The Voyage

This is the day that ended with a fat lip, and breaking into my own house.

 Desert. The south-western frontier. This is the Saturday of the Hornbarger Family. It's continuing mission: to explore strange fields, 

to keep our children alive in and out of civilization-

to boldly go where no Hornbarger has gone before.

Ian and I have started taking pictures for other people. It is fun.  Even though we are still learning, it is really satisfying to capture those beautiful moments of people.  It is also fulfilling to do something new together. And it is stressful, as any change in routine can be.  It is adding in one more thing to our schedule, and this weekend we experienced the growing pains.

It all started Saturday morning. We were both exhausted.  The night before we had done our first family shoot.  I failed at finding a babysitter, so we took the whole family.  It completely stressed me out. Finding babysitters stresses me out.  Big time.

Then, at night when all the world should have been sleeping, our two year old come in to the bedroom at least four times.  The baby woke up a couple of times, and our seven year old had a bad dream about giant bugs or something and came in, too.  Poor little Julie.  She was chewed out before she even said what she needed.

"What are you doing in here? Go away."  She never comes into our room unless she needs something.  

Anyway, the day started off tired. Then we took that day and shoved stuff into it like a sleeping bag into a stuff sack. The zoo, a barbecue with friends, a baby shower, another photo shoot, and a soccer game.  

Something you should know about me.

I require sleep.  It don't mean casually.  I require 9 hours. Without the 9, I turn into a monster. Not the cute kind on Monsters Inc.  I am real and I am the mean, yelly, forgetful, spiteful kind. It is scary. And I walk around with normal nice people. They have no idea.

So we get to the last thing of the day, which is a soccer game.  I am changing into my orange Santos soccer uniform while driving to the game because we are cutting it that close on time. (Darling Ian would have driven, but he tends to get lost without a GPS). So, we pull up to the indoor soccer field, and Ian is hauling the four kids inside, and I am finishing getting changed.  I lock the van door.  We have our camera and stuff in the van, so it seemed like a no-brainer.

Then we play the game that has already started. 

About 10 minutes into the game, I get a soccer-ball to the face.  Straight on my face.  The part that covers my teeth, and apparently my chin.  Big fat bloody lip, and an instant headache. 

I have a fat lip.  The chipped tooth is from previous sports injuries, so kindly disregard it.

It made me cranky.  The monster was already raging. Game ends. We go to load the kids on the van.

Then we find out I locked Ian's keys in the van.  

So my darling friend drives me to my house so I can find my set of keys.  I break in through a window, only to find the front door wasn't even locked. I look for my keys. No luck.  I had also locked my set of keys in the van.

Something about me. I misplace my keys constantly. It is so frustrating.  

Call locksmith. Car opened. Keys found.

The day finally ended.  Sundays are typically busy in the best way possible. Church, pick up a rental car for Ian's work trip, choir practice, home teachers visit, and we took some more pictures.

Today, Monday Ian left for his trip by 7 AM. I made the frantic rush to get the kids to school on time, which is always a challenge. We've been walking in the mornings.  I went to get the stroller out of the van and it wasn't there. It wasn't in the garage. It wasn't anywhere.

"Dear husband.  Where is our stroller?  We last had it at our soccer game."

Ian had left it at the soccer field. 

Something about me. I found that really annoying.

I don't really have a moral to this story. It is just a story. We are a family, trying to do good things. Trying to fill our lives up with meaningful activities, and great memories. We don't always get it all right. But, I think that is what happens when you try. Sometimes you fail. Sometimes the voyage has its share of disaster.

But guess what else?

We took some gorgeous pictures.