A great day

Today was fantastic. We started with blackberry banana pancakes in anticipation of The Mission's famous ones. We all went to church which makes my heart smile. The gospel was about Jesus healing a young girl who had died. The homily was about evil. It was good, good stuff to think about. One woman in the congregation said that evil was "Godlessness." He (the priest) defined it as the absence/lack of good or love. He also stated that evil doesn't really exist as it's own entity because God didn't create evil. God created good. It was hopeful, I think. Anyway, I digress.

We returned from church and the girls quickly ran out the door with our neighbor to go get a Wii game. They went to Target with strict instructions (and my AMEX card) to get bleach and a new slip 'n' slide. They did pretty well. Olivia managed to talk the neighbor into a new school bag (which she really did need) and Meg got a $3.48 toy that was on clearance. Not too bad. I got to run some errands alone while George held down the fort. I love going out by myself. It's no secret. I wasn't as successful as I had hoped but it was still nice to be out on my own. We headed to the pool afterward for dinner and swimming. Olivia practiced her bellyflopping diving, Meg just swam and burped and swam and burped and Will wandered around as usual. We only made one trip to stare and point at the vending machine.

After dinner, we ran down the road to the fireworks tent to load up for the coming weekend. I was explaining to Meg what sparklers were. She kept forgetting what they're called so she called them Lite Brites. Even though we've corrected her, the name has stuck and now she keeps asking for the Lite Brites. I waited in the car with Will while the girls shopped with George. I won't tell you what the grand total was for the large sack of Lite Brites. George's inner child and the salesman's great descriptions of the fireworks were a force to be reckoned with.

And, of course, we had to go to sonic across the street for an ice cream afterward. Oh what a night. (By the way, they have something there on the menu that cracked me up. It's called a CroisSonic.)

Oh, and does anyone beside my mom read my blog? Just curious.

Don't stop til you get enough?

I can't resist the urge to blog about the media circus that is Michael Jackson's death. While I am saddened by his passing (mainly because I ALWAYS said I would LOVE to see him live on stage and now will never get the chance), I can hardly believe my eyes and ears. The coverage is crazy. Weird. Bizarre. Embarrassing. I took the kids to lunch today only to look up at a tv in front of me mounted high on the wall with a shot of the presumably dead or almost dead MJ on a stretcher. It was a zoomed in photo of him intubated or something. Gross. Give the freak man a break.

I LOVED his music. I was the first to always defend the guy when conversation turned to how strange and nasty he was. He was amazingly talented. "One of a kind" is an understatement. But seriously, he wasn't a world leader, Gandhi, The Dalai Lama, or Mother Theresa. Holy cow. This stuff is driving me crazy. Our country is going to hell in a hand basket and this is all we have to talk about?

Summer

It's going by too fast and also not fast enough (only because we're excited to go here! And here! And here!)


It's already June 24th. We are knee deep in swim team, summer "camp" and ice pops. There's never enough time for reading books. Ticks seem to like our yard this summer and there's also no shortage of sunshine. "You're really tan, Meg," said Mrs. Brooks today. "Wait til you see me when I get back from San Diego," Meg replied. How does she know that? Tonight she was also describing something one of the helpers did at school as "really hateful." All I could figure was that she (the helper) was trying to limit the amount of craziness that was going on in the giant inflatable obstacle course. It was too much.

For some reason I feel like I am really out of sync even though we theoretically have less scheduling than we do during the school year. For the most part I think that is true but that also means there are three kiddos home all day with less time for me to collect my thoughts! Today, both girls announced they couldn't find any clean undies. Well, I guess that means we need to do some laundry.

We had a crazy insane fun visit with the Gignoux family. They came through town and bunked with us for three nights. My girls love it when they come. Aside from trying to make sure Olivia doesn't abandon Christianity in favor of "Annie Worship," they seem to have fun together. They get utterly exhausted and someone ends up crying or freaking out each night. They eventually settle down and get some sleep.

Will is usually along for the ride these days. He loves being out and about but absolutely hates getting in the carseat. He tries to talk and seems extra attached to me right now. It's cute but also makes me kind of sad. Of course, I eat it up because he's probably our last little one so he gets spoiled more I think.

Here's a taste of the fun we've been having. Thank you, Lord, for summer.