One more thing...

I totally forgot to post this funny story....

For those of you who know me (and T), we aren't drinkers. We don't have anything against it, we just don't. I do occasionally enjoy a mixed drink or wine coolers, so when we were in Savannah, my mom bought some Bartles & James for us. We broke them out one night and I wasn't 2 sips into it when I (embarrassingly) belched, which my daughter found incredibly amusing. It was rather deep and long.... figures!!

Anyway, while we were recovering from our hysterics, I noticed a little note on my bottle that read "Contains Sulfites". I had a hard time reading it (after my two sips) so I asked my sister if she knew whether or not it really said that. She said sure, and that you can buy sulfite free wine, but it's expensive. I was curious because I have a sulfa allergy and not being a drinker, I had no idea wine contained sulfites. (Of course, I'm wondering now if that's why I've never enjoyed wine.)

My brother-in-law joined the conversation at this point, so I recounted all the occurrences (minus the belch) to him up to that point. He asked me what my symptoms were from my sulfa allergy. My daughter chimed in at this point, not wanting to be left out, "Well.... for one thing, she belches! Really loud and long!!" After that, the conversation about sulfites was all but lost in our ridiculous laughter. Summer and family - two things I love!

Pit Stop

It's been a loooooong blogbreak this time around. Just so much going on, I'm finally coming up for some air!!

Since I last wrote (I can't even remember when that was!), we've had a full house - full of houseguests, that peaked the night before we left for Savannah. That weekend is a complete blur. It was Mission Advance, we had a couple from down south staying with us until they got settled in Baltimore, LeslieB and my mom popped up for a night. I took the girls to their swim meet pep rally, then on to church for the evening of MA. We came home to sleep (didn't think we'd make it to the meet at 7 if we slept at church!), got up at 6:15, spent all morning at our first swim meet (no pics because T had the camera), left early, met everyone at church and on to a HOT afternoon downtown. Then back to church for the evening, home to meet my mom and finish packing for our trip to Savannah. I did, literally, about 30 loads of laundry the week before.

We had a fun, hot week in Savannah. My mom, Em and I were babysitting my nephew, Brendan. Kt helped at preschool camp with my sister and Skyler. We pretty much stayed put, spent some time at the aquarium, swam in the easy set pool in my sister's backyard and tried making Brendan sleep! He's giving up naps! We did go on a Dolphin cruise - lots of dolphins! The girls went swimming at the YMCA and we finally made it to the beach the last night we were there - amidst storm clouds and bathroom trips. While the girls played in the sand, we watched dolphins swim just off the shore. It was beautiful.

Some funnies:

One morning, Skyler put on her ballet outfit - something she puts on the second she steps through the door from wherever she just came from! I noticed something on the skirt that looked much like a large flower petal. I asked her what it was and she said, in her little 4-year-old articulate speech of hers, "Oh, that's just a scratchroach." Like it was not big deal. I had to get my mom and kids to take care of that nauseating bug!

Brendan has a great vocabulary for an 18 month old - he had us in stitches all week! He very appropriately uses, "OH GOSH!", "Golly!" and "Cookie, peese!" He's eaten more sugar in his 18 months than his sister had eaten by the age of 3. (Last year my sister gave her her first jelly bean!) That kid is going to eat my sister out of house and home soon and has quite the affinity for fruit. Our favorite thing to do with him? Dance and giggle - together! We had a blast with him.

Our trip home last night leaves much to be desired. Fortunately, we had an intermission in our trip to visit with a college friend of mine and her son. That was super fun - I wish we all lived closer!! We are already planning to get together somewhere in between our busy lives - I can't wait!!

The pit stop I'm talking about is our two day stint here in MD before I head back to CT with my mom and the girls. T is going to join us this weekend - YAY!!! Finally! and then drive us home for Kt's tennis camp that begins Monday. No swim meet this weekend, so we're feeling a reprieve. Tonight - Wall-E!

Summertime

So, it's finally here!! I totally wish we lived near the beach. Instead of hanging out there all summer, we're doing something totally Maryland - swim team. We finally gave in to the pressure! This is new for all of us in many ways. T and I never were involved on any sports teams and where I grew up it was the beach or a pool someone invited you to. There were no town owned pools and any large pools were indoor. The whole swim team thing was something I only heard of in high school, where our team swam at Bridgeport University! Our school system didn't have a pool to speak of.

