Julie and I decided to be brave and take all 6 kids to Costco on Saturday. They have those nice big carts, so I put both twins car seats on the back of one cart. Julie had another cart with Logan and Eden in it and we headed in the store. Soren has this “thing” where everytime you get to the very back of a Costco, he has to pee. Of course he can never tell us on the way in, it has to be at the back. Well he didn’t fail us this time, either, so I took my cart with Peyton and Soren back to the front of the store to use the bathroom.

I was waiting outside the door for the boys to get done when an older gentleman walked up and, upon seeing the twins, came over and oohed and aahed over them. Then he said, “we have a set of twin grandkids back east born a couple years ago.” That was cool, but then he started telling me his daughter’s whole history of trying to get pregnant, not being able to, having IVF with 8 eggs and a couple of failed attempts and then finally 2 eggs took so she had the twins, then a third egg took and so now she has 3 kids. Quite a story but more than I really wanted to know. He asked if ours were natural or a fertility treatment result and I said, “oh they’re natural, no fertility treatments needed by us for sure”. Well, finally he went into the bathroom. Soren and Peyton then came out so I told them to watch the babies while I went. There were 3 urinals and the older man I was talking to a minute earlier was at the middle one, so I pulled in at one next to him and started doing my business.

Urinal conversations are always weird.

“Yeah”, he said, “if those earlier eggs had taken, my daughter would have had 6 kids under 8 years old. Can you imagine that? ha ha ha…”.

“Umm, actually I can imagine that” I replied. “That’s what we have”

His eyes got big and he started a “whoa” when the air was punctuated by a drawled exclamation from the other end of the bathroom in a toilet stall. “WOW! 6 under 8! I’m impressed.”

It was about all I could do to not laugh. Who jumps in to a conversation with people they can’t even see and don’t know, while seated on a toilet??? Apparently, the unseen cowboy in the toilet stall had no qualms about doing it.

So me and my 2 new friends, one unseen, the other just met, had a little conversation there in the bathroom about how crazy life with 6 kids under 8 is. After I washed my hands, I left. I never did see my toilet stall friend. I wonder how he’s doing?

I found this cool game today that tests your knowledge of European geography. Can you beat my score? Comment with your score.

On Saturday we went to our old neighborhood in West Jordan for a birthday party for Christian. Before the party, though, we stopped at Jordan Landing to do some shopping. As we navigated the parking lot, Soren’s sharp eye spotted the green-clad girls and leaders outside the doors of the store selling their wonderful pre-packaged morsels of bliss and shouted “Hey, there’s Girl Sprout Cookies!” Actually, I think that’s a great name. I like it better than the original.

I just got back from 3 days in San Francisco where I was doing some training. It was enjoyable, but I definitely missed Julie and the kids. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to check out the sights but when I did I kept thinking how much they would have enjoyed it. The cable car in particular. The boys would have absolutely loved it. My hotel was right next to the famous Powell Street cable car, which is the original San Francisco cable car line. There are a bunch of others now and the newer ones are all done with overhead cables but this one is the classic with a big cable under the street that’s pulled along the route by a massive motor and pulleys in a big building on Powell Street. Very cool. I frankly couldn’t believe that in this day and age where people aren’t responsible for their own mistakes, that the cable car was still wide open. You’d think SOMEONE would have taken a spill off of it, or got off in front of an approaching car and got hit and sued the city and everything would be ultra-safe now but no, it’s still the classic wide-open trolley where you can literally kick the cars that are passing you on either side — not that I did that or anything, but you could .  The Powell Street car goes past Lombard Street, the famous windy road, and as you pass it and look straight ahead you’ve got an incredible view down to fisherman’s wharf and the sea and Alcatraz Island, which is my favorite place in S.F. I’ve had an ultra-fascination with Alcatraz ever since we toured it when I was a kid. I’d love to go back again, but the latest tour leaves at 4:00 and I was in training until 5:00 each day, so unfortunately missed out. But we went to a great restaurant, Scomas, located right on the end of Pier 47 with a nice view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Oh it was good seafood. My hotel was also just 2 blocks from the Chinatown gate, so of course we did that too. But after a short while it became nothing but a mass of eclectic junk-filled shops — along with some good Chinese restaurants of course.

This was a great opportunity for me to go and along with the Microsoft training I attended a few weeks ago, I’ve had to be gone for quite a bit the last month. It definitely would have been impossible without all the help Julie got from her mom and Jessie and Megan and Katie. Julie didn’t have to go through a single night with the twins on her own and hardly even had a day when she was by herself. Come to think of it, she probably had more help with me out of the house than she has when I’ve been home. So thank you to all those who have served and helped us so much, not just the last month but since the twins were born especially. It’s been awesome to be on the receiving end of so much service.

I discovered another great benefit of twins this morning.  Both twins awoke around 4:00 am and it was my turn to feed them.  Unfortunately they didn’t fall back asleep after eating as they usually do, so I put them each in their car seats and began rocking them back and forth.  Well, they didn’t seem to like that so I picked up their car seats and began walking around with them.  They did like that and just sat peacefully while we walked around the dark house.  It was taking a while to get them to sleep though, and the thought struck me that I really wanted to get a workout in before work, but didn’t think I’d be able to since I’d been up so long getting the twins back to sleep.  Then I realized I had a 20 – 25 pound weight in each hand.  Hmmm…   I did curls, upright rows, shoulder lifts, tricep curls, and even worked my calves by standing on tiptoe and walking around the house with the car seats hanging by my side.  Sure they were a little bulkier than normal dumbbells but it worked all right.  I should have taken pictures as I’m sure it made quite a sight.  Alas, it was dark and I was the only “big kid” awake.  The babies seemed to enjoy the little workout too and by the time we were done, they were fast asleep.