Once upon I time, I was a reader

Jane and Rachel have been having a reading weekend, and I have been jealously following their progress. You see, once upon a time, I used to read books too. Witness the evidence here.

It wasn't having children that slowed me down. If anything, I feel like I had more time to read with littles in the house. No, I stopped reading when I had children and a job at the same time. Now the only time I read is the week we go camping (hence why I read 11 or 13 books this year. I had a lot of making up to do, although still no where near the 60 ish I used to read in a year).

I miss reading. I keep a book in my mini van these days, and in the ten minutes I wait for Elisabeth to walk to the car after school every day, I hungrily read a few pages of my book. This is not a satisfying way to read, friends.

I have been home sick for almost a week. On Tuesday I went to work, just like any other day with no inkling of what the future held for me. I was happy that the weather was dry, if not sunny. I took my usual lunch break at 1130 and decided that today I would drive to Fort Langley, buy myself a coffee and peruse the antique mall. My sister in law is looking for an elephant teapot and I would love to be the one to find it.

As I arrived in Fort Langley, I realized my throat was dry. That kind of irritating, I can't help disrupting church with my cough dry. Uh oh.

I started hydrating immediately and dug out the vicks from my emergency work supply. But it was Too Late. By the time I got home from the school run, I knew I needed to go straight to bed.

I spent the next 65 hours in my bed, mostly sleeping, except for the two hours I picked up the kids from school on Thursday and occasionally stumbling downstairs to make tea.

Back in September I'd promised David and his friend Seth that we would plan a sleepover for the next pro d day. And I promised Seth's mom we'd carve pumpkins. I toyed with the idea of cancelling, but this is an annual event and I knew I would disappoint a lot of people if we didn't go to Chilliwack.

I'm so stupid. Though I did tell Andrew yesterday, it was worth it.

Anyway, we had left early so we needed to get lunch on the way. We stopped at Booster juice for smoothies. Ada, who was in town for 36 hours, loved her smoothie.

This year we were actually pumpkin patching! What a year to have Ada with us. And what a pumpkin patch to visit!

 I had charged my camera battery and even managed to remember all the components I needed. But unfortunately I didn't notice that the camera was turned on. So by the time we got to the patch, it was deader than dead. All these crappy pictures are from my phone.

There were a lot of kids, so I ended up following Ada around. Lizzie is such a wonderful little mother hen, she followed us around too so that I wouldn't have to use too much energy keeping up with Ada.

 Though honestly, once Ada found something to do, the worst part was trying to persuade her to move on to something else.

 In particular she LOVED the corn bin. She begged to go back again before we left, but I was so tired at that part...man, looking at these pictures I feel like such a crap aunty/mum. I'm sure the kids had fun anyway.

There were some animals, but I wouldn't call it a petting zoo. Too many signs warning you that the animals might bite. At least I didn't have any goats jump on my back this year.

 At this point I told Elisabeth to go find the other kids for a while, I felt bad that she was babysitting while she could be playing. Me and Ada were fine on the tractor.

And anyway, it didn't take long before they found each other again.

 Then we found pumpkins. There were warnings posted about EXTREME MUD in the patch. And the corn maze looked like the mud was at least a foot deep. So we chose our pumpkins from the displays around the entrance.

Somewhere, I have a picture of Elisabeth and Seth on this swing from when they were very little. Couldn't for the life of me find it for this post.

 We'd come in two vans and some of us were done patching and some of us weren't. So I said that I would stay for another half hour with those who weren't done and let the others go home.

 These four made straight for the raceway.

 Ada was too little for these go karts, but she loved watching the races.

 And then, the thing she'd been looking forward to ALL afternoon. TETHER BALL!

 Meanwhile, the big kids were in the hay maze. We eventually made our way to them.

 And Charlise fell in a hole.

 Then we had time for one more photo op.

 And I was ready for bed!

 Of course, the festivities weren't over yet, we still had pumpkins to carve. This is something we've been doing with the Abelmans since the kids were babies. And well, this was the first year they really didn't need me at all. It was a little sad.

Good thing I had Ada with me, she still needed me to do the cutting and pumpkin holding.

 She looked at pictures on my phone and decided what she wanted on her pumpkin. Then she drew the picture and I cut it out for her.

 While she waited for her pumpkin, she danced to the monster mash. And thriller.

 Somewhere around here I was done, so I went inside and chilled with Mayah. It was too cold outside for
both of us.

Super fun day, and like I said, even though I paid for it I think it was worth the fun. The kids certainly enjoyed themselves!

Yesterday we had to go to Chilliwack again. David slept over with Seth and Andrew wanted to stop at a carving show on his way to pick up David. I spent most of the time we were out trying to find places to sit down and fall asleep (I'm such a wimp!) but I think Andrew was inspired by the carving show. He found the carving set I bought him for Christmas years ago and practiced some of the techniques he'd seen at the show.

I napped until Elisabeth and Andrew had dinner ready, then came straight back to bed after dinner. And today I slept until 1. I hope I'm over the worst of the cold now. Though the funny things is, all these days in bed and I still haven't spent any time reading. I'm gonna have such a big to read list by the time I retire. I shall plant myself in a comfy chair and end out my days with a pile of books :P