Anyway, here we are, getting up at some ungodly hour on our summer vacation to go to swim practice, forcing children to swim laps over and over again and then subjecting them to perform in front of hundreds of maniacal parents every Saturday morning. Everyone has assured me it's a lot of fun, so not only are we participating, but we paid for it! And we bought towels! Now we're really "in"! ;-)

This past Saturday we had time trials - Kt, who has "no way, no how" going to join swim team miraculously changed her mind and is now wholeheartedly swimming. She swam all four strokes on Saturday and I was really proud of her. She has friends who swim, so they showed her the ropes. Em, who was "so excited" about swim team, even getting her hair cut short enough to not have to wear a bathing cap, all of a sudden does not want to swim anymore. She woke up Saturday morning, looked at me and said, "I am not going to swim today." Long story short, she swam! Then I made her swim a second time, despite lots of complaining and tears. I have to admit, I felt awful making her do it - to me, that's just not what summer is about. Fortunately, she loves practice. If we survive this Saturday's big meet, I will be relieved.

About this Satuday.... we're supposed to be at our big training weekend at church. I'm taking the girls on Saturday morning to this meet. Then we'll be spending all day in Baltimore, then training Sat. night until 8pm, then I come home to pack us up to leave sometime (hopefully early) for Savannah.... I'm feeling exhausted just thinking about it. Please pray for some strength!!!

Pictures: Coach Dad, Kt attempting butterfly!, Em - the cheese sandwich elicited a smile after all those tears.

Happy Father's Day!

Today is Father's Day and I think it's been an OK start. We have very little planned other than preparing for the arrival of some people we've never met to stay at our house for an undetermined amount of time. We've known about this for a while, but there are always things that need to be done at the last minute, like laundry. Yes, T did some laundry this morning! =) No worries, I did pretty much everything else - vacuum, clean, garbage, made him breakfast.... and there's some more to do! It won't be a total loss - -I promise. He's sitting next to me here playing Super Mario Galaxy, and I imagine he'll be there later playing Super Mario Kart.

As far as fathers go, T is one of the best. I think most of the kids he works with would agree. I like to share all the compliments given to us at the girl's school because I know that this job of "Dad" is not easy, dads need to be encouraged! Being futuristic, sometimes the day to day things are kind of lost on this dad, but the big things are constantly swirling in his mind. He's already planning a special trip with Em for next summer, thinking about places to take our family with the girls in mind and being involved in their lives knowing that his biggest impact on the world may come from the two kids in his life that he spends the most time shaping.

Having friends who are tackling single parenting, I don't take for granted the luxury we have in parenting together and the importance we place on taking care of our own relationship for the sake of our family. Our trip to Key West in April was the first of hopefully many that we will take together in our commitment to maintaining a marriage that is able to sustain and develop world changing generations. I feel fortunate to have a husband/father in my life who feels that's just as important as his ministry.

OK - I'm off to finish "helping" my girls clean up their bedrooms.... getting ready for our guests. I'm sure T can take care of himself - and our Wii! He's wearing his new Germany soccer jersey and later... possibly watching the extras on the I Am Legend dvd we picked up for him.

My Top 10 Favorite Films

My husband tagged me. Here's my list (although I'm sure there are more):

1. On Golden Pond
2. St. Elmo's Fire (so 80's!)
3. Grease
4. School of Rock
5. Braveheart
6. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
7. Pride and Prejudice
8. Schindler's List
9. Ghandi
10. Beauty and the Beast

I know I have a lot more, but I base my favorites on whether or not I'd watch it more than once, since I don't really watch movies multiple times.

1 More Day

One more half day for the girls. I went in today to help pack up the office for renovation. Sadly, I found out that our awesome, amazing GT teacher has been appointed Assistant Principal of another elementary school. We knew he was in the pool, but selfishly were hoping he'd remain at our school at least for one more year. Kt had tears in her eye when she told me. He is seriously the best teacher she's ever had. We will miss him immensely.

Score

My mom has been wanting a Wii ever since we got ours for Christmas. The problem is that they aren't readily available. I had heard from a friend last week that Best Buy had some, so on our vacuum hunt we checked it out - and the had "one left" that they happily sold to me for her. I'm sure once I left, they found another last "one left" for the next sorry soul! LOL It was a nice score, nevertheless, and my mom is excited to have an end-of-the-school-year-gift. Now we'll never get her to visit!

