One of those Saturdays....

The day started out with one set plan and one idea of a plan.  Set plan?  Meet up with old mission buddies.  Idea of a plan? IKEA.  And the day just snowballed (in a good way) from there.

Tyler has had a particularly busy week and we haven't been able to hang with him much, so I was especially excited about our set plan.  Ty's old mission companion, Rich Lopez, lives about an hour and a half from us and contacted Tyler about a month ago wanting to get together and also do a Skype call with some of their old investigators in Ukraine.  It was so fun!  Another Elder from the mission came, along with his wife and kids, and we all had a delicious brunch, chatted, listened to our husbands speak Russian, waved and smiled at some nice Ukrainians on the computer, and the kids had a great time.  Loved it.

Suzette Lopez told us as we were leaving that we needed to stop at Snoqualmie Falls {snowball idea}since we were right there.  So we parked, tormented our children by making them walk in the scalding hot weather {mid-80's} through a parking lot and down a path to see the beautiful falls.  It was worth it.  Max wore his sweatband and stuck his head in a sprinkler at my urging, we stopped in the shade a time or two, and right by the falls was a little cooler/breezy.  So even though it seemed sketchy at times, we all made it back to the van alive.  {Seriously, you should have seen the sweat and heard the complaints...we're total heat wimps}

Then we hit the road for IKEA.  As we were driving, Ty mentioned, "The temple is right over there."  I didn't realize what road we were on and we decided just as we were coming to the exit to get off and walk the grounds.  The kids had never been to the Seattle Temple before since it's over an hour from us and we're usually going to the temple to GO to the temple.  It was really, really fun.  We saw three couples who had just gotten married, outside taking pictures.  We took several pictures, explored the temple grounds, stuffed as many acorns as we could into our pockets {Max}, and didn't complain too much about the heat. This little side-trip was my favorite part of the day.  And my favorite picture is the one of my kids all squished to me and each other.  We sat down to take a picture in front of the Seattle Temple sign and suddenly Max's arms were around my neck.  Then I felt another little body squish close to him and a third little body squished in as well.  I will forever love that picture because I loved that I could feel each one of them add to the squishy-ness and my heart felt so full.  I love being a mom.

Next it was on to IKEA.  We ate, had an acorn trade at the table, dropped Max and Kelly at the play area {distracted Ev so he wouldn't know what his non-potty-trained self was missing}, and browsed/shopped for an hour.  We came home with an easel/chalkboard/art station for the kids, a watering can, and some cork pads to set hot things on the table.  

We got home, had cereal for dinner since our lunch was so late, watched some Olypmics, and that was that. I sure dig my little family.  A whole lot.  LOVE these kinds of Saturdays.

{Oh, and I forgot to mention that my sandal snapped at the Lopez' home.  Since we were going straight to the Falls, the hubs took my sandal, some duct tape, and worked some engineering magic.  It sounds awful, but was barely noticeable.  Now I need to get some new sandals.  I've had those sandals our whole marriage.  My feet might be a little more stylish.  Darn.}