Smellyann Strikes Again

VLOG: Kids Get Kindles

 

As I told you a few days ago, I ordered Kindle Fire HDs for each of the kids, along with cases, chargers, a stylus 6-pack, and... I think that's it? They were supposed to come Friday by 8 PM, so at 8:08 PM, when they weren't delivered, I was all over Amazon looking up my order status. It said "delivery attempted," so I was like, "WTF?!" and immediately called up the shipping company. The delivery had apparently been attempted before noon, but no notice was left, and I was pissed. Then they told me I could pick it up on Monday, and I really flipped the script. I literally whined, "NOOOO!!!!" The guy on the phone, who was very calm and sweet, asked me what was in them, since they were obviously so important. I told him, and explained we needed them for our homeschooling, guess what? He understood, because he was homeschooled himself as a lad.

He worked some magic and made it possible for us to go in Saturday morning to pick them up. Rob went with Jack to get them, since I had an atrocious migraine when he woke me up to tell me it was almost 10:00, the appointed pick-up time. Thanks, Baby!

Most of our curriculum is online, except for Math (we use Math-U-See) and Spanish (Rosetta Stone is en route now). Oh, okay, and Art and Music... okay, okay, so only about a third of our curriculum is online, but still, it's a lot, and they all will need to be online at once. One laptop shared amongst three kids really held us back this past year, and we fell way behind where I wanted to be. Three Kindles, the content of which I can control online? Awesomesauce.

If you could see the video above, I think you could tell how excited the kids were about getting them. Even though we're not getting wi-fi until later today and they couldn't get online with them, they haven't put them down for a second, even taking them with them in the car to go mystery shopping with me. Fun, fun. I can't wait to let them really start using them!

Do your kids have tablets? Do y'all have a Kindle? If so, please let me know some great kid apps to put on there! Jack has asked me repeatedly for Angry Birds, so I'll put that of course, so I need other games and educational ones, too. Spanx!

Fin.

Oh, My Dawg, I'm So Excited!!!

...or, How We Spent Our Tax Refund!

        ...or, Man, We Should Be One of Those Couples Who Has To Spend a Million-Dollar Inheritance in 24-Hours Flat!

                   You feel me? But let's move on from these 77 alternate titles and get to the meat of this post.

If you hadn't realized, our federal tax refund hit our bank account yesterday. Here's how we've spent it on the kids and household goods in the day since then:

1. First stop, our local post office. We had to mail five or six packages, including the Progressive Snapshot device I'd never plugged into our Odyssey, Penelope, some video surveillance equipment for a mystery shop I'd (never) done, and the keys to our Virginia Beach house to our realtor back in that town. Plus, I had to buy a roll of stamps. Yes, some of us do still send snail mail. And also, we had to bring our lease in so that we could FINALLY get the keys to our mailbox. It's been 3 weeks, and we still have almost NO mail, save for the little bit that trickles down into our PO Box. Speaking of which, the kids and I went to check it while Rob finished up with the lease business, and there were two cards in it from Aunt Stacey (my sister). She sent cards and money for the two birthday babies, Jack and Sophia, having decided together with me that money was the way to go for our kids' respective birthdays from now on.

2. Next stop, Walmart. We spent a buttload of money on household necessities (and a few un-necessities, but not many) there. And Jack spent his new birthday money on this remote-controlled boat he'd been eyeing for a while.

Sophia spent her birthday money on this horse, which goes with her doll that she'd bought with birthday money from others earlier in the month. Granted, it's not tax money, but it happened yesterday, so I have to tell ya.

Also, Chloë and...

 

 

... Sophia both got new pairs of skates, which was and wasn't a splurge. It wasn't an absolute need, no, but they did need to get more and more varied exercise, and I needed a skating partner! Rob wanted to buy me a bike, too, but I figure I'll keep an eye on Freecycle for that. (Side note: Sophia fell on her butt a million times but is already zooming skillfully around the block. Chloë is still falling, but she'll get there, I'm sure. Soon as she lets go of all the tree branches, that is.)

 

 Other spending at Wally-World included food (absolutely necessary, right?), an iron (Rob had left ours back at the Va Beach house, oops), toilet bowl brushes (because, eww, he forgot those back there, too), a plunger (same story), towels and accessories to match the new shower curtains and mats in both our and the kids' bathrooms (splurge-y), a garbage can (forgot it, too), aaaand new bedding for all three kids (Sophia ruined all the old ones. She does that).

 

 

 

Next up, back at home, I went online to the Florida DMV website because we both need new state licenses, and then we'll need to register Penelope and the motorcycle, and then we'll need to get new insurance policies. (And I still freakin' need to fix the gigantical crack down the middle of my windshield, but that'll keep a li'l longer, won't it? It's been a month and a half already, after all...) But the next appointment - you make 'em online, here - for the DMV isn't until May 6th, so I looked at the docs we'll need for the new licenses. Crap, I need a new Social Security card. So do the kids; ours got stolen, which is not awesome. Lots of other stuff did, too; someone stole our "important papers" lockbox I kept under my desk. Ugh. Anyway. We'll go do that business tomorrow. Of course, they'll want my driver's license, among other things, to get the new card, so now I understand dogs and cats chasing their own tails!

 

 

We don't need cable TV - -haven't had it for years- - but we do need internet service. This is 2013, after all, and we have numerous electronic devices needing wi-fi. Not to mention the fact that our iPhones get crap for signals in the house on the LTE network, or 3G or 4G for the matter, and we don't have a landline. So, we put in about a half-dozen phone calls to Comcast to sign up for supah-fast (and cheap, compared to what we were paying for Cox in VA) cable internet service. We'd have done it sooner, but, ah, that's neither here nor there. It's done now, and they're coming Sunday, and I can't wait, and yeah.

 

 

Next stop, JAFRA, to place an order. I have gotten several from clients that needed fulfilling, plus I plan to start kicking that into high gear, so I needed a few things myself for said purpose. Yeah. I love JAFRA packages. They smell so damn good and always bring promises of buttery soft skin. Mmm, me likey.

 

 

 

Speaking of our iPhones, I've been boosting off my 5's Personal Hotspot to get online and do all the important stuff like tell you on this blahg about that important stuff, and so I had to go on the AT&T website to pay our big, fat bill. That was that. Can't wait to whittle that back down after the Comcast guy comes with our new, um, nothing?

 

 

Speaking of paying the bills, I hopped over to our bank website and put in an extra payment for Penelope, and...

 

 

 

...Elsie, Rob's BMW motorsickle.

 

(Yes, I spelled it that way on porpoise. C'mon, now.)

 

And then, the really exciting stuff started. Well, wait, first dinner. The kids must eat. The husband must eat. I... must nibble. I gained about 10 lbs during our move and realized it even before I got my scale back a week ago to confirm it, so I've been eating very carefully and am already down 4 lbs since then. I was hoping to take it off by my birthday in September, so yay. But what? am I talking about??

 

 

For dinner, after Rob and the kids cleared off the table and cleaned up the kitchen enough for me to cook in it properly, we laid down the new bamboo runner we'd gotten on clearance from Walmart (a minute splurge, yes, but it went with my Fiestaware, and hey, bamboo!) and used the also-clearanced new cloth napkins (hey, reducing paper waste is a good thing). Since we were going fancyish, I decided to make the kids promise promise promise they wouldn't break the wedding crystal we'd gotten from Dr. Lisa and Uncle Faris, and they did pinky-promise, which is as good as gold 'round here. And guess what? The only person who came even close to breaking one was ME. Yup, I'm still the same ol' klutz I always was, rest assured. PS, the candles were Sophie's idear. We are SO decadent. ;P

 

 

I'd gotten this Ninja Chopper from my friend, Yet Another Stephanie, back in VA, but I hadn't put it to good use yet. We had avocados, we had guac mix, and we had tortilla chips, so it was time. And guess what? After a few pulses, we had delicious-ish guacamole. It wasn't the best I've ever had, but compared to the improvised batch I made after Rob and - yes! - the kids quickly polished off this one, it wasn't bad at all. Heh. (Mine wasn't either, but it lacked salt. And lymes. And cilantro. And had too much onion. And tomato. And not enough avocado. Damn, it must've sucked worse than I first rememberated.)

 

 

 

This picture is way washed-out compared to the actual scene, but then I whipped up a pork steak dinner from a recipe I'd gotten on the back of a can of Campbell's chicken broth. There was pasta instead of rice, because that's what I had, and I needed to squeeze fresh juice from oranges rather than use bottled juice, because that's what I had and hello, yummier, but other than that, it was pretty much according to the recipe. Kinda. Anyways. Rob says it was good enough to make again, which is high praise coming from him, but all three kids had upturned noses, the punks. I don't see them doing the whole presentation-is-everything thing on me with hummus and pita, or anything, so humph!

 

 

 

However, Jack and Chloë did enjoy the orange slices in the dinner so well that they requested more for dessert. Um, okay, twist my arm a little bit, why don'tcha.

 

And NOW for the rilly, rilly exciting part!!!

 

(You'd better be sitting down now.)

 

(I mean it.)

 

(Because this is heady, heady stuff, coming up here in a second.)

 

Are you ready?

 

All right.

 

You asked for it.

