#2019WaterstrautAllNighter

Hey guys, I am back with another blog. Look at me keeping up! 

Last week was  busy, lots of errands and such. It started on Monday when Calib and Peyton went to volunteer at the Food Pantry in Ybor City. Their Biology class for some reason, required volunteering. That was fine- they volunteer anyway- at the library, the animal shelter. BUT for it to count, they had to volunteer at somewhere they never had before. They needed four hours of service, so we had to look around for something. Lots of places required training and such to volunteer, so the time frame they were working under wasn't an ideal situation for things like that, so we found the food pantry and they helped stock the shelves and carry groceries to people's cars and stuff. But, that's done, so one more thing checked off the list.

It was also checkup time for Ellie and Porkchop at the vet. While it's more efficient to take two dogs together, it sure does take awhile when you take two. Asa had an 8:30 appointment for them figuring he'd be done in time for work at 10:30. To be fair, he was close. But, still a bit late. Luckily, he works with a lot of dog lovers (one even trains dogs on the side!) so they were cool about it. Etta and Phenom, however, spent two hours staring at the door waiting for their doggie siblings. 

I thought I'd compensate Ellie for having to get up early and go to the vet by taking her around the whole loop, since we had a cloudy day and temps were only in the high 80s. She got real slow around the end though, I had to keep enticing her by telling her there were lizards up ahead. (For real, she knows the words lizards and will run to the nearest tree when you say it.) 

Of course, there was 7/11 day last week too. I am not all about the Slurpies. And to be honest, neither are the boys. But, Asa has a fondness for 7/11 day from his childhood/teenage years and insists they go to get their free Slurpies on 7/11 day. I'm like 'but none of you all like them!'. They agree, but then tell me it's the principle of the thing. 

Since there was a lot of unfun things going on last week (work was SO busy for Asa!) I decided to pull out the puzzle we bought on our anniversary and start working on it. It was a good mental break for Asa when he had a few free minutes. 

This weekend was a little weird, because we decided we would do our annual All Nighter on Saturday night. I believe the tradition started in 2015 when Peyton asked to stay up all night for his 13th birthday.  We've done it every year since, usually sometime in July. Now, it's like a foregone conclusion we will do it at some point when the blanket fort is up. I couldn't schedule it too far out, because I had to wait for Calib's schedule to allow it. (I thought it best if nobody had to work the next day). When the schedule came out, I decided our best bet would be to do it last Saturday. 

Originally I thought maybe Asa and I could pull a Disney trip on Saturday morning/afternoon. But, I thought that might be asking a little too much to go walk around Disney all day, and then stay up all night. So we decided to do our bike ride on Saturday and just run some errands. (I still had my $4 shorts to pick up from Kohls). Now when we take our bike rides, he stop at the Connerton Park for awhile, to collect some energy for Wizards Unite. We killed time inbetween Inns and played on the playground, since the park was totally empty. I was bummed I couldn't do the monkey bars, though. I'm going to have to work on some upper body strength. Anyway, bike rides lately have proven to be full of wildlife. We've seen deer, and gators, lots of cranes of course, and just yesterday on my bike ride to Publix, and armadillo hissed at me for being in its way. 

 Of course during our errands we also stopped for some All You Can Swirl. I'm going to miss when that promotion is over for sure. We also kept working on our puzzle. 

Another factor for deciding not to go to Disney: Hayden had a Jr. Woodworkers class at the library on Saturday. It was supposed to be over at 4, and Calib had to work at 4:30 so he could have gone and picked him up before work, but it would be cutting it close and sometimes those classes run over. This time he made a candle holder and box. It's pretty cool, it slides open to hold extra candles. 

There's been so many events at the library this summer for him, it's been like his second home. Last week he got back his clay creation from Teen Crafternoon (I love the name of that one!), and during the Teen Summer Reading Night, they made tie-dye tote bags. 

