I got an AMAZING birthday present from my husband and my brother-in-law. They decided to take the five boys camping and offered me the opportunity to stay home alone for five days and four nights! I jumped at the chance and planned to work on projects and things that need near silence and little interruption. So enjoy three parts to this post... photos of the projects and work that I did while home alone...
Photos of the boys enjoying the beautiful campground and surrounding beach area...
And photos or our lovely belated Christmas and birthday celebration with a dear friend of ours to finish off the week.
To start off, I was plant sitting. Munchkin had planted several things a few days before they left (see previous blog post) and I was made to promise that I would look after them and water them if necessary. His radish thrived while he was gone...
I set up a new puzzle on the dining table as I knew I wouldn't be using it for eating. Towards the end of the week I abandoned this puzzle and started a different one though. I just wasn't enjoying this puzzle AT ALL and life is just too short for that.
I had all my books stacked on the makeshift table I've created next to my chair. Each day I made sure to read some for one or two of these books.
My evening project was to sort Legos. If you look carefully you will see a purple box on the right-hand side of the photo full to overflowing. When the boys have played with Lego they dump anything they don't need anymore into that box and the IDEA is that the box gets sorted BEFORE it is full to overflowing. But first we needed new tubs so we could make a 2nd box for black, grey and white. So each night I would watch several episodes of Friends while doing the sorting.
More plant excitement when I noticed that the Bok Choy had sprouted and hubby's chili plant had ripe chilies on it.
The Lego sorting chore got finished in just two nights I think. Now all the Legos are sorted back into the colour box system that works well for us. All that is left to deal with (in the purple box) is a small container of minifigs and studs (rectangle box) and the random stuff I found that doesn't even belong with the Legos (orange bowl).
We got some MUCH needed rain towards the end of the week...
Meanwhile... halfway through the week hubby posted on Facebook that Munchkin had slipped and fallen on some rocks and scraped up his leg pretty well.
I enjoyed playing around with my photography on my phone camera. I much prefer my large DSL camera but every once in awhile I take the plunge and play around with the camera on my phone. I was pretty pleased with this photo I took after the rainstorm from above.
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The next series of photos below are taken by my brother-in-law and they are included to show you some of the fun the five boys had together.
They really enjoyed their first ever camping trip.
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Meanwhile, I thoroughly enjoyed my five days of solitude, BUT I did learn some valuable lessons about myself. First of all, though I was not afraid to be alone, the nights were hard. I realized I have NEVER slept entirely alone since moving to Australia 20 years ago and therefore I had tremendous difficulties sleeping at night, and it got worse each night rather than better. Secondly, at my core I am an extroverted people person and five days of complete solitude is TOO much. In the future, should I get such a long stretch of time alone again, I need to plan a lunch date or coffee date on at least one day with some friends. I was more than ready to have my men home by the time they walked in the door around midday on Friday.
Saturday we headed to a dear friends house for lunch, belated Christmas and my birthday celebrations, and the boys enjoyed an afternoon spent in their pool. They took full advantage of the beautiful weather and were in the water for easily four hours. Monster surprised me by spending some time helping Munchkin with his swimming skills, while Monkey worked on his swimming skills on his own in another part of the pool. They also spent lots of time playing with the diving toys.
Two of the beautiful plants that were in bloom in my friend's backyard.
All three boys were blessed with wonderful presents that our friends put much thought and effort into. They always find the perfect gifts for each boy's personality and interests.
I just sat back and had fun capturing their facial expressions...
Monster was quite happy with his selection of gifts...
Monkey was blessed with some wonderful art supplies and his facial expressions were just classic.
All of the book selections this week are independent choices of Munchkin's.
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