To sum up, this past year had been busy. In October of last year, I started babysitting even more kids than I had previously. I started watching two groups of siblings full-time, all boys, and when my boys were home, there were six of them running around our tiny apartment. I also was, and still am, managing a rental property and I was running a paid carpool. I was putting in 50+ hours a week, plus my two church callings of Primary teacher and Cub Scout Pack Committee Chair, and family duties. All this lasted until the end of July of this year.
There was a reason for this madness- we needed an influx of cash. Our car needed repairs ($1500 worth), I needed two root canals and crowns, Christmas was coming, our rent increased, we had a couple of trips to the emergency room and everything just seemed to get more expensive.
Most of the insanity ended during the summer, but below is a quick summary of what we did each month.
October - more babysitting kids ages 6 months - 7years. When I had them all out in public, they were spaced enough age-wise, that I got a lot of surprised looks and "Are they allll yours?!" Halloween was fun, and I make the boys Link costumes.
November - Settling in to our new routine and Thanksgiving. I don't really have any pictures from this time period. Too busy! But we had a nice quiet holiday and enjoyed some down time.
December - Christmas and Winter Break! I didn't babysit nearly as much this month and got some fun family time. We had the church Christmas party, and the boys sat on Santa's lap, perhaps for the last time. We spent a day in San Francisco playing tourists, went and saw the lights at the Oakland Zoo and had a nice, quiet Christmas. After Christmas, Aaron gets sick and throws up some blood. Turns out to not be serious, just a scratch from something he swallowed, but we spend most of the night in the ER.
January - We went to the Rose Parade in Pasadena. We had a fantastic time staying with friends, watching the parade and touring the floats afterwards. It's one of our favorite things we do all year. I quit doing the carpool - it all just got to be too much and I had to cut back on something. Adam fell at school and hurt his wrist. No break, but sprained and in a splint.
February - Aaron has been traveling for work much more often, usually gone for several days each month. This month he was off to Japan for a week! Of course, it had to be the week of Valentine's Day. While he was gone, Samuel developed Orbital Cellulitis and had to be admitted to Oakland's Children's Hospital. He was on an IV drip of strong antibiotics for four days. Samuel had a sinus infection that traveled to his eye, instead of his ears, like most of them do. Aaron got home before Samuel left the hospital and was able to help out. Samuel was pretty sad that most of his mid-winter break was spent in the hospital and recouping from his illness. Adam fell again at school, no break, but a splint again.
March - Aaron was in Stanford for a few days. We also got to take a very short trip up to Oregon to see Aaron's sister, Jenny, get married! She married Michael Pollander in the middle of the month. Otherwise, we were back to our usual routine.
April - We had our Spring Break, and my sister Amy and her family got to come spend a few days with us! I had reserved the property I managed, which gave us all space to hang-out and move around. We were busy seeing the sights - locally and in San Francisco. So much to see and do and so little time! It was Easter this month and we got lots of chocolate! Aaron went on a work trip to France.
May - Adam's Birthday and Mother's Day. We combined the celebrations and went to Great America and had a fantastic time! I could devote a whole post to it. Our boys like roller coasters, especially Samuel. He's our adrenaline junkie, apparently. Adam and I agreed on which ones we wanted to ride, Aaron and Samuel liked some of the even crazier ones and Samuel rode a couple that all the rest of us looked at and went, "Nope! NO. No. No. Not even!" We later that month, spent another day in San Francisco, seeing more sights and having fun.
June - At the end of May/beginning of June, my dad started having some serious heart problems. it took awhile, but he is doing much better. The middle of the month was the NorCal Pirate Festival, and it's become a yearly tradition for us. End of the school year and at the end of the month, we went on a camping trip with the entire Brewster clan. What fun! All of us were able to be there for the majority of the time. We played on the beach, roasted lots of food, hiked the Redwoods and had a movie night with Grandpa's projector. Back home, after the first couple of weeks of the month, all the boys (mine + those I babysat) were at our place. We played in the pool, went to a different park every day, did crafts and made lots of noise.
July - Insanity this month! We spent 4th of July on the Berkeley Waterfront, going to the carnival, eating yummy food and watching fireworks. It was windy and cold for most of the day, but thankfully, the wind died down in time for the fireworks. Later that month, I was told by our landlord that it was against our rental agreement for me to run a business out of our apartment and that I needed to stop babysitting, asap. Well, that put a kink in a lot of people's plans. I was getting tired of babysitting, but had planned to continue, at least through the summer. Very upsetting and frustrating for me and the families that suddenly had to find other child care. I was given a couple of weeks to get things arranged with people. End of July, I was in charge of the 8-9 yr olds at Scoutastic. Our stake does a 3-day day camp for the Cub Scouts and I was leading the youngest group.
August - still part-time babysitting, one of my families has a little one that isn't old enough for preschool, so it was harder for them to find replacement childcare. I do a couple of days a week, until they do. We all liked all the boys I babysat, my boys loved having a play date every day. But, they also, after sharing me for most of the summer, liked having my undivided attention for the end of the summer. We went to museums and just hung out. School started at the end of the month and Aaron went to PAX.
September - Samuel's 12th birthday! He got ordained to the Priesthood, Grandpa Jon came down to help with the setting apart. School is in full-swing, I'm busy with the property rental and finding a new job.
I know it may not seem like it, but this really is just a summation of our year. I might go back and write some posts about various activities, but for now, I'm just going to jump back into writing regularly.