 

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I bought stuff for homeschooling!!!!!! Yeah, school, baby! I can't WAIT to delve back in and get the kids back on track and have tons and tons and TONS of fun in the process. I love teaching them!!

 

Here's what I bought over at the Homeschool Buyers' Co-op:

 

 

 

All FIVE levels of Latin American Spanish from Rosetta Stone!!! Whoop!! For cheap! I have been wanting RS for aaaaaaaages, ever since I did a mystery shop at one of their kiosks (oops, I'm not supposed to tell you that) and saw how well it works. Chloë started angling for German, and I would have been thrilled with Latin, but we all settled on the LAS after thinking about what would be the most useful in our lives right now. I can not WAIT to get my teeny-weeny little hands on this baby. Sirrusly.

 

 

I usually piece our Science and Social Studies curricula together myself, but this year (starting now), I'm going to get a little help from the award-winning Adaptive Curriculum. I cannot wait to see how that works for us, especially in Social. Science, I've got down, but our Soshe has been a little, well, piecemeal, so I'd like to get it more organized in their brains, y'know?

 

For teaching Grammar rules more concretely, I got us a lifetime passport to Grammaropolis, which looks very promising. Sounds like fun, too!

 

 

For writing and all that goes with that business, I bought us a year's subscription (which is really enough information, with what I got, to last us through the end of high school if I choose) to Brave Writer, a highly rated program about which I've heard nothing but good stuff. Eeeeeek!

 

And now for the reeeeeealllllly exciting part!!!!

 

Can you stand it? I can't!!

 

Because we want the kids to be technologically savvy, and because so much of their work is computer- and internet-based, I have been wanting to get them each their own laptop or tablet for a while. I've been researching and thinking and debating about it; we've had ONE laptop for the kids up 'til now, and it just doesn't work that well when all three kids need to be online to do assignments. With three, I wouldn't need to constantly rotate them out and cut them short on projects - they could all work simultaneously! So after tons more research, I bought them each a Kindle Fire HD 7" tablet on Amazon.com! Wooohoooo, the
y are going to be so stoked, man!

 

 

 

 

Of course, to protect their shiny new electronical toys, I got them each a case in a different color. Jack's is green, because, well, it's his favorite, and I couldn't find a boyish pattern to suit him.

 

 

I think this one will be Chloë's.

Sophia will like this one.

I don't know how much they'll need or use them, but it remains to be seen, so I got them this pack of 6 styli for their Kindle Fire HDs, and also one - yes, just one - wall charger to share. I figure that much we can do on a rotational basis, right?

But I'm still not done outfitting the kids for the coming year. Nope, nope, nope. I did s'more shopping on ye olde Amazon first:

Sophia needs a new queen-sized mattress for the bunk bed she'll now be sharing with Chloë, because we had to leave her old one behind in Portsmouth (doesn't really matter; it was gross). I got her this memory-foam one, which has really good ratings. Remind me to air it out for two days first...

Oh, and for us, I got a new bed frame since Rob left our old one behind at the Virginia Beach house, which sucks because they aren't as cheap as I thought they were. Booger.

For Jack, I picked up a Yamaha keyboard stand (and a new wall charger, since he lost his). Even though he's decided not to pursue lessons for now, the music store folks convinced us to hang onto the keyboard in case one of the kids picks it up. And I can play, albeit slowly and gingerly, so we can all bang around on it for our music lessons in Sweet Pea Academy. It's cheap but comes highly-rated, so I think this one'll do us just faaaahhhhhn.

 

And finally (as you all breathe a sigh of relief, I know), the kids have been doing some growing since last I shopped for summer clothing for them. Especially Sophia; she's now, like, a foot taller than Jack! No lie. She needed a new bathing suit and picked this one out at Sears.

They all needed shorts and tees, so I bought bunches upon bunches of those for each kiddo, too, along with one dressy outfit for each kid. Inexplicably, after making a painstaking order there, Sears canceled several of my items and let the rest go through. Buh-wha-huh? I have to call them. I want those things, dammit! They need 'em! But it'll keep 'til 0900. Which, oh, is four minutes from now. Serendipity, baby!

Oh, shit, I totally forgot one more big splurge! Well, not like, a boat big, but Shamu big. *Ahem*

 

Yep. We're going to Orlando on Monday and Tuesday! Rob still has a little bit more time (a month, maybe) on Active Duty, so that means he and three dependents still get in for fah-reeeee at Anheuser-Busch parks through their ongoing Here's to the Heroes Salute program.  That leaves one kid out, so I bought another ticket, along with our parking pass, dine-all-day passes for Rob and the kids (I'll nibble and graze meagerly), and a stroller rental voucher. I can't wait, and the kids are ecstatic! (The stroller is mostly for Jack, who still has trouble walking sometimes, especially for long periods of time, thanks to his tight Achilles tendons, and also to keep the kid out of the sun here and there, and also in case we want it to carry things around the park without holding them.) Can't wait to see the shows, can't wait to see Shamu, can't wait to see my babies' faces when they get to feed a fish or two to the dolphins. Wheeee! That'll be Monday.

I think we'll do this on Tuesday, but we might not. I don't know yet. We'll see. Maybe we'll just come home Tuesday, or we might hang out with my online friend, Gloria, whom I've not yet met, or maybe we'll... hm. I don't know! Suggestions?

NOW I'm finished.

I have some mystery shops to go do today, along with my doctor's appointment for this thing growing on my chin, soooo.... whew! This post took forEVER to write.

Fin.

P.S. I'm such a liar. That's not all. HAHAHA. The cats got new beds and litter to poop in - LOTS of litter.

Sundays In My City: Food For Thought

Sundays in my City is hosted by Unknown Mami, to show pictures of everyone's neck of the woods all around the world. Link up here if you're joining in the fun!

The other day, we were near my alma mater, the University of Miami, in Coral Gables, FL. I had gone to the doctor and brought the whole family with me after the shenanigans it took to get the appointment, and afterward, we were starving. So we headed over to UM, which I adore visiting (partly because of the memories, sure, but also because it's such a beautiful campus), to get some grub. We couldn't find one of these glider thingies to sit in and eat our din, so at first, we sat on the steps in the center of campus to eat. Then one sweet girl, who was sitting there studying, shooed herself away to give us the spot. Gotta love nice folks. ^_^

The kids love to stand by Lake Osceola on campus, so before we left, they gathered to look at the ducks and fish. They found a drainage pipe (from sewage, I think?), around which the fish were swarming, so that was cause for many questions. I love how all of our outings lately have provided much homeschooling-on-the-go fodder!

We bought a new Crock-Pot set recently, with two take-along tubs for Rob to bring meals to school, and I was eager to try it out. I don't eat much meat, and definitely not mammals, so I didn't try this, but apparently it was delishimus! I made a pork butt roast (hehe) and put sweet onions in the pot, along with Worcestershire sauce and molasses bacon GrillMates seasoning from McCormick. It was fall-off-the-bone tender when finished, and both Rob and Jack (my big meat-eating boys) ate tons of it!

To the butt (giggle), I added baked potatoes and a baby greens salad with strawberry vinaigrette. Personally, I ate about half a potato, which is about par for the course. Everyone else? Gobbled.

Gratuitous cat picture: This is Pepper, my daughter Chloë's kitten, hanging out with Hubs, aka Rob. He is also known as Mr. Fluffypants, and you can see why!

Welp, remember to link up, and enjoy some other folks' pictures, too.

Fin.

Just Beachy

After I came home from applying for a job at Publix - I have to get it, I just have to - Rob asked me, "Do you have any plans for today?" I didn't, so he insisted that we needed to find somewhere to immerse ourselves in some water pronto. I knew just the place: Biscayne National Park, just 10 minutes away, right here in Homestead! I'd never actually been there, so I didn't know what to expect, but a quick visit to the website told me we would definitely be able to swim. Perfect!

We didn't just jump right into that wondrous lagoon you see the kids - and Rob, floating - in, there, oh no! Definitely not. I made them work for it. At the Visitor's Center, we found an artist's rendition of all kinds of Florida marine fish on the wall, so Rob and I (with the help of a volunteer on certain fish - hey, it's been 15 years since I graduated, and that's the kind of "use it or lose it" knowledge I haven't used much since then) schooled them about identifying them, certain features, even some scientific names I still remembered. I told them all about the red musculature of tuna and why they are that way, their habits and so on and so forth. I dropped all kinds of knowledge on them, so when we got to this beach, I told them they couldn't go swimming unless they could each tell me something they'd learned that day so far. Each one was able to describe something new right off the bat, so they were able to swim. Motivation will do that!

In the water, I taught them about comb and box jellies (the ctenophore phylum) versus true jellies (the cnidarians) when we came across a few of those. Then a remora came to visit me, and we learned about those. It didn't stay on me for long, nor Rob after that, but it looooved Sophia, who hadn't had a bath in a couple days! Ha! It didn't visit Chloë - who showered earlier in the day - or Jack - who bathed the night before - at all, so Sophia was the "shark" it decided it needed to clean. At first, she was a little freaked out, but when I assured her it wasn't going to hurt her and was taking care of her, she said, "Aw, what a cute little fishy," and tried to catch it, unsuccessfully.  I tried to find more critters, to no avail, so I switched tactics and told them what I could remember about the three kinds of seagrass found here. Which isn't much; I didn't remember much when I was actually in school to begin with, so we'll have to look that stuff up later!

