a few other grocery items.

Not much to write about on this day, as it was mostly spent relaxing and spending time with my daughter and middle son. It was nice at some point my daughter and I had some really good girl time, talking about school and just girl things. Boy is my daughter growing up. Not a baby anymore. The really odd thing is that in the past when the teenagers had visited is that my oldest was the one with the most annoying behavior. He would always get on my nerves, on his siblings nerves and just be an all-around pest. This time it was my middle son who had those same issues, I guess it’s the age. Overall they were very well behaved, just sometimes I wanted to make them “poof”away. LOL I mean Poof by making their bad behavior go away, not themselves. 

Wednesday July 10th:

On this day, hubby had to go to work. So teenagers and I went to the mall. We left the house around 1, in time for a late lunch at chick-fil-a. Up until then we didn’t eat out the whole time they had been here. I let the boys go and look around, and us girls went to look around. We went to Bath and Body works, as I picked up a bunch of little bottles of hand sanitizer. We looked a long time at the Vera Bradley purses. I got an IPhone 5 case, and I got my daughter a pencil pocket. The nice thing is that my oldest wanted to get a few things. In the end a few shirts and a hat. He spent his own money, which added up to be like $100. For some of the time that we were at the mall we just sat around a table and talked. The teenagers also wanted a pretzel, so we ate that too.

In the evening, hubby’s mom and step father came into town from RI. SFIL, had a dinner with a friend already set up, so we ate in. Teenagers were excited to see their grandparents.

Even though it was a semi-busy day, it was very uncomplicated.

Thursday July 11th:

On this day we also had hubby’s mom and step dad here. Step dad went off to play golf. Hubby was able to talk to his supervisor and ask for another day off, thank goodness he was able to take this day off too. So after going through many options, the teenagers decided to go to the second largest mall in the country. King of Prussia mall.

Again the boys went their way and us girls went our way. There was a bigger Vera Bradley store, so we of course had to look. My daughter got a kick out of looking into the Forever 21 store that was two stories big and had an escalator. I’ll just say this mall was huge. We stopped in a store that is sort of like LansEnd and Eddie Bauer but has more camping outdoors stuff. I will have to say that this mall was not a mall that you went to if you had no money, every single store was high end products. The last store we went to was the coolest by far. It was called the Brain store that had all kinds of games to simulate your brain in different ways. Several games in that store we already had but saw some new ones that I might have to get hubby for birthday or Christmas. We didn’t actually buy anything at the mall, for the one exception of a starbucks drink. We brought our lunch and ate at a few benches. How cheap, LOL!

After the mall we went to Sam Ash, this was supposed to be the largest store in the area. It was actually really dissappointing. We picked up a birthday present for our niece. For dinner, the grandparents gave my kids an option of what to eat. My oldest said he wanted a steak, and the others said similar foods. So we went to a nice restaurant called Metropolitan. Everyone got something they wanted. And the teenagers were very happy.

It was a sort of early dinner, as later in the evening, hubby and I had a sign lesson. Probably with the mall trip we walked several miles, so after the sign lesson, we all went to bed. On this night, for some reason, my daughter changed rooms with her older brother. She mentioned that the blinds on the window started to move, and she got scared. I didn’t really mind her changing but that at the age of 13, she still gets scared of the strangest things.

Friday July 12th:

On this day, we were going on several factory tours. Our same friend from bible study, was helping us with transportation. He picked us up around 10am, and we headed up to Bethlehem PA, for the Martin Guitar factory tour. Before we went on our tour, as we had to wait a bit in line, the teenagers and hubby tried out a few very very expensive guitars in their practice room. It was an hour long tour.

The teenagers thought it was cool. I didn’t get much out of it, as I didn’t hear a lot. The FM system, I asked the tour guide to wear continuously cut in and out. So I would hear every other word. Oh well it wasn’t for me, but more for the kids. Once back in the van, we passed out lunch that we packed. We then headed to the Asher Chocolate Factory. They had a tour thing where you watch movies, and can look in on the making of chocolate treats. Unfortunately the movies were broken on two of the 6 screens. Ugh! Well the kids got the premise of it. I told them all that they could have some sort of chocolate treat for under $5 apiece. They all picked very very different things. Of course I got my favorite chocolate covered pretzels.

After that adventure we headed home, we had planned on having a picnic at the park to celebrate our niece’s birthday. Instead the party was inside as it rained. So it was us 5, including the teenagers, BIL and kids, and grandparents. We ordered pizza, and had other snack food items. The pizza went very very fast. For dessert there was a cake purchased. It was a bit hectic and crazy but fun.

The teenagers said goodbye to the grandparents, as they headed home in the morning Saturday.

Saturday July 13th: Time to go home already?

Everyone was lazy in getting up. There was last minute packing and getting ready. Around 12noon, FIL took hubby to get WaWa sandwiches. We all had a super good lunch before heading to the airport. FIL dropped us off at the train station for us to get our train.

We got a 1ish train, and all was well until we got to Lansdale. Then the electricity went out. No one told us anything for a long time, it was a bit unsettling. By the time we got going we were about 30 minutes late, which put us late in getting other trains. We did arrive at the airport finally, got our gate passes, and kids boarding passes. Security wasn’t a big deal, other than my daughter got stopped for her toiletries in her suitcase. Pretty much as soon as we got to the gate, they were calling for them to board the plane. It was a very quick goodbye, but well felt by all. They were way way too sooner gone.

Sooner than I would have liked, we were rushing off to get our train too. We made it home in record time. Your probably thinking, that now we could have relaxed. LOL I wish!

It had been decided by our bible study friend that he was available to paint our living room Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. So when we got home, we started moving things out of the living room.

I know we pack a lot in one day. Hubby and I didn’t move any of the big items like the couch, piano, love seat. The big strong men would move it the next day.

Normally after the teenagers would leave, I would immediately miss them. And don’t get me wrong, because I did, but we were so busy right after they left, I didn’t have a lot of time to miss them.

More to come…Hubby and I went to bed exhausted.