Hi there!

My Uncles think I am soo cute at 10 am, but not so much at 6 am.

We spent the weekend at Lake Chelan with my brothers, their partners, some siblings and some close friends. 17 adults and two wild, but doted on children in total. Sadly, Nick was shooting Decimation and we won't see him until we are leaving for the airport on Sunday, which means that not only do I really, really miss him for the trillion weeks it felt like it has been since I saw him last, but I have to pack his bags for him which I hate because then I get blamed for not packing the right things. We've been here before, in case you can't tell.

Our best friend from Oxford, Sam, is in town with his lovely girlfriend Laura and they joined us for the fun last weekend. And they are also along for the ride of this crazy week where I am hitting my head against the wall and making secret pacts with my mother to just say no to all those little tiny extra projects and places and appointments and meetings and people we say yes to. Too many yeses make for a head-hitting week with a bad cold and no sleep and wild children and an international flight to board in 93 hours and no husband to help get ready for it.

I didn't have a very good example growing up I said to my mom on the way to something extra I had said yes to. She says yes to everything and is the busiest person I know.

At least I gave you a good body image, she retorts. That's way more important for a daughter to have.
To which I replied something along the lines of if I had been given better instructions on saying no and putting up boundaries, but had an insecure body image, I would be a skinny person who knows how to say no, which kind of sounds fantastic at the moment, because then I would have time to try on dresses for the wedding next weekend and I would actually look good in them. She laughed and we made a deal that November and December are the Months of No and we are really going to work hard at having more time to sit and be bored.

Wish us luck.

In other news, I think my adorable children did a fantastic job of providing all 8 couples this weekend with a natural dose of birth control that should last a year, at least, and I am quite positive that none of them walked away wanting to be me. Probably the second most difficult thing I have done in my life was trying to keep two running, screaming, energetic tots from waking up the whole house at 6:30 am. I failed every morning and also learned that I cannot be both a mother and pretend not to have children at the same time (ie I cannot stay up late and party like it's 1999 when I will be awake with children two hours later). I had a sleep-hangover all weekend and it had nothing to do with alcohol. Brutal.

Sorry for the rant. It's my cold speaking and she is a wry little beast, I tell you. Hopefully gone by the time we board that airplane with two wildlings to tame for 9 hours and an exhausted husband who will be asking for that contact solution that I forgot.

UK are you sure you want us?

xoxo