The restaurant was closed for the day, but they had this signboard out front. I know Rob will take advantage of that when he gets his kayak and fishing poles back in a few short hours! How great is that deal, huh? I don't know if they'll actually clean the fish for ya, but $7.⁵⁰ for your seafood dinner with two sides? Heck yeah, can't beat it!

Later, I took the kiddos over to the mangroves, where I explained that there were three kinds here: red, gray, and white. We learned lots more about the mangroves and what lives there (great hiding place for fish!), and I even let them lick a few leaves to taste the salt.

We went walking around the beach for a while, and the kids found this pretend-dig site. They immediately went to work scrounging for what Sophia thought, at first, were real fossils! She thought she was a "kid archaeologist" and was discovering something new. So hysterical. I love seeing the three of them explore, discover, and learn. It's so fresh and fun.

At that point, a huge storm cell rolled in, and the lifeguard announced that they were closing the beach. We hustled the kids into the shower, having heard lots of thunder and knowing the lightning wouldn't be far behind. They were super disappointed (as were we, gotta admit), but we assured them that it was close enough to home that we could come back soon, and often. That helped a bit.

On our way out of the park, we saw tons of vultures scavenging around, so of course we had a little discussion about those, too. Nasty little buzzards, but useful to the ecosystem, so hey.

I happened, at that time, to get a text alert from 7-Eleven informing me that new coupons were available in the app, so I checked and, what do you know? Free Slurpees for all! Of course, they wanted those bad boys, so I made them each tell me some new things they'd learned that day in order to get their treat. Jack and Chloë dropped knowledge on me right away, but Sophia, still disappointed, said, "I learned that the beach shuts down and you have to leave when there's a stom." Haha! Useful and important information, sure, but not what I had in mind. Try again, Toots. She came through for me, so rest assured, she got her Slurpee, too.

And now, I must get back to straightening up my room and the rest of the house, so the movers can bring all our goods into a clean place. Woohoo, can't wait - à tout à l'heure, folks!

Fin.

Sophia Lorelei Turns The Big "8"!

On Saturday, our wee baby girl turned EIGHT freakin' YEARS OLD, guys. Can you believe it?! I can't. My baby. Is old. Which means I'm old. Gosh!

By the way, blue, because her favorite color is now blue. Gone are the days of all pink-and-purple  all the time. Le sigh.

Also by the way, because I'm thinking of it, she's the youngest kid, yet she's the biggest by quite a bit. Chloë is the size of a 6½-year-old and has the maturity to match, whilst Sophia's maturity matches her chronological age. It's quite an interesting dynamic, and by that I mean... frustrating entirely too often.

Anyway. Saturday, Sophia's birthday, was a beautiful day. Just gorgeous. And we had a blast. But first, there were the presents:

Grandma (Rob's mom) sent a jumprope, headbands, puzzles that got put together immediately by all three kiddos, and a doodling book that she's been working in for hours on end each day since it came;

Aunt Gail (Rob's sister), a new Scentsy consultant, sent her a Scentsy kitty which, as you can see, was met with much excitement; and, 

on Friday night, she not only got a card with money from her Grandpa (Rob's dad, along with his stepmom), but our realtor stopped by to take the lockbox off our front door and, upon learning it was Sophie's birthday, whipped a $20 bill out of her wallet and gave it to the extremely delighted child, amidst our protests! So we took her to Wally-World and let her have a little shopping spree. What fun that was! 

But back to Saturday, her special day... We were headed out to do a plethora of mystery shops that I'd lined up for the weekend, but the first one didn't pan out (and none of the rest 'cept one did, in the end), so we ended up in Miami's Bayside Marketplace. In all my years living in Miami the first time around, I'd never made it to Bayside, which turned out to be a feast for the eyes and ears. What a bizarre bazaar! I instantly loved it.

The kids meandered around for a while, looking at this and that, before they happened upon the family bikes for rent. We didn't get a chance to ride that day, but we've done it before and I'm sure we'll do it again one day. Or have we? I can't remember, now that I think of it, when we actually did, so maybe I just made that part up.

After that, Sophia got to ride in the carousel, choosing of course to sit in the spinny-thingy that she loves so much, for the mystery shop portion of our visit to Bayside. I'd have let the other kids go, too, but fundage is at a premium right now and I could only let one kid go. Being the birthday kid, choosing Sophie was a no-brainer.

She also got to ride the train, as part of my evaluation, but she didn't sit here for long, oh no, she didn't!

Instead, she climbed into the caboose (after determining that she wasn't allowed to ride in the engine car) and pretended she was a caged lion at the circus. Silly girl!!

The ticket seller gave me a free punching balloon for her birthday. I don't know about you, but I love a punching balloon, and I'm pretty damn good at it, too. Much better than these goons kids of mine, but Jack is getting to be the best of the bunch at it. Sophia and Chloë, er, not so good...

That ^^^ is what I had to do after the mystery shop portion of our visit. And so, I did. 

Since we were at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurant for me to GO, the kids were posing outside in Forrest's photo-op bench and shoes for Rob. Silliness.

Across from the restaurant was this enormous banyan tree, which is my second favorite kind of tree, I think, after palm trees. This one was about 100 years old, though they can live to be about 1,000 years. Did you know that when the branches reach down all the way into the ground, they grow into new roots of the tree? Isn't that amazing?!

Chloë had fun climbing up into the tree, and then Rob joined her. He climbed quite a bit higher, but not as high as he'd wanted to go before he got stuck with slick branches from the thunderstorm we'd gotten earlier that day. Indeed, the flooded roads are what stopped me from being able to get to my first mystery shop on time.

After climbing the banyan tree, we stopped at Häagen-Dazs to get ice cream for Sophia. Again, I couldn't afford to get treats for all three kids and still do my mystery shops (which I later ended up abandoning anyway), and I had a coupon for one small kid's cone, so Sophia got it. She did share with her brother and sister, but Jack ended up crying about the ice cream and made me feel like complete crap. He knows we don't have a ton of money and that the birthday kid is the one who gets somewhat spoiled on their day, just like he did, but it's still hard to understand and accept at 10 years old... so I told him and Chloë they could each spend a dollar or two on something at the market. Again, ::sigh::

Chloë was simpler, as usual, as she's relatively easy to please and Jack is impossible. She wanted her fortune told, so we spent her dollar on that. Sophia ended up getting her fortune read, too. Except it was funny, because Chloë hit the button for Spanish, and the fortune teller switched to Spanish for all of his mumbo-jumbo, of which I undertood not a word this time. Bah. 

Jack's tastes aren't cheap - everything he wants has wheels or is some mode of transportation or another, and he pointed out things that cost anywhere from ten bucks to $200! Um, no. I said a dollar, Jacky darling...

The girls were in heaven when we found this corner of a toy store decked out in Hello Kitty, well, everything! Sophia urged me to get the HK steering wheel, but I passed. Hee. I could just see me driving Penelope around with that on it, right?

In a shell shop, Sophia put a dried-out sea star on her ear and pretended to be a mermaid. That's another thing she loves - mermaids. She did look pretty with it there, I have to say.

Across the hall, we headed into the Brookstone store to see if there was anything (bahahaa) Jack wanted and could afford. I knew we wouldn't, but I humored the lad. We all found various massaging apparati that we all desperately wanted - and needed, you see, because we still don't have our household goods from the move and have been sleeping on tile floors for almost 2 weeks now. Talk about your aching bones!

Finally, we found a candy store - which is seriously the last thing Jack really needs - and he got some Pop Rocks and a push-up thingamajig to spend his buck-fitty on. Ah, well. Remind me to call a dentist tomorrow, m'kay?

Right after that, the kids were begging to go to the beach, which we'd promised this weekend, but first, Sophia had to dance to the salsa and merengue music playing outside by (I'm guessing) a local band. She stopped after I took this picture, came over to me, and whispered, "I'm kind of embarrassed, Mom. I don't know how to dance in public." So cute!

And then, there was a fountain as we made our way over to the merengue band, so of course I had to fish three pennies out of my satchel to let them each make a wish. Rob and I abstained for once, though we usually join in and toss a coin or two.

At the bandstand, there were plenty of listeners up front and center dancing to the music. Good times, good times, and no, I'm not near brave enough to have joined them. Not in a million years, though I like to listen and watch!

On our way over to the parking garage, Sophia spotted a man twisting up balloon animals. She ran over and told him it was her birthday, so he asked her to pick a color and tell him what she wanted. He didn't speak much English, so she just dove into his bucket of balloons and fished out a blue one, asking for a dog. He whipped it up in no time flat, then made the sign of the cross and wished her many blessings for her birthday. Nice.

A pretty smile and a blue poodle. A bloodle?

At last, we made it out to Key Biscayne. First stop was Diver's Paradise, the dive shop where I used to work back in the day, to visit "the Omars" who own it. Only, Omar Jr. wasn't there because his wife had just had a baby boy, and Omar Sr. wasn't there because of the awful diving weather earlier in the day. Bummer; it's a looooong, long drive out to Key Biscayne from Homestead, so I don't know when I'll get out there to see them again. I will, though - count on that - but probably not before we get a dive in on the other end of the Florida Keys.

