Plan B is Plan A with water…

My plan was to post about my observations of the new school year schedule but then I thought maybe I should give it a few more days. We have new activities starting this week, shifting childcare hours, and other things. But I will say…it is nice that currently no one has to be up before 7 a.m.

Anyway, this weekend had some downtime (Friday night, Sunday much of the afternoon). Saturday was kind of intense — so a mix.

Saturday morning I got up at 5:30 a.m. to make sure my 14-year-old was up and moving. He was not. Glad I set my alarm too. Anyway, I hustled him out the door at 5:50 a.m. for a 6:00 a.m. drop off at the high school for a cross-country meet (the bus was taking them from there). He seems to be enjoying the sport so far, so that’s good.

I came home, drank my coffee, then headed out as soon as it was light (a little before 6:30 a.m.) to do my long run. I’m not sure exactly how far I went. I ran for 2 hours. My step counter on my phone (not a running app) only gave me credit for 9.5 miles, but that seems unlikely (I’m slow but not THAT slow). I felt fine at the end — definitely like I could keep going, which is good, because the day’s intense physical exertions were not over yet!

They were, however, briefly interrupted by a trip to the post office to get the 4-year-old’s passport renewed. We got him his passport when he was 2 months old, and they last 5 years, but you often need 6 months left on them to travel. So, it was time. I am completely paranoid about having the proper documentation (having seen multiple families get turned away before/after us over the years), so we had no fewer than 3 sets of passport photos (I worried his eyes were too closed in the first, so our nanny humored me and took him back for 2 sets of additional shots), plus I had made black and white AND color copies of everything (kid’s birth certificate, plus my husband and my passports). Reader: I even brought a stapler with me in case they wanted *me* to staple the photos to the application — and I didn’t want to staple them ahead of time until I knew they were approved.

(I’m going to add a PSA here that you should always expedite your passport application/renewal. If you can afford to travel internationally, you can afford to pay the expediting fee, and I have seen some folks cut it very very close with trips that were 3-4 months away…).

Anyway, this particular clerk was chill about everything. We got in early, she just asked us to sign and she made copies of everything. So it was all swift and we were in and out in 5 minutes. The biggest ordeal was that my kid may have demanded we buy a set of Buzz Lightyear stamps. We did, because hey, we always need stamps, and then he proceeded to try to treat them like stickers. I pulled a Buzz Lightyear stamp off the wall yesterday.

At home, I found our raincoats and water shoes and we got in the car at 11:45 a.m. to drive north to the Delaware Water Gap for rafting! The 17-year-old declined to go, and the 14-year-old was still running, so it was just the three younger kids plus my husband and me. We needed at least four rowers so we couldn’t let any more kids drop out. There was a lot of trepidation about this, and complaining, and then while we were on the highway, the rain started pouring down in buckets. Like it was almost impossible to see. So, this did not bode well.

Fortunately, when we got to the rafting headquarters, it had stopped raining, at least for a bit. We got in our life jackets, and they drove us to a drop off point. Then we went on our 4-mile course.

The weather was not great. For starters, it was actually pretty cold (like 65 degrees) and then it started raining again. A lot. We had to do some hard paddling to get around the rocks and such in the water. So, two hours of running for me and then two hours of rowing! In the rain. Once we were on the water there was obviously no real way off until the end, so we were joking with the kids (to keep them motivated) that Plan A was that we went rafting, unless it rained. Then we’d go with Plan B. What was Plan B? Plan A with water!

But we made it. I was proud of the kids for being little troopers and I think they mostly had a good time (though at the end the 4-year-old’s lips were trembling because he was cold…). The Delaware Water Gap is quite pretty. The van picked us up and the driver cranked up the heat. We got back to headquarters and I was happy I had packed dry clothes! We headed home and I may have crashed before 10 p.m.

Fortunately Sunday was pretty chill. Church (choir is back to singing!), some time in the pool, a Starbucks trip, a playdate. I read on the hammock for a while. It definitely felt like fall this weekend, though this week is supposed to get warmer again. Also, we have several back-to-school nights this week so…here we go…