Day 7 - Morning with Mimi - Evening with Friends

We spent the morning at the house with my mom.  The boys played with her breakfast play-dough set and rode on bikes down in the basement. Today, was the first day that I could tell that our staying up late and going everywhere was catching up with the boys. They were cranky.

 

 

 

 

We were hoping that both of the boys would nap on our way to meet Sheridan and Erin (2 hrs away) ....but Levi was so tired that he ended up taking a morning nap and then didn't sleep in the van.  Ian slept for an hour or so...but by the time we got to Sheridan & Erin's work...I could tell that it was going to be a long evening.  After, Sheridan & Erin finished we all left to go see the ELK in Benezette, PA.  Matt had taken me there 11 years ago on his bike. It is one of my favorite memories.. it was fun to go back..and experience it again with the boys!

 

We saw over seventy elk! 

At dusk, the elk were walking through peoples yards and holding up traffic because they were standing in the middle of the roads.  People we jumping out of there cars and trying to get as close to them as possible to take pictures. We had a lot of fun!

Then we went to a local restaurant to eat dinner....sigh...it was 7:30 by the time that we got there and the boys were hungry, tired and restless to say the least.  While we waited for our food Erin & I took the boys back in the corner of the restaurant where there was a Pac-Man & claw machine up on a platform (about six inches higher than the rest of the floor).  They were happy! Ian was standing on a metal fold out chair pretending to play Pac-Man....just as our food came out Ian told me he had to go potty - I went to grab him off of the chair, he turned and tried to jump off of the chair, but caught his left foot in the hinge part of the chair and fell chin first to the floor.  I felt terrible.  He was screaming...I quickly scooped him up and went running in to the bathroom to check him over. I couldn't get him to stop crying..he had a little blood in his mouth and his teeth were loose, but there were not cuts.  It took a while to calm him down..I tried to get him to think about something else..so I ask him about the shirt he was wearing...he quickly answered "RACE CAR SHIRT" then I asked him what color race cars were on his shirt..he answered "GREEN, BLUE & ORANGE" he loves this shirt! Since I got him to stop crying I figured we would try to go back out to our table but, as soon as I stood he started crying again.  I sat with him a little while longer, but could not get him to stop...deciding we couldn't sit in there all night, I took him out to our table - he started to cry louder.  So I quickly went back into the restroom. Then I heard a knock on the door, this kind lady asked if we were ok..she said she was a nurse and if we needed anything she was there.  I told her we were fine.  After a couple more minutes, I  tried to go back out to our table again..he was still crying..so we went outside.  Matt then came out and said he would hold him while I tried to eat something.  As soon as I sat down at the table I stated crying.  Levi wanted everything he couldn't have, he wanted up and then down and then up again...I was emotionally exhausted....Erin & Sheridan took Levi and got him interested in something and told me every thing would be OK.  I said a quick prayer was able to pull it all together. Matt was able to get Ian calmed down...we tried to get him to eat some french fries but he started crying as soon as he put something in his mouth.  Erin took Ian in her lap, broke up some french fries and put them in the back of his mouth..he was fine eating as long as he didn't have to use his front teeth.  Then the discussion turned to "do you thing his teeth are going to turn grey or fall out?) it made me want to start crying all over again.  The owner of the restaurant came over with stuffed animals for the boys!  It was very thoughtful of him, (since in the back of my mind I thought at any minute someone was going to ask us to leave.) We finally finished our food and decided it was time to go.

The boys were asleep just minutes after we pulled out of the parking lot. The drive home was quiet...I thanked God for his protection - the fall could have been much worse.