Y por fin, we made it to la playa.  Those are my buried feet at the bottom of the picture; I'd have shown you my piggie toes, but my toenails aren't painted, and once, in college, a guy told me that girls' feet are ugly if the toenails aren't painted. Hee!

Sophia was the only one who'd kept her bathing suit on after (we thought) the thunderstorms altered our plans to go to the beach, so she plunged RIGHT in the water and had herself a birthday ball. That, right there, is a happy, happy 8-year-old.

Somewhere between the Sophie picture and this one, I'd dropped my iPhone and my keys into the water. Only, I didn't realize at the time about the keys, since I was so intent on rescuing my phone to get the next great picture. Hm. We'll revisit that later. See the muck behind Chloë, where Jack is? It was gooey and goopy, and she ran through it shouting, "EW! EW! EW! EW! EW!" in a very Chloë-like way.

Rob found this whorling shell - a mini conch, mayhaps? - in the low tidal zone, and thus began a collection between him and Sophia. They found many a cool shell that day.

And then, someone found a crab in the water, and all the Latinos ran screaming away, yelling (in Spanish) that it was poisonous and would kill them. I laughed and said it wouldn't, so my girl Sophia was the first one to dive back in and check out the crab. The Latino children kept running over, screaming, and running away, in a most amusing - albeit histrionic - way.

A while later, I managed to find this itty-bitty hermit crab walking in the shallows, so I gave the kids an on-the-spot lesson about the crabs, their unique anatomy, and how they make their living.

After that, Sophia hollered to me, "Look, Mom! I'm a water skipper!" and then she proceeded to run, splashing, across the top of the water like a little beetle. She's great fun, that kid.

Finally, Jack decided to brave the muck. He rolled up his pant legs, with Daddy's help, and made his way over to me. In this picture, he was telling me there was no WAY he could manage to stay in the muck and water...

...but pretty soon, realizing the fun that was to be had in the calm waters of Hobie Beach, he got over himself. I love, love, looove to see this boy have a good time.

And there's me, freckling up like a freckly frecklepuss. Check it out, I have hair again!

True to form, Sophia made a new friend. She does this absolutely everywhere she goes. The thing I loved most about this instance, though, was that Ana didn't speak a lick of Spanish, and yet Sophia still managed to pal around with her. They talked through me. Chloë and Soph asked a billion questions of Ana, and we learned that her favorite color is red, her favorite food is fried rice with eggs, she's 8 years old, and she has a pet bird.

Meanwhile, Rob was walking around, solo for the most part, on the far end of Hobie Beach. I loved watching him connect with nature and enjoy himself. I think he's home. At last, it's his turn to shine, and he will do it well, I know.

After a while, an ice cream truck sung out its offerings on the shore, and Ana dashed immediately over to her mother to ask for some helado. Naturally, so did my trio of hooligans. Remembering that Sophia had already had Häagen-Dazs that day, I threw sense to the wind and decided to make it right with Jack. So they all got ice cream. Though wouldn't you know it, three bites into his Spongebob sherbet, Jack decided his was too cold, and he didn't want it anymore. The little shit!

Sophia and her new amiguita, Ana, enjoying ice cream together wordlessly

After ice cream, Sophia apparently channeled Brookstone to give her sister and brother foot massages in the water. Jack was too squeamish to let her rub sand on his feet, though, so he ran squealing away as soon as I snapped this Instamography.

Not long after that, the sun was setting for the day, and, knowing our shark friends like to come closer to shore at that time of day, we rounded up our little'uns and started to head toward the sand. Satisfied, we were, that a full day was had, so no complaints ensued.

Sophia and Ana hugged good-bye, promising to see each other soon (though we have no way of reaching Ana). Somehow, these flowers materialized out of nowhere, and Ana gave them to Sophie, wishing her a very happy 8^th birthday. Despite the ice cream stains and sand on her chin, I still think she looks beautiful here.

Immediately, Sophia decided to play "bride" and, turning around, threw the bouquet to her sister to catch. The flowers went all over the place, the girls went under water to catch them, and I had myself a good belly laugh. Hence the blur.

We got up to the arena, and Sophia dropped down to make sand angels. Of course! Who wouldn't want their wet and sand-covered birthday girl in their nice Honda Odyssey, ya know? I didn't care. It's such a messy Penelope right now, and I need to clean it out anyway...

Once we got back to Penny, I realized that I didn't have my keys. What? The doors were unlocked, too, so I scoured the front seat for them, to no avail. I sent Sophia back to where we'd left our shoes, but soon I realized that I had never put my keys down there in the first place. That's when I remembered dropping my phone. Just as a couple holding hands strolled by, I dashed down to the shallow water, and there were my keys, half-buried. I shouted, "I FOUND THEM!" to Sophia, and the male half of the couple exclaimed, "Wow! You were so lucky!" Indeed.

Sophia mentioned something about her birthday cake being the last thing she needed to make her day complete, and that's when I remembered that, oh yeah, I'd made no plans for a cake! Oops. We stopped halfway home at the Publix where I worked in college, and I chatted up Little Richard in the produce department while Sophia picked out some strawberries. My girl loves her some strawberries like nothin' else. She always tries to find the biggest one. Look at her! She's such a goose.

It was so big, she pretended she was a pig with an apple in her mouth. Jack wanted to cook her, but that's where I drew the line.  I know, I'm such a good mom.

The berries were super juicy, and I had absolutely NOTHING of my cake-making schtuff to work with, so I did the best I could. Sophia didn't care a wit. She said it was the most beautiful cake ever, and she loved it. Who could argue with that?

I had a bite, but it was one bite too many. On the other hand, Sophia has managed to sneak about 2/3 of the cake since last night, so I guess the chocolate cake-and-strawberry frosting combo (which Jack said tasted like Mentos gum) was too her liking. 

And that, my friends, is how you do a birthday 'round these parts.

Thanks for stopping by our little corner of the blahgisphere. Hope you'll stick around.

Fin.

Sundays In My City: Neighborhood Walks

For a long time now, I've been reading Sundays in My City posts by Mrs. 4444 over at Half Past Kissin' Time. I love them; they're a great way to be introduced to a town I've never visited. I've never posted before, but now that I'm in a new-again city (Miami, for those of you who haven't hung on every word I've written in the past four or five months - what what what?!), I plan to participate on a regular basis. Thanks, Unknown Mami, for hosting us! {And if you want to read more SiMC posts, click on the badge at the top of this post.}

This post will be about our walks exploring around our new neighborhood, since I don't know much about Homestead and since we're trying to conserve gas right now, too. This is Chloë, 11½ - our oldest hija. I love her pool get-up, since the ultimate goal for yesterday was to find the neighborhood clubhouse and pool/playground. The hat is from my new close friend, Miss Lisa (not to be confused with my BFF, Dr. Lisa), and the rest of the outfit is from her own collection, aka her closet. ;P

Since we left snow and cold weather back in Virginia (I have to stop myself from continually saying "back home," since this is home now) and have sun and mid-80º weather here, the flowers are everywhere and really striking. Especially the hibiscus. I'll show several more in this post, but these bright orange blooms are my favorite. After the color of the sea, orange and green are my favorite colors, too. Love.

Sophia, who will be 8 on Saturday and our younger hija, loves to tuck them behind her ear. 

I call these "palm carcasses," and they're everywhere. You really have to watch out for them; they're not a soft landing spot if you trip over one.

The kids were really bummed out to learn that the pool and playground were unavailable during renovations over the next couple of weeks, but I tried to lift their spirits by telling them that at least it had been closed since Wednesday, meaning both the fortnight was already a quarter over and that we hadn't wasted four days not going to the pool when it wasn't open anyway, but guess what? That didn't help. Not a bit. So we hung out in the gazebo and planned future picnics in what some graffito had described  as "the chill spot."

Afterward, we headed across the street to one of many lakes in the area. The kids wanted to look for gators, but really, I'm about 99% certain they won't find them in this lake. You can never be too careful, though, so we didn't take our eyes off them for a second! That's Jack, 10, on the right, with his hermanas.

Just before I took this picture of Rob and Jack, they were sitting exactly the same way. Then, of course, Jack moved. I still like the picture, though, maybe because Jack rarely lets me photograph him. He's pretty camera-shy.

Sophia having fun with sunscreen! She's such a goose. I love her pudgy little still-babyish legs...

When we headed back home, we encountered this ol' girl wandering around unclaimed. I got ahold of her and found a collar but no tags. We named her Cousin Itt, because we weren't sure if she were a he at first, and she was quite hairy. She was sweet and docile, blind (at least partially) in both eyes, and unkempt. We couldn't find an owner in sight, so Rob whipped his drawstring out of his shorts for a makeshift leash, and we took her home to call Animal Control. (He's a handy one, that guy.)

Cousin Itt paced around our backyard for a while, drank a lot of water and ate a little food, and then she settled in for what we thought was the weekend. Rob put up a tarp for her in case it rained (our six cats and our lease all said we couldn't keep her inside), since Animal Control doesn't work weekends. Alas, she started barking and wouldn't stop no matter how much I tried to calm her. We had to cut her loose before we got in trouble. She loped off in the direction in which she came, and we surmised that maybe an owner was missing her after all. We hoped. She didn't have many days left, we thought.

