Soccer and a school carnival

Dave has night classes on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Matthew also has soccer on both nights. Soccer twice a week? I thought that was overkill, but it has turned out to be great. It gives us something to do on the nights Dave comes home after the kids go to bed. Well, tonight there was a school carnival. At first I didn't think I'd take the kids. All three kids by myself at a carnival? Is the world ending? I kind of thought so. But I cowboyed up and bought tickets for the carnival. So we had a soccer game at 5:15 and the carnival right after. It was fine. There was a spook alley. I thought the girls wouldn't want to go in, but they did. About 10 seconds into it, Norah got scared and refused to go in any further. So I saw a couple random girls in the dark and asked if they would take my son with them. They said they would and I blurted out, "his name is Matthew!" A woman offered to stay with Norah so I could take Matthew in, but Norah would have none of that. So I stayed near the exit with my girls waiting for the two older girls to come out with Matthew. Then a neighbor girl who rides in my car pool said, "I'm done, but Matthew is still in there with Abby." I asked if it was her and her sister that I had Matthew go through with. She said it was. It was my two sweet neighbor girls that ride in my car pool. One has babysat for us before, and their older sister is one of our regular babysitters. We had a get-together at their house last week. The spook alley had been so dark that I didn't recognize the girls. They are awesome. It got thinking how much I love my neighbors. Their mom was my visiting teacher, then we got put as companions. She is my best friend in my ward. I don't know her REALLY well, but I really like her. She has 4 girls. I am so glad that we live here. When we first toured our house, our offer was turned down. I was so disappointed. I cried (I think I've posted that here before). I had imagined our kids growing up in this house. But when we found out that the offer that had been accepted had fallen through and we got another chance at the house, I didn't want to get my hopes up. I told a friend, "If God wants us to live there, we will live there." And now we live there. We live here. That get-together that I mentioned was at my neighbor's house to the west. They and another neighbor had a ton of onions from their garden and they wanted to have a "fry party" They had a bbq and onion rings, scones, etc. We were a little late, and since we're not really social we didn't know how long we'd stay, even though we both really like all our neighbors. But we all ended up being there until 9:30. They put on a movie outside for the kids. Another neighbor brought bug spray. Dave took fussy Molly to bed and came back. I went home and got jackets and blankets for the kids. And 5 or 6 families just hung out and laughed and talked and had a great time.