Lesson learned. . .we hope.

After Britton's last birthday and with Korinne coming to her 5th birthday we decided that as long as we are within a few minutes from home and can be reached by cell phone the entire time our kids can handle being home alone for short periods of time.  They have proven to be very responsible and all occasions have gone without incident so when Adam and I both had to go to a short missionary correlation meeting yesterday afternoon at the church around 2:30 p.m. we thought nothing of it.  Before we left we gave the kids my cell phone and then warned everyone in the small meeting that we would be leaving our cell phone on in case our kids called.  The meeting was pretty much over and we were just talking a little bit when the phone rang.  Adam stepped out to take it and then after a few seconds popped his head in and said, "We've gotta go."  I jumped up and walked out and Adam debriefed me on the way to the car. 

"Um, Korinne was playing with the phone and called 911.  The cops are on their way."

WHAT!?!

My first thought was, "we've got to beat them there!" We ran to the car, jumped in and I blurted "Go, Go, Go. Go faster!" to which Adam replied, "I don't think it would be good to get pulled over for speeding on the way." He is so practical.  I just had visions of getting my hands slapped by the authorities because our kids were still on the young side for being home alone.  Since we were only 2 min. from home we pulled into our garage and got out of our car a millisecond before we saw the first cop car come around the corner.  Another cop was right behind him.  We explained that it was our 4 year old that called and that everyone was ok.  He took Korinne's name and birthdate and our names and birthdates (just to make sure that we didn't have a record of violence and child abuse I'm sure.  We don't even have so much as a parking ticket between the two of us) and was on his way.  Korinne was hiding in the basement crying.  Britton and Jenna were white as sheets. It was very traumatic for all 3 of them.

This is what went down.  I have a Blackberry that looks like this:

Jenna had locked the keyboard when Korinne wouldn't stop playing with it.  When the keyboard is locked on this particular phone it will still make emergency calls. In fact it becomes SUPER EASY to make an emergency call by pushing the main button a few times. You don't actually have to dial 9-1-1 to call 911.  When Korinne pushed enough buttons and they realized she had called 911 they hung up, but of course, the 911 operators called right back so Britton answered it.  They asked him all sorts of questions, "Are you Ok? What is your address? Are your parents there? Whose phone are you calling from?", etc. They told him that he wasn't in trouble but that the police were going to come to the house.  At that moment he went into a total panic.

The other thing about my phone is that when you make a 911 call it goes into "emergency callback mode" which won't allow you to make regular phone calls so the 911 operators can call you back.  So after hanging up they still couldn't call us to tell us what just happened.  At this point he ran to the neighbor's house and my neighbor Tammy was the one who called us out of our meeting to let us know the police were on their way.  She got the biggest kick out of the situation and was just laughing the entire time.  She sat on her front porch with her boys because she wasn't about to miss "the show."

"That's the most entertainment I've had all week!" 

Korinne was white as a ghost when we found her in the basement.  She was crying and so scared about being in a lot of trouble.  We talked everything over and then decided that we would never leave my phone with the kids again. Adam's phone isn't configured the same way so they would actually have to dial 9-1-1 to call 911.  Korinne said a few times today that she doesn't ever want to hold my phone again. In fact, none of the kids will even go near it. 

Lesson learned. . . we hope. 

Lost

The Primary Program is done for another year!  If you were sitting next to me at this very moment you would actually be able to hear an audible sigh of relief.  It's my 3rd program as President (in 2 different wards) and I've learned that the program practice will always be a disaster and that somehow the kids will always pull it together at the last minute.  Even with the best planning the last few days before the program are a little nerve racking.  Last night I was a little anxious about the program when I received a phone call around 10:00 p.m. from Carrie, my 1st counselor in the primary presidency.  She started talking about how they were lost in the Wellsville mountains and had called search and rescue. . .

Wait, what?!? Say that again! Is this a joke?

Lost. Mountains. Search and Rescue were on their way.  Would be several hours before they even reached them--and the Primary Program was at 9 am the next morning!!!

I must admit this was a first for me.  I've never had a counselor get lost in the mountains the night before the primary program.  So, instead of not being able to sleep because I was running through microphone exchanges and trying to remember if I told the organist to only play on the second verse of a certain song I couldn't sleep because my 1st counselor and her husband were lost on a mountain and not sure when they would get home.  I kept waking up and looking at her house, which is in our same cul-de-sac, to see if they had made it home yet. 1:30a.m., 4:45 a.m., nothing. Finally, at 7:30 a.m. I looked out and saw that they were home.  With the help of amazing search and rescue volunteers they had finally made it home around 6:30 a.m. Instead of going to sleep for only an hour she just stayed up, got her kids ready for the program (grandparents had stayed with the kids during the night) and was at the church by 8:30 a.m.  She could hardly walk after spending 15 hours hiking and her feet were covered in blisters, but she sat with a CTR 5 class whose teacher had been up all night throwing up and no one in the entire congregation except for a few of us had any idea that she had spent the night stranded on a mountain.  I sent her straight home after the program, of course, so it was a good thing it wasn't her week for sharing time or I might have had a heart attack myself.  That is a lot of primary craziness in one day.