And my mom is so cool - I mean, what 38 year old has a mother who wants a Wii? I did have to laugh when I called her to see if she really wanted it and whether or not she wanted an extra controller. She told me only if it was wireless. Hehe. The guy in the store was cracking up at us! =)

Prayer

My mom emailed me yesterday about a family from her school who had a 4 year old child of a friend drown in their pool. Instantly, this story is just scary. Sadly, the father of the child who drowned is someone many of my friends know from our church youth group growing up. I know the news will be devastating. Apparently, they were visiting from Pennsylvania and fortunately have family in CT. Please keep that community in prayer.

Heatwave

I think this thing is over. Last night, T and I went out in search of a new vacuum cleaner since our other one bit the dust, went up in smoke, etc. When we came out of Walmart (empty handed), the temperature registered 97 degrees. It was 10pm. That is just crazy ridiculous for Maryland!! It has been unbearably hot!!

What have we been doing to stay cool? Swimming! and drinking lots of ice water, keeping our ac on, barbequing as opposed to turning on the oven (well, not really!)... it's really impossible to stay cool. I have been keeping lights off, though. They are just way too hot!

On a lighter note, today was my last day of work. I even turned in my key. I'm currently jobless, yet for some reason I still have a boatload of things to do. How does that happen? Oh, wait, it's the volunteer thing again. I need to stop doing that! ;-)

How Bad is the Economy?

I keep reading all kinds of doomsday reports on the economy. I'm no expert, in fact, I'm pretty much a failure when it comes to economy! However, I just don't see around here that we are sinking fast when it comes to the economy. Sure, gas costs an arm and a leg, but wake up America. Gas has cost this much in other parts of the world for years. Yes, house sales are slowing down, but in the years leading up to this they were overpriced and we all knew there was no way to sustain that much and that quick of an increase in home sales and prices. In years past, I believe they were Clinton years, we had many unemployed friends, people losing their own houses (not ones they were trying to flip) and people losing everything they has intended so save for retirement. I don't know one person now who is unemployed, anyone going into foreclosure on any of their properties and so far as I know, people have been able to save. I'm not saying it's not happening, I'm just saying for the past few years I have not personally known anyone in those categories - and that's unusual.

So, how bad is our economy REALLY? The news makes me nervous, a little on edge and keeping me a bit frugal, but in reality, I'm just not seeing what they are seeing. Maybe it's the area I live in - with many people working for government agencies and in defense, maybe our recession is coming when the democrats step in. I don't know. All I know is that the malls are more crowded than ever, the wait at almost every restaurant every night is 20-30 minutes and despite gas prices there is still an unbelievable amount of traffic. I see little change or difference around here. Anyone else seeing it?

It's Over

Well, one big event down.... and I'm honestly not really sure if we raised more money or more awareness. Awareness of the kind we had not attended: how our church handles fundraising! Our actual event had a meager turnout. It is arguable about how/why that happened, and we could analyze it until we're blue in the face. The good news is that, despite poor turnout and even more meager participation... we raised almost $2000. That will help with our immense budget.

We've been throwing around our thoughts about fundraising for missions and we've learned a lot this year about just that thing. Once we hash it all out, we'll talk about it more. For now, let's just say: God always provides. If that is not clear in everything we are doing, then we're totally missing the point. Impossible looking things scare us, they also allow God to step in and be God. Until we admit our weakness, our inability to make things of God happen without Him we will be anxious about the "insurmountable" task at hand. We are realizing we have so much to learn about God.

So, we are plowing ahead here - moving on to getting things done for our trips. I'm not sure we'll do another fundraiser. There's only so much we can do as volunteer leaders!!

Perspective

I think sometimes God stops us in our tracks, our "busy" tracks, to remind us how precious life is. I've been running around today.... volunteer breakfast, making brownies for our fundraiser tomorrow, having our last set of beautiful lights put in over our island, picking up Subway for my 4th grader's end of the year picnic, hanging out with parents, goofing around on the computer, taking my girls to swim team practice.... when something has really stopped me in my tracks. I found out this afternoon that a 6th grader in our youth ministry, someone who never had a chance to meet T and I or go on any summer trips, just passed away. Even without knowing this young girl, I am still heartbroken for her family, friends, youth workers and everyone who has been fervently praying for her recovery for the past 10 weeks that she's been hospitalized. When we stop to think about life, and death, it really puts things into perspective. And it makes it a little bit harder to feel busy - at least for me. I'd rather live than be running around trying to catch my breath all the time. And I'm going to take more time to be with my own kids while we're all here!

Please keep this family in your prayers.

