Next morning

Mrs. apparently woke up around 4AM, understandably hungry. Went down to get a snack, and was on her way back to bed when the gentle thunder of a stampeding herd of children followed her down. She kindly stayed up with them, and let me sleep in until 5AM when some argument or the other took place. Naturally I stayed in bed, but tossing in your bed until 7 is not restful.

I got up eventually, sent Mrs. back to bed, and entertained the kids a bit (it should be noted that the idea cheese crackers for breakfast was NOT MINE.) Around 8:30 I open the door to check the weather, and youngest wanders out. I figure she's on the porch, I turn around to get her raincoat and she's five steps down on the sidewalk crying her eyes out. She fell, somehow hit her eye and nose area without landing on hands or knees - go figure. Patch her up, drag 'em off to services, which were not my best ever. Aside from it being beastly hot & packed for the big collation that followed (someone's birthday) the kids were driving me insane. They ripped through the raisins I brought for snack & were hungry, since they only had cheese crackers at 4AM. Youngest fell again when I turned my back to get a tissue, so we weren't doing well.

Home for lunch, which was much more pleasant. The turkey was great, the company was lovely, and the kids were running around out of sight and earshot. One of the couples stayed till almost six, and it was nice because we haven't really had a chance to chat with them since they moved in about a year ago.