Calib worked until 10 on Saturday night, so we started the All Nighter fun without him around 8 pm per usual. The boys wanted to play every single map on Mario Kart. So those FORTY-EIGHT races took about two hours.  

Calib arrived around 10:30 complete with pizza! We texted him our order, and he brought it home with him. He even bought it for us! What a nice delivery guy. 

We ate our pizza and spent the next few hours watching anime and filling in the puzzle. At one point we were down to just background pieces that we didn't know if they were on the left side or the right side. So, I started with the puzzle pieces and tried them all in my remaining slots, if they didn't fit in my part I'd pass them clockwise over to Calib who would try them in his spot. If they didn't work there, he would pass them clockwise to Asa, who would check to see if they worked in his spot and then pass them on to Hayden. 

It's really the only way the puzzle got done. Those pieces were hard. AND this was a double sided puzzle, so you had to make sure you were on the correct side to begin with. Asa and I have an affinity for the movie Up. We even had the theme song, "Married Life", play at our wedding. So, this was a good pick for an anniversary souvenir. We're going to frame it for our room. In fact I mod-podged it this morning to keep it all together.  

We finished the puzzle sometime around 3. By then, Miss Ellie was not pleased with us all still being up and around. She wanted to sleep (note Peyton in the background there in the office drinking his pop). 

Sometime around 4 am, Asa and I went out to get donuts. It's nice to have the Dunkin Donuts right there, we didn't have to go very far at all. 

When we brought them back, Calib was fading so much he didn't even eat his. Peyton was still happily playing video games, though. 

And then we all gathered in the blanket fort for some more video games. There was a time when I had to plan a new activity every hour for the kids to stay up all night. But now, it's mostly my teenagers playing video games telling me to stay awake to watch them. Admittedly less fun, but I don't want to be the party pooper who falls asleep first. 

Traditionally, that honor goes to Calib. This guy can wake up at 3pm, and he'd still be out before 5 AM. In fact, I don't think he's ever made it the whole night. 

As you can see, all the dongs were also out by this time. 

But before we knew it, it was 6:42 AM, otherwise known as sunrise on 7/14, so we had made it, what I considered to be, all night. It was time for bed! 

Obviously we can't sleep all day, or it's too hard to adjust back. So, we got up around 1. The dogs were less than pleased with the non-traditional sleep schedule. Etta let me know that the next afternoon. 

Eating was weird that day, so I just put together a charcuterie. Which is basically Waterstraut speak for a bunch of snacks. It's my new favorite way to use up a little of this and a little of that. We usually have it like once a week or so. I did hear Cort's family cuts up donuts so everyone can try all the different flavors, so I took the last donut and did that, plus I added it to the one turnover I had left from a Publix couponing trip. Either way, blanket fort charcuterie is like pretty much the best thing, ever. 

Everyone's kind of adjusted weirdly to this all nighter, though. Two days later, Calib and Hayden are still sleeping to noon, and Peyton did a full cycle where he's up at like 8 AM. Which, let me tell you, having quiet morning coffee time interrupted by Peyton is about as twilight zone as you're going to get around here. Asa and I are still struggling to get up with the alarm at 9 (our usual time), though one person (ahem, Asa) is shutting off the alarm and going back to sleep for 45 minutes. He hasn't made it on a morning dog walk with me yet this week (since he starts work at 10:30).

That is it from here. We've got a library event tonight and Calib working frantically to finish his Biology class before he goes to Ohio next week. Peyton finished his classes three weeks early, so Asa is 'paying' him for his troubles by watching like a million episodes of JoJos (a Japanese Anime). And Hayden and I have compiled a list for the fair of projects we need to work on. Yup, we're headed to Ohio for the fair once again. 

Next Up: Asa and I are going to be celebrating 15 years together. Our dating anniversary is usually hit or miss if we're home/together/available. But this year it falls on a Sunday not on a vacation, so instead we're taking one together! (And by vacation, I mean a weekend at Disney- because where else would we go?)