I can count on one hand the number of times I cooked dinner at the crappy Portsmouth house, because we had barely any cookware and the kitchen suuuucked. Well, to give Rob a break, to prove to the kids that Mommy really can cook, and because I actually do enjoy it, I plan to change that now that we have a decent place in which to do it! Chloë is so amazed, she's keeping a chart of who cooks when. So far it's Mom 3, Dad 1 (tonight, when I still suggested the breakfast-for-dinner menu of eggs, waffles, and sausage); little does Chloë know, I plan to use it to teach her many things about charting, mean/median/mode, and so forth! Anyway, last night's dinner was Shrimp Scampi a la Farfallini for Rob and me, plain farfalle for Jack, and farfalle with sauce for the girls. I don't like to cater like that normally, but we had the ingredients to please everyone and I really don't like to battle over food.

And for dessert, we had Granny Smith slices with peanut butter. Sophia tends toward the chubby side, and after several weeks with junky food and lack of activity, it had started to show enough to concern me. We're switching back to eating healthfully much more of the time. And guess what? No complaints about it at all. Whew.

After dinner, while I was cleaning up the kitchen, Sophie surprised me with a pretty bouquet of flowers. We don't have all our household goods yet, so I had to use Jack's Cars cup. Suits me just fine!

Today, while Rob stayed home with Sophia while she bathed, the Bigs and I took a walk around the more immediate neighborhood of ours. This is the view to the left, as we stepped outside our door. Steph requested more pictures of the scenery, so I obliged her today with my constant Instagramming iphoneography.

Today's hibiscus is brought to you by the color pink!

Behind the next set of buildings is another lake, and all around the apartments there were oodles of clutches of duck eggs. So cool. The kids loved finding those!

We even found a mama Muscovy protecting her unhatched brood. What a neat find that was! (I'm sure she loved me peering in so closely at her, but, y'know. I'm a scientist, so it's okay, and I told her that.)

We even found a weeks-old duckling wandering about, unparented. He didn't like me chasing him down for the picture, either, and some drakes in the area got pretty nervous about it, too. They didn't listen to my whole scientist spiel, so we left 'em alone after that.

Just before I took this picture of the kids, Chloë breathed, "It's beautiful here." I agree. I mean, how could you not be happy? I'm enthralled with it all.

On the sunny side of the complex, we find gigantical hibiscus blooms, as big as my hand! Holy moly! (I mean, I do have small hands and all, but those are some big fleurs. Yeah, some French, too. What? We have Haitians too, y'know.)

Earlier on a walk, Rob and the kids spotted an ibis. (UM's mascot; hello, Sebastian) I missed out on that and got doves instead. Glorified pigeons. Harumph. Oh, well. All God's creatures.

See that little structure, way in the back, there? That's Mailbox Central. We don't use it. We don't get our mail yet. We have a box, and we have a PO Box, too, but so far they're just for show. Le sigh. I'm expecting an enormous parcel of mail whenever it eventually catches up with us!

Some more hibiscus. I like the pretty color, but I don't like the shrively varietal as much as the flatter kind.

Five kittens were under one staircase, looking for food, on the non-lake side of the complex. They were so adorable, Chloë actually cried. She emotes well; no wonder she's an actress. And no, we're not taking any more cats into this house!

So that's our neighborhood. Welcome, y'all! I mean, you guys. I need to stop that y'all business now that I'm out of Virginia, right? (I probably won't. I mean, it is pretty useful for those lazy typing and speech times...)

Oh, Sophia didn't want you to forget about her, so one last appearance from her. Wait, something nicer, please, huh?

Such silliness. I guess not! Hee.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great week, y'all. Er, uh, yeah.

Fin.

P.S. Lest you think we're on a permanent break from homeschooling, just because we don't have all our school stuff, doesn't mean we're not doing it. I've gotten in lots of unconventional teaching, including the aforementioned math lessons, cooking lessons, lessons about plants (parts of a flower not the least of them), lots of reading, and so on. It's happening. Trust.

Random Schtuff Taking Up Space In My Brain Right Now

It's 0404 on a Tuesday morning, and I can't sleep - partly because I'm coming off a 5-day migraine in which I slept a TON, and partly because, well, I never sleep at night anyway. And I've got a lot on my mind right now, so prepare ye for a massive, totally random brain dump:

I'm really trying to rev up my Jafra business so that I can promote to Manager later this year. Really bad timing, considering we're going to move soon, but the exciting part is I have K joining my team soon! On the Saturday after next, we're having a Jafra spa party at her place, complete with smelly-good foot soaks, mud masks and way more, and whatever we earn at her party is going in to placing HER first order and getting her case. She's excited, I'm thrilled, and it's going to be a great send-off for me and instantly-built clientele for her. Yay!

Oops, I just realized I have two logos in that picture. Meh. It's a two-fer.

We visited my friend Saritah and her family last week, and we're going again the last week of February - along with Jenny from the Block and her kiddos, whom we haven't seen in ages upon ages. Trés fun! I have presents for both of them, so I hope I don't forget to bring 'em. Plus, Chloë is "in love" with older son Sebastian, and Sophia is "in love" with younger son Trevor, so Saritah and I are planning future double weddings. Sophie and Trevor have even locked themselves in his closet and smooched on the cheek already! What! I have to stop playing with that cute baby up there, Tempe, and pay attention to the rest of those rapscallions!

(holy huge picture that won't let me scale it down... awesome)

We're supposed to be moving to Miami right around March 1st, and I'm kind of totally freaking out about it, because we are not even remotely ready. Still to do: clean up this house, our rental, so we can move the remaining at-least-half of our crap out of the old house, which we still own, into it; get the old house cleaned up and listed for sale post-haste; set a date for the movers to come; freakin' FIND a place to live in Miami - hello, apartment managers? Returning my phone call and/or email requests for information would be a good thing, 'kay? - and, gosh, that's enough for starters. Rob thinks we won't move in time. I'm stubborn as hell about that March 1 deadline, but I'm starting to agree with him. Cue major sad face.

Oh, and considering each of us is something of a medical marvel, once we do find a place to live, I have about 27 bazillion doctors to find and appointments to make!

I have a cold. Make that aNOTHer cold. Like, my third in 2013. Plus, I'm coming off a five-day migraine (post-publish read-through realization: oh. I told you that already. Meh. It's another two-fer) in which I did a lot of lying around in bed and not much else. With that, moving, building my business and everything else, it's like, WHAT homeschooling?! so far this month. I feel pretty shit-tastic about that. Well, we'll be making up for it by doing lots of school this summer, in between beach visits and dips in the pool. 

Rob's last day in the United States Navy is on Valentine's Day! Squee! We're not having a party, since no one could be bothered to come to his 40th birthday party in August, but don't think we won't be celebrating. Horizonta---um, TMI. ;) He has been counting down the days by telling me how many times left he has to shave, cut his curly locks, press his uniforms, and so on. I think the man is excited, y'all! 

Every Sunday, we have a family meeting. Someone different runs it each time, but the agenda is always the same:

1. Calendar, wherein we go through everyone's plans for the upcoming week,

2. Compliments and appreciation, wherein every person goes around and pays everyone else some C and/or A,

3. Allowance, which is everybody's favorite part,

4. Snack, which almost always involves a drive (for me) to 7-Eleven, and,

5. Fun activity, which for the last two weeks has been a gross-out contest!

Anyway, at this past Sunday's Family Meeting, my #2 for Rob was thanking him for 20 years of service to our country, and congratulating him on his terminal leave, which starts Friday. Chloë responded by throwing her arms around Daddy and sobbing happy tears. It was a very touching moment.

I have been super busy teaching coupon classes this month. So far, I have taught one at the library, 3½ "personal sessions" at various folks' homes, and taken one friend and her daughter on a shopping trip to see how I do it in real life. Total women taught so far: eight! With at least that many more to go before we move. I'm not charging much, either, so the personal satisfaction I get from imparting my money-saving knowledge and helping these women and their families out is what's really paying me. Warm fuzzies all around!

This is just a gratuitous kids-in-the-sun photo, because I like to close with an image. There's more on my mind than all this, but that seems like enough to dump on y'all for the time-being. Can ya keep some good thoughts for us that we'll be able to get out of here and move to Miami as close as possible to our self-imposed deadline? For my sanity's sake? Thanks. Much appreciated.

Fin.

Advent-ures 2012, Days 7-12 (Yeah, I Know...)

First, let me say that our wrapping paper roll candlestick craft has still not been completed, because the glue took forever and a day to dry, and then when I brought it out tonight to finish, guess what? Jack decided to pour more glue on it! Aghhhh!!! So, it's drying some more. Awesome. Let us move beyond that little incident, though, shall we?

On the 7^th day of our Advent activity, the paper strip read: "7. Visit Coleman’s Nursery Winter Wonderland @ Monumental UMC, corner of Queen & Dinwiddie Sts. Free. Open ‘til 8 PM." 

Rob took the girls to this activity, while I stayed home with Jack, who was napping fiercely. I mean, homeboy was knocked OUT. And I was 'meh' about it, so that decided things.

Apparently there were a bunch of these things, which I kind of hate, but the kids love, so here are two more:

and,

I just don't have much to say about these things.  In this case, for me, the picture says about three words: Bo-ring-a! ;)

I'm not sure what they are looking at here, but this reminds me: Don't buy poinsettias if you have cats & dogs; they're toxic to your animals. I saw some when we went down to the Outer Banks last weekend, or was it two weekends ago? Anyway, I wanted to grab a couple, until I remembered we house six felines who might, ya'know, die and stuff. And several of them are known to nibble on non-food items, so there you go. No poinsettias for us. Ahem. Back to Advent.