A Day to Myself

It's strange to have one of these, but I'm enjoying mine!! In many ways, it's my last hurrah. Tomorrow is Kt's picnic, Friday I'm working, then we have that silent auction, this weekend - well, those are never really just mine, Monday the girls have their dentist appointments (and if they are anything like mine yesterday, I'm petrified for them!!) to have their cavaties filled, Tuesday I work, Wednesday is Em's class picnic and a half day, Thursday and Friday are the last two half days of school and I'm signed up to help pack up our school office for renovations. Then, that's it until the end of August.

So, what does one do on their last quiet day? I spent some time on the computer catching up with friends, ran over to drop something off to T, made a little trip to Trader Joe's - we've fallen in love with their frozen chinese food since I can't cook chinese and it's too expensive to order out, swung by 5 Below for some auction decor, came home to clean up the kitchen, doing laundry and eventually I hope to make it upstairs for something... not sure what yet, but I'm sure I'll think of something on my way.

Tonight, I'll be baking some zucchini bread for the bake sale portion of our silent auction. If you live around here and want some free ice cream sundaes on Friday night, come see us!! You can meet our teams and hear about our trips - it will be fun!!

OK - I have 45 minutes left of freedom... let the countdown begin!

Dumbfounded

Remember my neighbor's new deck? Well, I just found out that the little dugout area next to it is going to be filled with concrete to create a backyard basketball half court. They are taking out the gorgeous cherry blossom tree to do this. On a brighter note, at least it's more like 30 feet away from my bed!

Colorblind?

For real, I'm wondering if Em is colorblind. I'd always wondered that when she was a toddler. It took her forever and a day to learn her colors. In fact, once she could actually distinguish them, she knew them but wouldn't tell me - she'd just get them ALL wrong. I mean, 100% of the time. That's when I realized she was pulling the wool over my eyes and wasn't really colorblind at all.

At least that's what I thought then. She aced her colors on a kindergarten entrance exam, although they actually only show you about 7 colors - all basic. She hates coloring and typically colors everything in either one or two colors or just colors everything the wrong color. Her art teacher has never been impressed with her seeming disinterest in art - matching colors, painting, etc. I knew she was not really into colors, but she is artistic...

So, today is hero day and the girls were supposed to wear red, white and blue to school. Em had on a pink shirt, so when we sent her to find a red one, she came back with an even pinker one! I asked her if she really thought it was red, and she held it up, shaking her head and said, "Well, it looks red to me!!" She was not kidding at all, even to the point of asking her sister what color it was, as if they were going to prove me wrong!!

Of course, this reminded me that lately, her coloring has improved a bit, at least on color choice. BUT, just the other day she was coloring in a picture and went to choose a sky color, she said, "Ah, Cornflower Blue, that will be the sky." I just realized it's the first time she's been able to read all the names of all the colors! and that's how she's choosing her crayons now. Very interesting.

My dad was colorblind, so I've always been in tune to the fact that not everyone sees what I see. I imagine for a child who is colorblind, art would be a challenge, coloring would seem a little pointless and for a child who is always concerned about doing something wrong, it makes even more sense that she might choose to not draw a picture if she thought someone would criticize it. It's all beginning to make more sense... intersting. Of course, I could be totally wrong, too! =)

UPDATE: So, I did one of those online quicky tests and this child passed with flying colors! LOL Anyway, she will always be a mystery!

Sorta Busy Weekend

So, it was semibusy, but also restful. We got our extra room ready for our summer house guest, who stopped in, dropped off her stuff and headed out to see those friends of hers she has all over town. No sooner was she off then T took Em to the Nighttime Pediatrics. She's been complaining since dinner that her ear hurts - which is unusual for her. Unfortunately, the unusual thing is her complaining - we are no strangers to nasty ear infections. The trouble is, by the time that one is complaining, it usually a really bad double ear infection... and that's what it is!! Poor little girl. This is no way to start off our swim season, first practice tomorrow and our first cavity is supposed to be filled on Tuesday.

We had our fence guy come out today. Our backyard is a bit larger than we thought. It's still a triangle, but we own 18 feet off to one side of our house - not what we expected. So far, a fence is likely not an option because the neighbors we love aren't very interested in a fence... so we'll wait. It was some good info and some great ideas, though, from our neighbor the fence builder - we're going to have to repay him generously for his time. =)

Sounds like they're back - getting down our first dose of penicillen. I've been working on a few auction things - that's this Friday. More on fundraising ideas that've we've been throwing around in a bit.... for now, it's a go. So, this week... busy, busy, busy!