Brian did an excellent job of recounting their time in his weekly family email. I am not about to reinvent the wheel (especially since I wasn't even there!) and will simply copy his narration here. And I'll even add some of the action shots--thanks Hilary!
Brian:
Watching the Martins was a big deal. We knew they’d be going overseas and this was sorta like a last chance to try and solidify a spot as favorite relatives.
We picked them up after work and went to the Primary’s got talent show. Lots of cute acts were met by an enthusiastic crowd. You do not have super high expectations for a primary show but Makenna’s dance was much better than anything I anticipated.
We took the hungry kids home and fed them dinner. If only you could have heard their praise for our gourmet culinary art. They acted like it was the most high-class red carpet food they’ve ever laid eyes on. I can give you the recipe. I call it Tyson chicken patties. You’d think their parents only fed them gruel and never took them to restaurants with iron chefs cooking for them. We laid out buns, ketchup, mustard, miracle whip, tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, and cheese and just let them try whatever they wanted. Believe it or not, there were a few interesting combinations. After I finished my chicken patty burger I got up from the table for a minute. In the seconds my back was turned Makenna had cleaned up both of our places and put my dish in the sink. It was very sweet, although it admittedly made it challenging to eat since I’d gotten up from the table to get another chicken patty. Afterwards we had some ice-cream cake that one of Hil’s students gave her.
They loved it when Karen introduced them to Mr. Bean a few weeks ago so we let them watch the full movie Mr. Bean’s Holiday which got lots of laughs from everybody. The kids were most impressive showering and getting ready for bed. Isaac even busted out his scriptures on his Ipad. Isaac got the blow up mattress, Makenna got the futon and Jess’s dream came true when we let her sleep on the giant Lovesac. She couldn’t really climb into it so when she was ready for bed we just picked her up and threw her into it followed by some blankets.
We woke up next morning to some timid knocks on our door. We got up to find them all dressed and ready to go except for Jess who sank so far into the lovesac that she needed a rope. They were polite and thoughtful; Makenna told my wife how pretty she looked.
Isaac’s football league requires all the players to wear a cup. That kid has a serious mental block when it comes to wearing cups. “Isaac what did your Mom say is the most important thing to remember?” uhh… A helmet? “No Isaac, your cup.” Huh? But they provide stuff to drink there. “No the cup you wear.” What? Well it didn’t matter since someone stole his cup anyway. He went through different ideas of stuff he could shove down his pants to pass the cup check before the game. (soda cans, wiffle balls etc.) Whatever he used fooled whoever had the misfortunate job of being the cup-checker. Maybe a TSA employee.
Hilary and I went to the girls’ game. Despite their prowess in passing and teamwork I was glad there were moments to remind me that they were still kids. A girl on our team was dribbling downfield veering to the left (when her position was on the right). Her coach shouted, “NO, GO TO THE OTHERSIDE (she leaves the ball and runs to the other side) TAKE THE BALL WITH YOU!” Later there was an indirect kick. The kid kicking it told his teammate to tap the ball so he could kick it. The teammate didn’t want to, but after some insistence, runs up and taps the ball with his finger.
Well Isaac and the girls lost spectacularly but played really well in Vegas heat. After some turkey sandwiches we headed out to the pool with our first pack of balloons. I put sunscreen on myself. Decided to lather it on in the places I usually burn. My shoulders and whatnot. See the accompanying picture. This is the responsible adult Karen left her kids with. The water was pretty dang cold and as both girls pointed out several times there were BUGS FLOATING IN THE WATER! But we had fun. Balloons worked pretty well as flotation devices and Makenna wouldn’t tie the balloons to send them flying all the way across the pool. After numerous balloon water games the we ran out of balloons and we trudged back home to get Isaac who was just coming home from his game. They downed another ginormous lunch and it was time to open the second bag of balloons.
Hilary ran the show and we split up into teams. Me and Jess versus Isaac and Makenna. First it was which team could keep five balloons in the air the longest. Then we went to the kitchen to see who could balance six oreos on their teammate’s forehead the fastest. Jess was laughing so hard there was no way anyone was balancing anything on her head. Then everyone tried to slide an oreo down from their forehead into their mouths. I’m the only one with a big enough mouth to do it but we got some pretty funny faces and some pretty close calls. Then everyone got six tries to throw a balloon into the laundry basket. Everyone tied with one out of six. Then it was who could throw the most cards into a hat. Isaac or Jess won. After trying unsuccessfully with half their cards they just threw the rest of their deck right into the hat. Hilary won in the traditional fashion. Then who could throw a card the farthest. Isaac was the clear winner by a large margin. Then we did the whole balloon on a string tied to your shoe. We went out into the front to try to stomp on each other’s balloons. Jess used clever stratagem to come out on top. It consisted of yelling “Time out” followed by stomping on my balloon. I eventually got Isaac’s balloon but paid for it with a bloody lip.
Jess had filled up a balloon maybe a third of the way with water. That took them a long time to figure out how to pop. Afterward we were almost out of balloons and the aunt and uncle were a bit tired so we watched an episode of wipeout. Then one kid got to be blindfolded while the other ones hid a pot. We gave the blindfolded child a wooden spoon and shouted instructions while they banged around looking for the pot. Then Mommy got home and whisked them away. We had lots of fun having them over. We sure will miss the Martins.
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