I've decided 120 kids in a primary program is a lot.  Oh, and just in case you were wondering the meeting ended EXACTLY on time--to the very minute, in fact.  It may not mean much to you, but I've been fretting about the timing of everything for months.  It's one of my quirks and sometimes it is very annoying.

To add the the excitement Adam was put in as the Elder's Quorum President today, and no, they have no plans to release me any time soon (that is usually the first question people ask). He'll do a great job, but I'm sure there will be a little bit of juggling.


My parents came up to see the kids in the program and ended up filling in for a primary teacher who got sick during the night.  Yes, I actually made my parents teach a last minute lesson while they were visiting.  No rest for the weary, my friends.  If you are standing by me on a Sunday, I'll put you to work!

*Sigh*

Real Salt Lake

We went down to the Real Salt Lake soccer game this afternoon.  For those of you who are not familiar with soccer (so pretty much everyone who reads this blog) the tradition is to have the players come out before a game holding the hand of a child who then stands with the players for the national anthem.  It is an international thing and is done all over the world.  Well, Britton and Jenna had the opportunity to be part of the "dream team" and walked out on the field with the visiting Chicago Fire players.  It was really cool.  Here is my own personal dream team about an hour before the game:

Here they are getting their free t-shirts and receiving instructions. 

Waiting, waiting. . .oh, the anticipation!

Walking out to meet up with the players. 

It  was our soccer league's special day at the stadium today so all of the kids who wanted to were able to go out on the field before the game as part of the "parade of kings", but only 11 kids got to be part of the "dream team."

Here they are walking out with the players.  Jenna is with number 77, Bratislav Ristic (from Serbia).  Britton is right in front of her with Marco Pappa (from Guatemala).

The Chicago Fire's starting line-up. You can see Britton and Jenna on the left.

You can see all of the other youth soccer players in the background at the other end of the field.

This could quite possibly be the only smile we saw out of Korinne the entire game.  She had a rough day.  This next picture is a little more accurate of her mood today.

She spent a lot of time on the ground under the seats.  We used all 3 special calendars we received at the entrance to put a layer between her and the cement.

Looks pretty comfy, eh?  We were sitting in the direct sun for the entire game and it was HOT.  This was my first soccer game and I must say it is pretty cool to be there live.  It's kind of like baseball that way, more difficult to watch on TV than to be at an actual game.

A good time was had by all.

It's Official

My kids are all back to school.

Korinne had her first day of preschool yesterday and loved it. Everyone is growing up on me!

The Last Hurrah

My sister just moved to Myrtle Beach and now lives just minutes from the ocean. Yeah. . .we don't have that.  But we do have this. . .

. . .and it is only an hour from our house.  If you look directly at the water and nothing else you might think you were actually in the Caribbean.  (This vision would be shattered when you stepped foot in the cold water, but that is completely beside the point.) Some friends of ours invited us to Bear Lake this last weekend and we had a great time hanging out at the beach.

The weather was perfect and it was a great way to end the summer.

A few days ago Korinne got a sliver in the bottom of her foot. She briefly mentioned something about it, but then when it didn't come up again I figured it was taken care of and all was well.  By Sunday she started to limp a little and when Adam and I asked her about it she seemed confident that it would go away and didn't want us to see.  The truth was that she was too scared to have anyone look at it for fear they would want to do something that would hurt.  Sure enough when we took her tights off and looked at the bottom of her foot the area where the sliver was had become infected. Oh, the trauma.  In an effort to keep this short I'll just mention a few of the things she said to try and get out of having us do what needed to be done.

"I know why it's all red right there, Mom, I just got sunburned on the bottom of my foot.  It's ok, it's just a sunburn."

"How about I squeeze it and not you. . .it would be more accurate if I did it."  Accurate? That's a good one, Korinne.

"If I just put my sock on it will feel a lot better and it will stop hurting." I'm sorry to break it to you, Korinne, but that is not how it works.

Just another reminder to take care of things right away.  The longer you wait, the worse it is going to get.  Life lesson #54.