I have yet to determine - and Rob wasn't sure either - whether that Father Christmas was a real person dressed up, or some kind of dummy. It creeps me out a little bit. Can I say I'm glad I didn't go? Rob sent me a picture of a scary clown, too - and I am decidedly NOT afraid of clowns at all - so, yeah, it was a weird scene. Just... weird.

Sophia did find some penguins to pose with, which made her happy, as she is the world's foremost lover of all things penguin!

Now this picture, even though I wasn't there, speaks to me. Lots of words could be said, but I'll just let it stand as it is.

You can't see it too well on the lady-babies, but on the ground, you can spot the "snow" that was being made there. The girls had fun playing in that for a few moments in time.

My beautiful Chloë with snowy hair

And then, just like that, it was over, and home they came, before I accomplished a thing, I think. Like I said, I'm glad I didn't go! But I appreciate that the girls had fun, as you can tell by their smiles, so I suppose it was somewhat worthwhile.

Oh, and just to throw a little Jackiness in here, the reason he was so tired was because I woke him up much earlier than he's used to lately, for his dental surgery pre-op check-up (which we have to repeat, because ugh, that's a story for another day), and there was all kinds of running all over the hospital. He needed to have labs drawn, but he cried buckets, so I have put that off for another day. Maybe when Daddy can take him. Ha. I kid. Anyway.

On the 8^th day of Advent, our activity was supposed to be: "8. Olde Town Holiday Music Festival along 1^stSeven Blocks of High St, 12-6 PM & TowneBank Circle of Smiles on High St, w/ free crafts, hot choc, Santa pix, At 5:30 PM, be at Court & High Sts to watch Santa’s arrival parade!"

We were supposed to meet mi amiga Stephanie and her sons, Luke & Vinnie, for the festival, but ah, we did not go. We did none of that. We were all just so damn tired and lazy, so our activity for the day turned out to be: "excessive napping." Lame. Oh well. Can't win 'em all.

Our 9^th day of Advent paper read: "9. Children’s Christmas Shoppe, where only kids can shop, @ Trinity Episcopal Church, 12:30-4 PM (500 Court St) – Shop for presents in Robby’s memory to donate!" however, the fundage wasn't there for said shopping, so we put that off for a later date and decided to tag along with Stephanie and Sons, heading up to Hampton to go to the Bass Pro Shops Christmas-related activities up there. Eh, whatever, why not?

We didn't get to visit Santa for our free "studio-quality photo," because they have this, um, lame (can I say that twice in a post? Too bad; I just did) policy of giving out a limited number of tickets to pose with Ol' St. Nick, and we missed it by about a quarter of a second. Whatever. My kids know the real deal, and Steph's kids had already 'done' Santa a handful of times, so it was really no big deal to miss it. We headed for the carousel instead. 

At first, I took Steph's son Vinnie onboard the ride, because she gets nauseous on them or even watching them, but he was Not. Having. It. and we had to stop the ride. No big whoop. Instead, I handed her the baby and took blurry pictures of my own cadre of offspring.

After the ride, there were a few more activities set up, such as this duck-shooting game with rubber darts and a bow. Rubber arrows, whatever. Chloë had a hard time shooting them, so I let another little girl help her to leave me free to Instagram this photo for the world to see. I'm a great mom like that.

Jack was all about driving the electric train, until it died. Then he moved on to the remote-controlled cars, until they died. He scurried over to another RC set-up, and those whatever-vehicles-I-forget were dying, too. Wow. Can I say "lame" ONE MORE TIME?!!!

My girls are not too girly to drive the RC cars, too. Sophie had a turn, and then Chloë did:

... but you can tell by the look on her face that they were pretty much dead by that time. Fun stuff, right? And no one was around to help. Where were the elves with all the AA batteries?!

There wasn't much else to do - the craft station was closing, so we picked up our crafts-to-go for later - except pose in this giant cupcake scene. Sophia hopped right up there without help and had her 'sweet' moment, if I may be so silly.

Chloë, ever the delicate little pixie, needed mucho help getting up into the cupcake. Sophie to the rescue! She pushed that tush up there, and all was golden. ::snap, snap::

Jack wasn't too interested in this business, so once again, you're privy to the "take the damn picture and let me out of here" smile that I love so much. Not.

It wasn't until I uploaded this picture of a bear, who beheaded one camper before being shot to death by his tentmates, that I saw the unfortunate positioning of Chloë's hand... Ha.

There are Stephanie's boys - Luke, on the left, is the spitting image of his father - with my girls peering out of a "tree" that was in the middle of the store. Not sure where Jack went this time, but I think he was off looking at things with Rob!

After that, we decided we'd had enough of the store and were going to head off toward home. First, a picture of the five kids. Hm, sour pusses from Sophia and Jack. If memory serves, they still wanted to explore inside and weren't thrilled to be leaving. However, they shortly cheered when we let them scamper all over the quads and 4x4s, etc.

There were about eleventeen ATVs and whatnot outside, and they each climbed behind the wheel of every one of them before we finally parted ways and headed home for the night. After all, it was a pretty decent activity for the kids, so I'm checking that one off in the WIN category.

Ha. I use the above notation in my mystery shopping on occasion. We were supposed to go see the lights at the Botanical Gardens on the 10^th day of our Advent calendar, but again, no funds, so we postponed yet another thing and... did nothing. I can't remember exactly why, but I seem to remember crashing early that night...

Our 11th day of Advent activity read: "11. Backwards day: Have breakfast for dinner!" but I decided to mix it up a little bit more than even that. I have a lot of Jewish friends, including my three cousins, so I decided that we'd go totally "backwards" and celebrate Hannukah for one night, instead! Plus, I really had a craving for latkes, which I've had but never made before, so that was a bit of the impetus for the change. Sophia helped me grate some of the potatoes... but not much. She was afraid to catch her fingers!

I kind of made up my own recipe for the latkes, drawing upon several sources for inspiration. I threw in a half a 5-lb bag of grated Russets, some baby carrots I shredded, a couple large diced onions (and was glad I'd chosen to put my glasses on instead of contacts that morning, because these were a couple of real tear-jerkers!), some crushed garlic cloves, half a dozen eggs, a dump of flour (I didn't measure much; just played it by feel), and some spices I chose sort of willy-nilly, including salt (not enough, it turned out in my book) and pepper. 

My very first homemade latkes, frying up in some nice EVOO! I was very excited. About ¼ of the remainder of my family felt the same way, and that would be Chloë. The Littles were sort of nonplussed about the whole Hannukah-immersion-night I had planned, whilst Rob was, to my utmost surprise, rather incensed at the whole thing. I don't know; maybe he'd had a bad day at work, but when I told him about it after he came home from work to latkes frying on the stovetop and a whole mini-unit worked out, well, agitated and irritated are the words that come to mind. I don't understand the closed-mindedness he exhibited and would rather not dwell on it here and now, so we'll move along quickly...

Here we are having a good old-fashioned Hannukah fry-up, as one of my Jewish friends corrected me when I thought we were having a Seder. Hee! We had a bowl of (canned) tropical fruit salad to replace the apple(sauce), and rather than honey, applesauce and/or sour cream to top our latkes, I put out what I had: salt (necessary), strawberry preserves, and Ranch dressing. No one chose the Ranch, which I agree would have been ickypoo, but both Rob and Chloë (and, the following day for lunch, moi) enjoyed theirs with the preserves. I just had extra salt on mine, and it was okay...for a first effort. There are definitely things I'd change, but I think they turned out well for my first time, especially since I made up my concoction. Kind of bland, but one can always fix that. Jack didn't like his at all, but choked down about half a one in order to get more fruit salad, whilst Sophia was caught shoving bits of hers onto the floor under the table when she was telling us she had eaten it! Stinker. 

{Pepper, our kitten, liked what he was being fed, though. Talking of him, he's doing so much better, and is quite the li'l stinker himself these days!}

On Wednesday, because Tuesday, after all, I fell asleep right after dinner and didn't finish our immersion anyway, we started working on our Hannukah lapbook. Sophia's writing on one of the "petals" of our first mini-book for the lapbook here. You know what? I admit, my kids' writing is pretty atrocious. They're all bad. We're going to spend some time doing copywork until their hand-printing improves. I'm not so concerned about cursive, honestly, but I want their printing to be, well, nice. And... it's not. Their father's is chicken scratch, while I have very nice writing, if I do say so myself, and I'd rather them emulate my skillz in that regard! But anyway, I digress.

The lapbook was slow-going at first, because each one did some cutting, some research, and some writing, while the others pretty much had to sit around and wait. When each of the first few mini-books was done, I'd have them read back what was written there, so they really got to understand the meaning of the menorah, the oil, the story of the Maccabees, and so forth. I learned quite a lot, myself, that I'd never known before. I found it fascinating. Chloë was really into it, while I kept having to tap-tap-tap The Littles to keep their attention going.

