The not so perfect day

"Mom! We need our whistles! We could whistle for pigs to come over so we could kill them! And eat them! We need our gun, right?"

This was Jacob's loud and slightly disturbing revelation as we drove yesterday to the Rio Grande, about 10 minutes from our house. We had decided to get the kids out of the house for a walk, but we didn't feel like driving forever for an adventure. So Rio Grande it was.
I went on a cleaning binge yesterday morning, vacuuming the carpet where Colonel had shredded various items, like a tissue, a foam sword, and Bekah's old homework. In the process, the vacuum decided to disperse the sucked-up tissue all over the floor. Realizing that something was not right, I turned the churning vacuum over just in time for it to spit dirt all over Beau's face. Ouch. Then I realized that there were several levels of clog-ed-ness in my vacuum and employed desperate measures - the air compressor in my garage. It worked slightly better after all the filters were blown out. Just slightly...like it actually sucked a little. Yuck. I hate the fact that to have truly clean carpet I have to drop more dollars than I did for this vacuum at Walmart...like hundreds of dollars. (Although not thousands like the door to door Kirby people tell me.)
Mmmoving on, so did I also explain that the reason I had to clean the carpet was so I could move all the chairs from my kitchen into the living room so that I could sweep? There are levels of dirt on my kitchen floor. The first level is Mac&Cheese. This is where Beau or Bekah or Jacob clean off their plates while dispersing every fifth bite to the floor. I don't clean anything at this level. Colonel does.
The next level is ToeKick level. This is where my floor appears clean because all of the dirt has been somehow kicked to the toekick under the cabinets, and it only annoys me if I'm sitting at my table and I can see it.
Next up is BakingDay level. This is where my floor is sprinkled with residual chocolate chips and puffs of flour and grainy beds of sugar...where bread crumbs from dinner have slid off the counter onto the floor and odd ends of carrots or bell peppers dress everything up with orange and red. I usually sweep when it gets to this level because I hate the feeling of bell peppers stuck to my socks.
And the best level of them all is Colonel/Kids PostBakingDay, where the above mentioned mess is found among deserted books, toys, lonely socks and abandoned cups. And that is where I was yesterday. I'd call this code Red...it requires complete removal of anything mobile so that I can sweep up the rubble and be reminded of the color of my floor. (tanish-brownish-creamish vinyl.)
So no one can blame Rus for being at his wits-end as I up-ended our downstairs...and then to top it off Rus picked up a toy off the floor and Bekah wanted it. So he had her put it away and she just left it on the counter. (unthinkable.) So Rus threw it away, Bekah cried, I brushed my teeth, and we were loaded in the van five minutes later. I think Rus needed a Dr. Pepper at that point, but 10:30 was a little too early to start for him. Not really. He just didn't want to carry it while we walked.
We did our walk. (I love cottonwood trees.)
The kids got whiny/grumpy.
Rus got grumpy/snappy.
I yelled at Rus.
He huffed off with Beau and Colonel.
Bekah and Jacob stuck with me.
We went home, ate lunch, and took naps. Separately.
See? Not every hike ends perfectly. Or every day. (Even if you do get to eat a delicious peanut butter pie at the ward pie night. yum.) It wasn't until we were finally in bed, lights off, that we apologized to each other for being impatient/yelling.
But, my floor is still clean. Mac&Cheese level, baby.