Easter Suits and Calling the Cops

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter. I'm sure it would have been much nicer for you if you weren't wondering where on earth I've been for the past week. (Actually, it's been two full weeks since I've posted, but whose counting?) In addition to the usual work at my first job, plus the ever increasing one day a week work at the church, plus the homeschooling and the planning for our ladies' luncheon and the work we're doing for VBS which is approaching all too rapidly ... wait, where was I?

Right, Easter. It's been in the back of my mind that our two youngest boys needed new suits for the wedding which is fast approaching this summer. (The other boys are in the wedding, so they're wearing tuxes.) Since almost every store around had suits on sale the week before Easter, I thought it would be an excellent time to buy these new suits. With that plan in mind, I took all four boys to the mall one evening last week after work.

SIDE NOTE:  Boys can be just as picky when it comes to shopping for clothes as girls can. It took us until the mall closed, but we did manage to get the suits we needed. We had to go back on another to finish out the shopping deemed necessary for the week, but that's another post.

I've written in the past about the things that happen to my boys' Sunday clothes. They tend to do double duty as basketball uniforms and commando gear, so I planned on buying these suits and tucking them away until the wedding. With one exception. I wanted the boys to be able to wear new suits for Easter. I was sure that, for one Sunday, I could manage to threaten and/or ride herd on them enough to protect the new suits. With that thought in mind, I read them a long list of do's and don't's--actually, the don'ts consisted of don't sweat. At all. That meant the Do's consisted of stand quietly and stay inside buildings at all times.

I knew I was setting high goals, but at least it gave them something to shoot for. Sunday night after the service I stopped Nicky just as he started to run across the parking lot.  Meaning just before he broke into a sweat. I also corralled Joel from the field next to the church, but he was still standing upright and hadn't actually started a commando-style crawl through the grass yet, so I considered the day a success. When we got home I told the boys to hang their suits up and put them in my room where I would keep them until just before the wedding. Literally, minutes before the wedding when I will produce them again, let the boys wear them, and hope they manage to stay clean for the ten minutes before the ceremony starts. Again, high goals, but something to shoot for.

As the boys headed upstairs to change, Joel paused to show me the slight rip in the pocket of his new suit coat. A rambling story followed that included a game of ping pong in which he was not participating--only watching. How could he possibly have ripped his brand new suit the only time he wore it--while participating as a spectator? And more importantly, do you think the suits will be safe if they put them on only five minutes before the wedding ceremony?

In other news, yesterday was my day to work at the church. As usual, the boys' friends showed up and a game of airsoft guns started on the property outside the building. (No one was wearing suits at the time.) Before the game was over, we had been visited by no less than three separate vehicles from the County Sheriff's department. It seems that people driving by thought it looked suspicious for almost a dozen boys to be running around the property with airsoft guns. Especially when some of them were dressed in camouflage. Or maybe it was the fact that it was long-sleeved camo and the temperature was near ninety yesterday. Apparently people don't realize that, if the situation calls for camo and hoods, you wear them no matter how hot it is. At any rate, the sheriff's department received multiple phone calls and we got multiple visitors yesterday.

I'm betting that if we ever get robbed, no one reports anything until long after Elvis has left the building.