Harmony Happening in the Hills

Scott has been singing with the Barbershop group, Treasure State Sound.  They sang before the lighting ceremony at Mount Rushmore the last weekend in August.  We made a little trip out of it.  Scott and his mom went early in the day on Friday and I followed later in the day after school with the kids.  Unfortunately Ian got sick and was throwing up for a good portion of the trip.  That was a little stressful.  It was also stressful wrangling all the kids without Scott a lot of the time.  He was busy with rehearsals and things.  We went to Bear World during the day Saturday.  It was pretty cool to see all the animals up close just wandering around right outside your car.  The kids enjoyed it.  They also had a baby animal section after the drive that you walked around looking at all the baby animals. 

A lot of times I find it really stressful having all the kids out and about.  It is hard to keep them all listening and behaving like they should.  When we went in the amphitheater to watch Scott's performance, Leah caused me a lot of stress.  The group was warming up and I sat down on the front row with Scott's mom and the kids.  One problem, Leah hadn't followed and instead had gone off into the trees and brush to the side of the amphitheater that was somewhat blocked off by large rocks.  I sent Kate to go get her.  Kate came back without her.  Meanwhile, Lucy kept running back and forth in front of the stage between where Leah was and where we were.  I was really irritated by this time and got up to get Leah myself.  Leah was down a little side hill and I told her to come here.  She told me, "just a minute."!!  A forest ranger was watching me.  Leah continued picking up rocks.  The forest ranger then thought it a great idea to tell me that Leah shouldn't be down there.  Oh really?  Thanks for the help!  I called to Leah again and I tried to use my 'I really mean it' voice to get her to come out of there!  Finally she came up and I told her to put all the rocks down.  Then the super helpful forest ranger told me she couldn't take the rocks.  Oh really?  Thanks again!  As you can tell, all of that did not put me in the best of moods.  I was worried about our Disneyland trip that was coming up in a few short weeks but Leah actually did a lot better listening there.  I think because it was all cement and structures, no nature to get distracted by!