Yesterday I took my own little
mini "vacation"~~about 3 hours in my own backyard. We've had a busy few
days, at the church every night, and although it was a wonderful time,
we were all tired by yesterday. James, Marissa, Daniella, and I went
out to have lunch on the deck. James and I watched the girls ride
around on the deck on the scooter, then swing. I got the book I was
reading and curled up on the deck swing while James played badminton
with the girls. Ashley and Briana
got home from sharing praise dances with their group at the assisted
living center and came out for a while, too. I read for a little while,
but as the activity outside died down, I curled up in a light blanket
and laid down on the swing. The sun was warm, the wind was a little
chilly, and I was the perfect temperature wrapped from head to toe in
the blanket. As you can imagine, it wasn't long before I dozed. I have
no idea how long I dozed off and on out there, but it was heavenly.
When I woke, I stayed there just looking at the crystal blue sky and
watching the trees sway in the wind, and all was quiet and peaceful. I
spent some time praying and thinking before I finally managed to bring
my little vacation to an end.
Heidi
asked her readers to share their crazy vacation memories, so I decided
to add that here, as long as I was talking about my vacation. Crazy
memories seem to follow us wherever we go, but the craziest by far was
in the summer of 1999 at Panama City Beach, FL. The five of us at the
time, and our 15 year old poodle left for a week of fun. On the way
down, Midnite started acting strange, so we stopped at the vet when we
got there. Long story short, day one of our trip, Midnite died! Oh, I
cried and cried and cried. We went on to our condo and hoped to make
the most of our trip, even though everyone was so sad. The next day,
Ashley came down with a head cold, and while she was swimming, a fish
cut her ankle with a fin. She was starting, and I do mean just
starting, to get discouraged with this trip. I think it was the very
next day, we were out in the water~Ashley and Briana were walking around
in about knee deep water (which was a good little way out from the
shore), I was about hip deep holding Marissa playing in the waves,
and James was a little further out snorkling. All of a sudden, Ashley
starts screaming at the top of her lungs, hysterically, "It's got me!
It's got me!", and just generally screaming. Of course, I visualize a
shark swimming off with half her leg, and I'm screaming at her to get
out of the water, and she's screaming, "I can't move! It's got me!"
I'm also yelling at Briana to get out of the water and trying to figure
out what to do with Marissa. All the while James is oblivious
to everything because he's under water. Ashley finally gets out of the
water (leg still intact). It turns out that she stepped on a sting ray,
and it's barb hit her heel. Thankfully, the entire barb pulled out, so
we avoided surgery, but she had to go the emergency clinic for a tetnus
shot, and had to soak it in epson salts for several days. It was
extremely painful for days. She was quite finished for the week, and in
fact has not cared for the beach a whole lot since then. It took
several more trips back before she would step into the water again. I
can't blame her. Anyway, it comes time to go home, and our little
poodle is still at the vet. I absolutely could not bring myself to
leave him there. (I really am a sane person, but you will soon doubt
that.) My poor husband found a place that sold dry ice, and the vet
packed little Midnite in a styrofoam cooler!!!! We went to WalMart,
bought one of those really big Rubbermaid boxes, put the cooler inside
of it, and strapped it onto the roof of the van. Are you visualizing
this yet? Having a little one, we stopped numerous times on the way
home, and every time I'd get out of the van, there would be this coffin
strapped to the van, and I'd start bawling all over again. It was a
long day.
Sometimes it's better just to stay in your own backyard and take a nap on the swing! : )
I hope we don't ever top that one
as the craziest! Do you have a crazy vacation memory to share? Tell
me here, or let me know if you blog about it.
Letitia
Yesterday, I ate lunch out at the
picnic table with Marissa and Daniella again. It was beautiful, and we
enjoyed listening to the birds and our conversation. Now, to fully
understand this conversation, you have to know that Daniella LOVES,
LOVES, LOVES all kinds of animals. She wants tons of all of them. In
her opinion there are never enough. She also loves to watch Animal
Planet, which we let her do occasionally, and for some reason, she is
fascinated with the Crocodile Hunter. So, as we finish up lunch,
Daniella announces:
"I think we ought to have a bunch of animals and have a zoo." (Funny, I thought we did already!)
I answered, "Maybe you should just be a zoo keeper when you grow up."
Daniella: "yeah, that would be good."
Me: "Maybe you could be the Crocodile Hunter."
Daniella, very matter-of-factly: "I used to want to be the Crocodile Hunter, but then I saw a crocodile."
LOL. Yep. That would tend to put a damper on it for me, too!
Marissa does not like math
(probably the understatement of the decade). She can do math, but she
doesn't like it. Yesterday morning, she pulled out her math book and
dutifully started out, without any prompting whatsoever. She was almost
finished with her second page, when she looked up at me, with this
honestly forlorn, distressed face, and in this little pitiful voice,
said, "Mama, on these last two, (enter a voice of shock and unbelief)
they expect me to do MATH." After I giggled at her, she quickly
corrected it to "hard math", but it was so funny and classic. "How dare
this math book want me to do MATH?" And, she was just so honestly
forlorn over these two problems.
I'm off this afternoon to take them both shoe shopping~tennis, Sunday, sandals, AND flip flops! Have a great weekend!
Letitia
A few weeks ago, we got together with some blog friends for the 2nd time~June (Momof5littlewomen).
We met here on blogger, and met in person for the first time exactly
one year and 3 days before we got together this time. The first time we
traveled through her state, and this time they visited here. These are
a few of the kids~2 of mine had already left, one of hers is missing
from the photo, and there's a friend who came with them.
These 4 hit it off really well.
We had an unexpected visitor this week.
