Pioneer Day 2014

So Mom encouraged me to write this post....although I know I have forgotten some (possibly much) of what happened this day.

This year on Pioneer Day we did not plan on going to the parade in Salt Lake as we had other years.  We did a 4th of July parade and were pretty much fulfilled.  We had also been really thorough with our Memorial Day celebration this year, reading from a family pioneer history and going to Justin's grandmother's graves.  I also took the kids to a museum and did pioneer crafts during Lehi Round Up week.  SO, I didn't make a big deal out of Pioneer Day.....I pretty much didn't mention it at all until Justin had the TV on the downtown parade and they asked about it.

Justin left for work in the morning and I told the kids I wanted to finish putting away laundry so we could go somewhere.  I honestly don't remember where that somewhere was.....a splash pad probably.

The kids reminded me, I had told them I would get out one of the rats that we were watching for a friend.  We had just started watching them the night before and hadn't played with them yet. There were 3 rats and they were in their aquarium up on top of a bookshelf downstairs, so that the dog and cat couldn't reach them.  I got one of them out and the kids and I made an enclosed area with our legs in their room and let it run around.  Pretty fun.  The baby was especially fascinated by the rat.

 Shortly after that I got going on laundry.  The kids were in the room with me.  Austin comes in with a corduroy jacket on playing dress up and Avin says, "That jacket is dirty.  I peed on it."  I sort of wasn't fully paying attention.......until I back tracked and replayed his comment in my head.  "What!?  Where was the jacket when you peed on it!?"  Turns out it was in the corner of a bedroom and TWO of the boys peed there.  What!?  Not only did they pee there, but we had just had the carpets cleaned for the first time in like 4 years THE WEEK BEFORE!!!!  Really.

So I went to check that out.  Strangely, I couldn't really see or smell anything. Then I get another confession about Avin peeing in his closet!  I went in there and it stunk.  Totally flabbergasted.  What is wrong with these people!  So naturally, I grounded Avin AND Austin...Avin the longest for 2 locations.  Sigh.

While they were grounded, I finished laundry and actually got the 2 babies napping.....and Joshua must have been building legos or at a friend's house at this point.  I layed down for a sort of miraculous little nap.  Not too long into it, Jonathan woke up and Austin's time out was up so I told them they could play quietly downstairs.  Now normally, there would be nothing wrong with this set up.  Austin and Jonathan play really well together and are pretty trustworthy when they are together.  Well, not long after they went downstairs, maybe 5 minutes, I hear a huge crash, followed by little kid running up the stairs.  I was halfway out my bedroom door to see what happened and Austin appeared wide eyed.  We went downstairs together and I saw the shattered aquarium, rat food, poop, bedding, some more shattered glass, and some more, and no rats.  On the clean carpet.  Then we see Austin's leg bleeding--not too bad, but more than a little scratch.  I sent him upstairs to wash off his leg.  INSANE!

After I called and freaked out and worried to the rat owners a bit, I got to vacuuming the glass enough so that I could move the necessary furniture to find the rats.  They were okay, a bit traumatized of course.  They had quite the drop.  Turns out Austin was trying to see if he could slide the aquarium down and get a rat out.

Needless to say, by the afternoon I was super wishing we had gone to the Pioneer Day Parade.