Rolling around in dog poop outside of a mansion (aug 6)

About once a month for the past year we've had FHE (Family Home Evening) with the students in Reid and Karen's BYU ward and this past Monday we went to our very last one. Reid just got a new councilor whose name is Stephen Covey and if that name sounds familiar it's because his grandfather is the Stephen Covey (of 7 Habits). Stephen Covey's father's name is also Stephen Covey. Stephen Covey also has a two-year-old son named...Stephen Covey. That just sounds confusing to me but I suppose that's how the Coveys roll.

It's not how our family rolls. But I'll explain that later.

Anyway, Stephen Covey lives on his parents' estate and he offered to host this week's FHE since their estate was designed "for entertaining," as his mother explained it. And it really is.

They have a football field with goalposts. Alternatively you can set up the soccer nets. They also have a basketball court, a two-storey tree house (with a big screen TV inside), a putting green, and various other play structures for children and grown-ups alike. Their house is so big that we could likely park our entire house (the one in North Carolina) in their living room. We had a fun time, obviously, because how could we not with all those toys at our disposal.

Near the end of the evening Miriam was playing on the trampoline (it's springless--have you ever seen one of those?) and Andrew started a little game of hide-and-seek with her. He was on the outside of the trampoline enclosure and he would hide on the ground and she'd bounce around trying to find where he was. Sometimes she'd find him and tell him so. Other times he'd jump up and surprise her. They were having a grand old time so the game continued on and on.

Andrew ran around the trampoline and knelt down in the grass to get out of Miriam's sight. She started running in his direction so he quickly sat down so that he'd disappear below the horizon of the trampoline. When he did this he realized that his leg felt a little wet, so (instead of looking) he groped around with his hand. Much to his dismay, his explorations revealed that he had knelt in, sat in, and was now holding the biggest pile of dog poop that I have ever seen.

It was huge! And he was rolling all over in it!

I tossed him the baby wipes and he asked me to get him some napkins, too. I told him I would...as soon as I took some pictures...for posterity. And the while I was getting the napkins I might have grabbed his dad so we could all laugh at him together (his mom was already there laughing)--there's nothing like family bonding.

Reid grabbed the hostess, who apologized profusely and showed Andrew the restroom where he was able to wash off his leg and his hands and work on his shorts a bit. Meanwhile the hostess grabbed the pooper-scooper to clean up the dog mess and it was the biggest pooper-scooper I'd ever seen, a big claw-like mechanism that could take care of elephant droppings--which was obviously necessary since, judging from the size of the dog poop left on the ground, their dog must be a cross between a dog and a horse, at least. I don't know what breed of dog they have but I'm rather glad I didn't get the chance to meet it.

The next time I saw Andrew he was walking around holding a paper plate behind him to cover the huge smear of poop on his shorts.

"I want to go home," he said. "I smell. And I want a shower. And this is rather embarrassing."

The catch was that he didn't want to drive home. He wanted me to drive home.

His shorts were still coated with dog poop and he didn't think he could keep the paper plate under his leg while he shifted from the gas to the break pedal multiple times and he didn't want to get dog poop on the seat. He had a good point, so reluctantly I climbed into the driver's seat.

It's no secret that I hate driving. But it might be a bit of a secret that I have refused to drive for thirteen years and barely began taking lessons from my father-in-law this summer. We had our first lesson at the end of July. He said, "So, how much driving have you done?" and I said, "Which pedal is which?" and he said, "Oh, boy."

I wasn't thrilled about having to drive home, but I did it, anyway. I told Andrew that I didn't want to drive on any main roads so he mapped out a route home in his head that didn't involve any main roads...just a horrible curvy hill, a traffic circle, and a street that ran past the community theater so was lined with parked cars on both sides making it incredibly narrow. So basically, he took me home the obstacle course route.

The baby screamed for the first five minutes of our drive, which included a twisty descent down a long, narrow private drive, away from the Covey estate.

I was shaking by the time we got home and my hands were stiff and sweaty from gripping the steering wheel so tight, but we made it. Without getting dog poop on the seat.

So, that's how we roll--in dog poop outside of a mansion.

Is it any wonder we don't have a long string of Andrew Heisses in our family tree?