Tuesday afternoon, I was out in
the back yard with Marissa and Daniella, and I kept hearing a popping
noise, but I thought it was someone up the hill at the neighbor's
house. Ten or 15 min. later, Daniella walked past the end of the house,
and yells, "Mama, there's a tree falling." About the same time, Briana
comes out of the house with the same message. I go to look, and, yes
indeed, a tree is falling. And, until I could get a better look, there
was about a 5 min. time period when I thought it or the one it was
leaning on might fall on the house. Thankfully,
it didn't, but it was an interesting afternoon. James was on his way
home at the time, so he was able to cut it so it would fall the rest of
the way. Briana was in the house, watching out the window when it
fell. From inside it was hard to tell which way it was falling. She
came out, and said, "That was about the scariest thing I ever saw." :
) Daniella had a ball playing up inside all of the tree tops. You
can't tell a lot from this picture, but this was a super, super tall
tree. We will have lots of campfire wood for the next year.
I also learned something new. Don't ever let anyone tell you that a tree can't fall up hill. This one did~roots and all.
Briana and
I went to Old Time Pottery on Friday, which is a huge warehouse type
store with a little bit of everything. I had a gift certificate, and I
was able to find a vase for the mantle. I was so excited. I had been
looking in pottery shops around here, and those things are $50-$100. I
found a neat one at Old Time Pottery for $9.95!! I also used some
Christmas money to get some new dishes there. Enough of ours had broken
that we were down to mismatched ones. I got them at a great price,
too. I also came home with 3 baskets for organizing school books in the
dining room, and Daniella's coloring books and crayons.
Briana just ended her spring break from college, and Ashley starts
hers tomorrow. Sure would have been nice for them to be the same
week. Ashley is soooo looking forward to hers. She's had a rough
couple of weeks~nonstop studying, reading, testing taking, and paper
writing.
Please pray for this family.
They have had a very long, trying adoption experience, and have just
faced another setback~one day before she was ready to get on the plane
to bring her little girl home.
Letitia
P.S. This Tuesday I celebrate my
2 year blog anniversary! I would have never thought I would have a
blog, much less have anyone read it! : )
Guess what! We finally got a little snow!!
Guess what else! We were out of
town. Can you believe it? Marissa was quite beside herself. : ) It
did snow in Nashville, but most of it didn't stick. Besides, there's
not much room for sledding in downtown! It was a great trip, even
though we missed the snow.
The sub-committee meeting didn't
go as well as it could have (they didn't just drop the bill completely),
but there is some hope. The rep who introduced it, and who talked for
15 min. without saying anything whatsoever, is supposed to be rewriting
it to present again in 3 weeks. I can tell you one thing~ the calls and
emails make an impact. Every rep on the committee commented about the
volume of response this bill created. They all said they received 3000+
phone calls, plus emails!! One rep said it paralyzed his office for
several days. They were quite put-out with the rep who introduced the
bill, and *strongly* encouraged him to work with the homeschoolers and
find a solution! However, there were a few who still want control, so
the issue is not dead and still needs to be covered in prayer. We were
able to meet a few more reps not on the committee afterwards and talk
with them about homeschooling and hear there opinions. They were
supportive of homeschooling, and were hopeful that this bill will not be
passed.
We were at the legislative plaza
from 10:40-3:00, so that was quite a long day. I was very proud of how
patient Marissa and Daniella were. We didn't get lunch until 3:00,
which is actually 4:00 our time. It was snowing like crazy while we
were walking through downtown, and there was a bitter wind, but I
thought it was pretty fun!
Unfortunately, by the time we
finished lunch and walked back the capital was closing, so we didn't get
a tour. This is the girls at the war memorial in Legislative Plaza.
We drove back to the hotel, and
James and I took a short nap while the girls read/looked at books. They
were really quiet and sweet while we rested. We then headed to Opry
Mills Mall. Those of you who live near big cities are used to these
huge malls, but we are not. The place was huge and even had a sting ray
petting/feeding tank. We opted out of it since we go to the aquarium
every month, but it was cool. There were also several aquarium of
tropical fish and 2 carousels in the mall. We treated the girls to
supper at The Rainforest Cafe. What a cool place. Unfortunately, we
didn't take the camera to the mall.
After packing up the next
morning, we went the the Adventure Science Museum for several hours.
The girls had a blast! It is well worth the money ($9 adults, $7
students). Marissa was a little grossed out by the human body section,
but loved the physical science and music parts. : )
The synthesizer in the background of this picture was one of Marissa's favorite parts. Daniella loved this floor piano.
This one is reaction time. She's
stepping on buttons with each foot, and has one under each hand. The
other person sends a light path, and she had 3 seconds to guage which
path it was going on and push the correct button. It was tough!
There were lots and lots of cool
things there. Marissa rode a bike to create energy to move an elevator
up and down. They reflected light to a solar panel to create energy to
make a toy airplane fly....They also have a "tower". You climb and
climb up all these little passage ways, and have stops along the way,
until you reach the top. Then you can slide back down. (and, yes, of
course, I did it) It's way up there with a great view of the Nashville
skyline at the top. I don't know if Daniella retained much of the
science she encountered, but she had a blast, and got lots of exercise!
By the end of our time there, there were only a couple of other
families in the museum, and she went up and down, up and down that
tower, then back out to another section that had tunnels and climbing
things. She had the run of the place and took full advantage of it.
LOL.
After we left the museum, we
found a Dairy Queen, because the Blizzards were calling, then hit the
road back home. We got in about 9:30 that night.
Yesterday, spur of the moment,
after Ashley and Briana got home from praise dance practice, James and
Briana went to the national park and went hiking. Briana had spring
fever, and was itching to be outside. I'm so glad they got to go on a
little "date". This trail crossed the creek numerous times over rocks
and fallen trees.
Letitia
