7 Quick Takes about Fast Food Toys, Flying Cross-Country without Breathing, and a Wedding Worth the Trip

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

For our church young women's activity on Tuesday, I volunteered to teach knitting. 

Then I remembered that the last time I picked up a knitting needle was 7 years ago, and I know because my last project was a shawl I made during pregnancy bedrest with my 1st grader.

In a moment of panic, I actually had to Google "how to cast on" because I couldn't remember how to start. Luckily, it's sort of like riding a bike.

I get really stressed about planning activities of any kind (what if no one has fun? what if I don't have enough supplies for everyone? what if everybody needs help at the same time?) but my new mantra seems to be helping.

A few weeks ago at a young men's activity which was supposed to be a game of ultimate frisbee, my son reported that no one brought a frisbee so they had to make do with what they found... so now when I get worried about activity planning I take a deep breath and tell myself, "At least we won't be playing with a bucket lid in a field." (Which is exactly what the boys did that day and everything still turned out fine.)

—2—

If you have kids you're surely familiar with the lame plastic toys that come with children's fast food meals. 

I can't decide if this video is (1) a spoof or (2) an actual documentary about where they came from: 

This guy usually makes joke videos, but since this seems like exactly what must've gone down in the boardroom at McDonalds' headquarters one day, I don't really know.

—3—

Well, the hoped-for date of completion for the basement stairs came and went. And although we did make good progress, the stairs still aren't finished.

Then Phillip and I went out of town, leaving Grandma and the kids at home without stairs which they aren't happy about. 

The kids let us know mostly through passive-aggressive vandalism of the sign we put on the basement door for safety before we left.

—4—

My mom flew out to stay with the kids while Phillip and I are gone. I worked hard for several days before she got here, fine tuning our schedule and drawing up a Master List of All the Activities with All the Pertinent Addresses and Contact Information that she could possibly need during her stay with them.

I was so frazzled over it that when it was time to pick her up from the airport I did my math wrong and arrived an hour early.

It was too far away to go back home and too rainy to take a walk, so my 4-year-old and I hung out in the car playing with the map and two random Beanie Babies we found in the backseat for 60 minutes.

Good times.

—5—

Phillip and I left town for his sister's wedding in Utah. It was the first time we've flown anywhere since we went to Florida pre-pandemic, and about an hour into the first leg of our flight I'd solemnly sworn never to leave my house again.

We wanted to be extra-cautious not to bring Coronavirus back home with us, so we wore N-95 masks all day. I was dehydrated and honestly thought I was going to pass right out about halfway through, but I gave myself the old "if you've had six babies then you can certainly do this" pep talk and somehow made it.

Barely.

On arrival in Salt Lake City, with mask lines on my face and hair as crazy as I felt inside.

The one time I would've actually welcomed a long layover (to find a spot to remove my mask and breathe between flights), we had exactly 14 minutes to run from one gate to the other as they were already boarding.

—6—

Our consolation prize is the hotel we're staying at, which is new and really nice. 

I think the funniest part is that our room comes with $15 worth of snacks daily, so every evening we walk down to the front desk and pick out our drinks and candy like 14-year-olds whose moms dropped them off at the movie theater with twenty bucks.

—7—

Phillip's sister's reception venue was amazing. It was in this beautiful indoor garden venue with vines criss-crossing the ceiling and lights everywhere. 

Wow.

Phillip, who works in research and development for building materials, was most impressed by the swamp cooling system in the back, but we'll agree to disagree on that one.

Managing to show up looking slightly better than after the plane ride.

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