WHAT A DAY!

MONDAY, JUNE 15, 2009 Corey flew out to Atlanta for work this morning. Stacey also had to work. That meant I had the two hellions for the day. The hellion part is said tongue in cheek. They were really good, just comically mischievous. Since Stacey left her car at her work (a long story), I showed up at their house around 8:30 this morning. We took her to FEDEX Kinko. The rest of us got breakfast at Sonic. We stopped at Corey’s office for a couple of minutes. We took him to the airport then Jayden, Bailey and I took their house payment to Provo and dropped that off. Since we were in the neighborhood, we went to the Provo Towne Centre Mall and looked around a little. It was approaching noon by this time so I got them burgers at McDonald’s. Bailey got a child’s cheeseburger. Jayden ordered a double quarter pounder. I thought, “No way is he going to eat all that.” So I didn’t get anything for myself. I told him I would eat what he didn’t. He took that as a challenge and stuffed down the whole thing. I think he had to borrow a gut to accomplish it…and was he proud of himself. Bailey only ate half of hers so I did get a nibble. From the mall to our house the two rascals chanted “Are we there yet?” over and over until we finally arrived—twenty to thirty minutes. Of course I pretended to be totally exasperated and yelled at them, mimicked them, yelled “shut up” and generally pretended to be going nuts with the din. That of course egged them on and they only slowed down to giggle at how badly they were “getting to me”. We were at the pool at a couple of minutes after 1:00 and stayed for at least two and a half hours. The first hour was spent (mostly) in the deep end. Jayden and I did a lot of diving to the bottom. He is amazing at how far down he can dive and how long he can stay under water. There were two boys around his age, one named Lane Benson who latched on to him asking him to teach them to dive and stay under water. Jayden of course was eating it up and worked with them a long time. They improved their skills but never came close to what he could do. The next hour an a half was spent in the shallow end “drowning Grandpa.” And what a fine job of it they did. At some point the bishop’s wife and four children came to the pool and their youngest, seven year-old (daughter) Teanu joined the fracas. (The Hansen kids are all large for their ages.) others; strangers also joined in and I got really beat-up. Leah, the mother expressed amazement at my endurance and swimming speed. I thought I had lost a lot in my swimming ability with age but I will accept the complement. I finally dragged the kids out of the pool. We got dressed and drove to their house in Eagle Mountain. We weren’t there too long when Judy called and asked what was for dinner. We settled on Fuddruckers by the South town Mall. We got hold of Stacey and we all met up. From their place to Fuddruckers, a good half hour, I endured the “Are we their yet” thing all over again. This time they got creative and changed up the tempo and volume and even the wording. E-gads, was I glad when we finally arrived and the chanting was over. Love them to pieces but it was nice to drive home all by myself. Whew