I love the look of concentration here on Jack's face... After the first two or three mini-books were complete, I was able to spread out the tasks pretty rapidly amongst the three of them - and me, too - to get more of them done quickly. We haven't even finished yet and have built up quite a pile of them! We'll work on it more tomorrow, I hope. I'm having fun and can't wait to see the finished product - and show it off to y'all and my Jewish friends!

At this point, things were getting busier, with each of the kids working on separate mini-books, including Chloë looking up recipes for a traditional Hannukah feast for a pocket mini-book full of recipe cards. What fun! I love lapbooking and wish we used it more often. From now on, I think we will. It's more hands-on than the way they've been learning this year, which is proving less effective than last year. Blah for that!

After several hours, they needed a break and were clamoring for something else. The 12^th Advent activity was: "12. Make Cardboard Box Christmas Tree & Ornament craft!" We were just starting on that when Daddy came home, so we enlisted his help with the tough job of cutting a tree out of a cardboard box. He snatched one of the Wüsthof knives out of the drawer, shocking me, and made quick work of the project. Argh! I buy him those as gifts and hate it when he treats them like utilitarian pocket knives... hee. But they're his knives after all, so so be it.

This is where I got the idea for this craft. Haven't decided yet whether or how we'll do the garland...

Sophia got straight to work, decorating her pile of ornaments after cutting them out with her non-lefty scissors. ;)

Jack's ornies turned out looking like potatoes, I thought, and I probably told him so, because I have no filter. I think he didn't mind. It didn't matter, anyway, since each ornament should be unique.

Chloë, a Virgo perfectionist much like me, worked hard to make her ornaments just so.

Sophia, looking rather shaggy now that she's decided to grow out her bangs, was so happy to break out the glitter and glue for this project. Chloë, too. The girls LOVE arts and crafts. Jack is more "meh" on the subject, but even he really got into this one.

A final look at the kids decorating the ornaments for their cardboard Christmas tree, many parts of which are now drying all over the kitchen, such as it is, for finishing up tomorrow. I'll show you that, too, when it is complete. 

Ahhh.... this post took forever. Hopefully it was an interesting-ish read! ;)

Thanks for visiting.

Fin.

Friday Fragments

Link up here to share your bitty bits (well, not those bits) with Mrs. 4444 and the gang today!

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So I'm in a highly manic state right now, according to my therapist last night. She thinks my (bipolar) meds need tweaking again. Awesome. As if I don't already do that every other month. The thing is, I like being manic; it's highly preferential to being depressed. On the other hand, as she said, I tend to be reckless and not think about the consequences of my actions in this state, and she's right. So I guess I better get things under control, such as it is with this %^&*( illness. Le sigh.

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I can't believe it's already Friday. I had planned on having the most productive week, schoolwise, with the kids, but we have accomplished precious little so far. Hopefully today, we'll kick it into high gear and make up for some lost time! The weeks and months are flying by for school, already, and I'm behind. 'Course, I've overloaded our schedule intentionally, but still... It'd be nice to be caught up on ONE kid in ONE subject.

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Speaking of homeschooling, I've been reading Tom Sawyer to the kids before bed most nights, as it's on Chloë's reading list and I wanted the young'uns to be involved, too. I put a lot of effort into both adding histrionics and comedy into my reading, as well as lengthy discussions with the kids as the need (continually) arises. They are absolutely LOVING the book, as am I (for the nth time). It's often the bright spot in our days, and it's good, quality time together. No matter how old the kids get, reading aloud together is such a joy.

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If you missed it, scroll back a post or two to see my Wordless Wednesday pictures - but not for another coupla hours, as I'm going to add in captions and descriptions, as requested by several of my more habitual readers. In short, the kids and I were baptized in the ocean on Sunday, and it was such an amazing experience, I'd love to share with more of you!

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Last night sucked bullocks. After therapy, I drove two hours up Virginia's Eastern Shore to do a mystery shop, and the place was out of business for the night when I got there, though they shouldn't have been. And I'm not going to get reimbursed for the travel expenses, therefore. ARGH! Not only that, but I hadn't slept the night before, and so, driving home, I had to pull into a gas station to take a nap. Welp, I left the lights on, and of course my battery died. When I finally awoke, hours later, it took a heap of trouble to get jump-started, and Rob was super late for work because of it. Epic FAIL!

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Jack's Cub Scout pack meeting was tonight, and he received his Webelos I garb, his whittling chip, and a raffle prize (a car to build, for which he traded a boat to build)! So exciting. He's also in third place for popcorn sales amongst Webelos, and will soon get some rewards from attending camp activities with his dad this past summer, too. We have a great team of parent volunteers running the pack this year, so it's shaping up to be a great one for Jack and the other boys!

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Chloë got her retainer the other day for having her braces removed, and she's been complaining about it ever since. I remember those days... I had braces twice, and I need them a third time! One day...

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A few vanity plates spotted around town this week:

ANGEL BABY - self-described, or s/he has one, like us? I wonder...

Those of you from my home state will instantly recognize this as, "LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK!" Woot!

"GOTTA LOVE 'EM!" Who, those Lawnguylanders? Yeah, I agree.

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Those are all the bits to which I have to expose you at the moment. I'll see y'all 'round these parts next week, I hope!

Fin.

Sunday Stealing: Too Tired To Think Meme, Part The Second

I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date! Anyway, link is here if you're playing along today! Here we go:

26. What type of errands do you like running?

I like running errands in general; the only ones I dislike involve doctor visits. Unless it's me going by myself. The children NEVER, ever behave at the doctor's office. I don't know what it is...!

27. Have you ever eaten snow?

Please, I grew up in Syracuse, NY. It was like a major food group, y'know?

28. What color are your bedsheets?

Some are yellow and some are, well, yellow! Ha. I just realized. They're darker, though.

29. What’s your favorite flower?

The tiger lily... it was bittersweet at the beginning of the month when we went up to New York and they were all over Pennsylvania and NY, because we rehomed our dog, Tiger Lily, to PA, and she died on New Year's Eve. The flowers made me think of her the whole drive there and back.

30. Do you do ballet?

I did from 8 to 15. I would've continued, but my stepmother decided I wasn't worth paying for anymore. I was good, too.

31. Do you listen to classical music?

Yes, sometimes on my own, and always when we do school, especially Art. When I forget to put it on, the children ask for it. How much do I love that?!

32. What is the first TV Theme song that pops in your head?

The Flintstones. Showing my age, eh?

33. Do you watch Sponge Bob?

I really try to avoid it.

34. What temperature is it outside right now?

84 deg. F at 1950.

35. Do people consider you smart?

Well, I do and that's all that counts. (I almost forgot the 'o' in that word. That wouldn't have been so smart.) Oh, and Hubs does, too. We one-up each other in the brains department all the time.

36. How many piercings do you have?

Nine. My nose, and four in each ear. I never wear earrings anymore, though; they're so sensitive now.

37. Are you signed on [to] AIM?

Not since, like, 1998!

38. Have you ever tried gluing your fingers together?

I've done it without trying, fairly successfully.

39. How do you feel about your family?

The family I helped create? I adore them and would go to the ends of the Earth for them. The family in which I grew up? Let's move on...

40. Do you have an iPod?

Yep. Sho' do.

41. What time do you go to bed?

Never before midnight, unless I'm not feeling well. I haven't felt well several times this week, and I slept a full night. It was an odd feeling, being refreshed like that. I should try it more often, no?

42. What CD is currently in your CD player?

Do they still make those? Hm. The last song that played on my iTunes was "Someone Like You" by the lovely Adele.

43. What movie do you know every line to?

Grease and Dirty Dancing

44. What is your favorite salad dressing?

Cardini's Caesar dressing. Oh, it's heavenly.

45. What do you want for Christmas this year?

What do I always want? Yarn. No, really, that, and for my family to be happy.

46. What family member/friend lives the farthest from you? Where?

They're all over the place, dude. I've got 'em everywhere. Facebook keeps us closer, though.

47. Do you like hugs?

It depends. I really have to like the person, and I have to be in the mood. I hate it when someone I can't stand puts me in a big bear hug. It happens more than you'd think. I'm little, and it's unavoidable sometimes. Ugh.

48. Last time you had butterflies in your stomach?

Honestly, last week, when I was giving the kids their end-of-year tests for homeschooling. I had no idea how they would do. I just got the results in the other day, and they did SO well: all in the 90th percentile. I'm so proud!

49. What’s the way people most often mispronounce any part of your name?

Oh, I get everything. It's Melanie, which you'd think was in Chinese for some people (who aren't Chinese, obviously). I get everything from Melody (most often, when they've misheard me) to Me-lany, from people who read it. And my last name is Odette, which people are always pronouncing to rhyme with "spaghetti." It's ridick. At least my middle name is easy (Ann), but now I'm giving you too much.

50. Last person you hugged?

That would be Sophia, my youngest. She's very huggy lately.

And that's the end.

Fin.

Friday Fragments

Howdy, folks! Link up here if you're fragmenting along with Mrs. 4444 this week!

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I'm pretty sure it's Friday, but this week has been such a blur of suckitude that I'm not entirely sure. Since Aloha Friday (answer my previous post about hatin' if you're game) and FF are both up, though, it must be, right? Of course, I could be dreaming this too, like all the weird dreams I had last night (I was eleventy months pregnant; I had long, long white hair; I married someone else; I won big money on Let's Make a Deal... and more I can't remember), but I don't think so. Now that was a weird fragment.

