Samuel likes to skinny dip

Today was the first official day of spring break, and it was overcast and rained a little bit. The day started out fine. I spent over an hour on the phone with the army figuring out travel documents from our move in 2008, so I can submit them, and not have to pay the army $10,000. Apparently the travel vouchers were filled out wrong, so some of the money they gave us they shouldn't have, so we will end up having to pay some of it back. It's annoying that it took the army 2 years to figure out there was a problem, and that the people helping Travis with these papers 2 years ago didn't catch the problem and fix it. The kids enjoyed the fact that I was up to my ears in paperwork and watched cartoons all morning. Just before 10am, I was finally ready to take the documents to the transportation office to get them signed. I was under the impression that I would sit down and go through all this paperwork with them, they would sign it for me, and I would fax it to the proper people. So, I called up the two different childcare centers (Joseph and Austin go to one for school aged kids, and Betsy and Samuel go to one for the pre-school kids). I was able to squeeze them into a time slot until 11am. That gave me about an hour which I was hopeful would be enough time. I quickly put on some make-up and pulled back my hair, and got the kids dressed. I grabbed all my documents and herded everyone out to the car. The car wouldn't start, one of the kids had left the door open, so the battery was dead. Travis' car is on loan to a friend who's car was totaled, and hasn't gotten a new one yet, and I bought a portable battery charger thing, but I'd loaned that to a different friend and it hadn't been returned yet. So I decided since it wasn't raining yet, and it wasn't too far away we would walk. I called the childcare centers and cancelled our reservations. So we walked the 1 1/2 miles to the transportation office, and made it to the 2nd floor. I gave the lady at the desk the paper work and said I needed it signed. The kids started pulling out all their activities and snacks they had brought with them out of the stroller. After looking quickly through all the documents, the lady said "all right that will take about 6 weeks". I was stunned, I was told that I just needed a signature and then I would fax it to the right place, and all of this needed to be done by April 10th, or the government will take the money they want out of Travis' paycheck. I explained this to the lady, and she said it generally takes their office a week, and then they send it over to be processed. I convinced her that all I needed was them to sign it and I would take care of the rest. Since they were the ones who screwed it up the first time, I was going to do it myself this time. She relented, and told me to come back in one week to see if it had been signed. So hopefully they can get it done quickly. The kids and I walked home, and only felt a few raindrops started just as we arrived home. We had lunch and then Samuel took a nap. I talked to Travis about an hour, and the kids watched another movie (I know they're watching too much T.V., but I'll take care of that tomorrow) After Samuel woke up, we walked to the indoor pool (about 1/2 mile from our house) and went swimming. I put Austin, Betsy, and Samuel in life-jackets, and Joseph was able to swim enough to not have one on. We splashed and played around for a while. And I know several people got a kick out of watching me chase down Samuel, after he'd get out of the pool and take off running. He would also climb up the lifeguard stands, and climb up the stairs to the slide (which of course he's not allowed on). He never actually went down the slide, but loved making me chase him up there. Finally I'd had enough chasing down Samuel and we went into the locker rooms to shower and change back into our clothes. Once I'd showered off I left Samuel, Betsy, and Austin in the shower, so I could change, and then I was going to help them change (we'd done this routine several times before) They had all taken off their swimsuits so they were naked in there. I took off my swimsuit and was just putting my clothes on, when a women came in the locker room, holding Samuel in her arms, squirming in all his glory, and asking who's child he was. I claimed him, and she told me he had run out of the locker room, and jumped in the pool and started swimming around buck naked. The kid must have bolted the second I left to change. I change quickly and it hadn't been more then a minute since I'd left them in the shower. I was listening for there voices, to make sure they were fine, but I guess I wasn't listening closely enough, because I failed to notice the absence of Samuel's voice. So anyway, I was quite humiliated by my son's actions. So I quickly dressed, and got the other children dressed, and got Joseph out of the boys locker room, and we walked home. We sang "Lou, Lou, skip to my Lou" and all the many verses all the way home. It was kinda fun. We stopped to get the mail on the way back, and in it was a package from my Mom. It was full of fun activites for the kids to play with, and a few snacks for a spring break package. You are the best Mom!!! Betsy and Austin made wooden jewelry, and Samuel and Joseph made wooden Trains. I'm saving the punching balloons for tomorrow. I got my car charger back from my friend, so we'll be able to use the car tomorrow, and we made it through our first day of spring break.