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Speaking of weird fragments, hey Mrs.4s, what happened to "Favorite Friday Fragmenter?" I loved that part. ;D

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Don't read this if you're eating or are easily grossed out. I'm serious:

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Last Chance....

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So last December, I had the runs for about 3½ weeks straight. It was miserable and depressing, and my quality of life when straight down the gutter. I don't think we did any school that whole time, or at least not much at all. Well, fast forward to now, and I'm on day six of the same infirmity. I have put back on about 10 pounds since my rapid 206-lb weight loss, so I'm eating a lot of salads these days. This, uh, whatever it is that's going on, is so aggressive that 20 minutes later, there is straight-up chewed lettuce floating around in the toilet bowl. Nasty! (Kind of cool for a biologist like me, but still gross, I know.)

And it's immediately sent me into the same plummeting mood state that it did the last time, so I saw my GI doc on an urgent basis this morning. (Yes, Mamacita, I actually made myself a doctor's appointment in a timely manner, if you can believe it!) I have to have a "flex sig" (flexible sigmoidoscopy, like a mini-colonoscopy) next Tuesday morning to rule out, you know. Bad stuff.

The only thing that's different than usual and the same about both incidents is that it almost immediately follows a trip involving a waterpark. Coinky-dink? I really don't think so, but who knows??

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I came across this when I was looking for a picture to go along with the last fragment. Disgusting. I absolutely abhor this small-minded thinking....ugh.

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Gotta admit I rather enjoyed this one, though. Not that I wish cancer on anyone, but whoever still smokes in July 2012 has got to know the risks, amiright?

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We're halfway through the kids' end of year testing - um, like 1½ month later than I planned, but ah, well - and have finished up all their Language Arts sections. Now it's just math. I'm happy to report they're all kicking butt and taking names on LA, and proudest to report that so far as I can tell, Sophia's gotten 100% on hers! Woot woot!! Go kids!!

They could get zeroes on their math scores, and the composite score would still be high enough to keep us off probation, so yippy-skippy for Team Odette! ;D

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I made this card last night, and it's one of the hardest things I've ever had the pleasure to make. I fought tears the whole time. Of course, I purposely made it for boy-girl twins so there would be no chance of it being for identical twins. That would be too much for me... guess after almost ten years, I still have my fair share of healing to do. (I know it's not that 'professional' with all the handwriting and stuff in it, but it felt like it needed to be made that way, and so I did.)

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We brought our dryer (and other stuff) over from the old house last night, and Rob is still recovering from his hernia surgery(ies), so I feel immensely guilty that he's in discomfort now. I didn't ask him to do it, though; he insisted, but I should have put my foot down more. Besides, it's the washer we really need; clothes can air-dry, but I've no interest in hand-washing load upon load of clothes.... Heh.

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Some of you may know, I'm a Jafra Consultant, but I'm really not meant to be a salesperson. I do my best, but mostly I just wear my awesome complexion and Jafra pin and let the people come to me about it. Anyway, I got an order from a new customer through my website last night, and when I called her, I totally upsold the order another third of the total! Woot! Go me. I know she'll love the products, so I have no shame in my game, because it really is good stuff. But I was seriously patting myself on the back, yes, yes I was.

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There are days when I think we have four cats too many. Of course, there are days when I feel like I have four cats, three kids and maybe even a husband too many, but then I count everything I'd miss, and that feeling goes away faster than you can say "being alone sucks!"

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I was boohooing the other night, missing our old house, our old neighborhood, and our old surrounding region. There's a lot there that we don't have here, and I didn't get lost anymore like I have twice this week, and ... and... and. But I've ventured around some more since then and, you know, this place isn't so bad, once you go a few streets this way and a few streets that way. And our Lord of the Land is kicking our upstairs neighbors - the bane of my existence at the moment - out, so there's another plus. Even if we get new neighbors that suck, we'll now be Big Man on Campus. Ha.(Seriously, if you knew the driveway/parking dilemma we deal with on a daily basis, you'd understand how exciting that prospect is...)

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The lice are STILL HERE.

It has been a MONTH, and I have treated it a dozen times. Can I say WTF on this post?! Because WTF?! I am so OVER it. We have treated it with OTC stuff (Nix and its generic counterpart), combed nits for hours upon hours upon hours out of Chloë's curls, and are now using a triple-threat combination of tea tree oil, coconut oil, and Fairytales shampoo... yet they're STILL THERE. I totally give up. I can't take it anymore! Do y'all think most kids' hairdressers would professionally treat this crap?? Because that's my next move. UUUUUUUGGGGHHHHHH.

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Anyway. This week's license plate, the only one I could safely capture, is:

which I can't really say anything snarky-amusing about, but the one I wish I had been able to capture was a breast cancer survivor plate that read "ALIVE." I loved that. Almost made me tear up a little.

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And that's all she wrote, kids! Have a fantastic weekend!

Fin.

Train Of Thought

Rob's mom, my dear MIL, recently suggested that we take Jack on a short train ride like Chloë did in September for her 10th birthday trip up to D.C. He is a fan of all things that go, especially if they have wheels and engines an' sech, so she rightly figured he would get a big kick out of it. To get the best prices, we had to go on weekdays, which meant Rob couldn't go along. So, I invited Jenny From the Block and her kids, M & G, along for our train trip to Richmond last week. Here are G and Jack playing Legos in the Newport News train station as we waited for our turn to embark. We got there waaaay early, so there was lots of time for that. Oops. I had counted on lots more traffic.

 

It was a splendid idea. Jack was positively giddy with excitement, and I think I heard the words, "Thanks for taking us on this train trip, Mommy," about 47K times in those coupla days. Not that I got sick of it, mind you. He was a born grump, so to make him really happy is one of my greatest pleasures.

 

Well, we were all pretty excited, truth be told. I'd love to take a cross-country train trip, with sleeper cars and the whole bit, some day. How fun would that be?!

It was hard to keep the kids confined to their seats, so fortunately they were free to get up and walk around, because they all wanted to watch the world go by as the train flew from Newport News to Williamsburg and then our final destination. (It was a very short trip, but the train tickets were cheaper than the gas to drive there, I swear!)

It took us a minute to figure out where to go for the proper bus, and I almost got into a smackdown with a woman at a different stop across the street, who was not listening to what I was telling her while I was busy not listening to what she was telling me. Heh. Eventually we got it sorted out and, thanks to her help and that of the actual bus drivers, we soon (not, more like two hours later) ended up at the hotel I'd gotten super-cheaply on Priceline. Woot!

 

While we waited for the bus, we watched more trains go by. I forget how many cars they counted, but this was a super-duper long one!

The hotel was mostly pretty nice, with respectful and attentive staff, but there were a few snafus, like the fact that they wanted a $50 deposit - which I didn't happen to have - and weren't going to waive the policy even though we'd already paid for the room (Jenny saved the day, thankfully), and the pool being closed for our entire first day, even though that's what the kids really wanted to go do most of all. So when we got in our room, finally, Jenny and the girls played cards on her bed, the boys played Legos some more, and I took a wee nap.

For dinner, we went across the street to the Chick-fil-A, because we wanted to let the kids burn off all their energy in the play place. They made friends with a gorgeous, statuesque young girl who is destined to be a model, from the looks of her. She was down-to-earth, though, and really enjoyed playing with our unsocialized, homeschooled kidlets. ;)

 

Jenny treated all the kids to ice cream after dinner, at the same place. Oh, there, you can see Chloë's necklace from her beau, S, can't you?

Before long, it was time to head back to the hotel and start getting ready for bed. Chloë & M both had "cute" sayings on their jammies, so they were all happy about that and posed for this "I'm Snow Cute as a Kitten" picture together. Then, after they had all brushed teeth, gotten their respective medicines and jammies on and found places to sleep, Miss Jenny read the five of them a bedtime story. It worked like a charm! I timed it: by 9:28 PM, all of them were sleeping soundly. Meanwhile, here it is 0420 right now and my daughters are still wide awake. What is the magic formula? A stricter bedtime routine, and a story. We used to do it. I think we will be starting that again, after this night. Ridiculous!

The following morning, we had a leisurely breakfast in our room (we'd both packed plenty of food) before heading to the finally-reopened pool for what was supposed to be most of the day. Um, hmm, seems they forgot to make it warm and not crank up the air conditioning in the pool room at the same time. We all froze! Even Jenny and I, and we didn't swim! Still, they braved it for as long as they could stand it, petering out one by one to wrap up in towels on the lounge chairs. Sophia's the second-youngest and yet the only one who could really swim. She was pretty dang cute swimming around with the other four hovering around the stairs together!

Oh, a funny: Sophia decided they were going to play spa, and she was giving all of the other kids massages on their chaises when an employee walked through the courtyard where we were. She jokingly asked if she could make an appointment for a massage, too, and Sophia didn't skip a beat before taking over to an imaginary sign and pointing out that it read, "For kids 10 and under only!" Just like that. There was no sign, let alone one saying anything about 10 and under; she's just quick with the humor like that. Love that kid!

To warm up the kids, Jenny decided to take us all next door to the restaurant, which was plenty warm, and treat us to lunch there. The décor was really cool and gave me some ideas...

Since we were in a "fancy" restaurant, M and Jenny decided we had to drink from our cups with our pinky fingers up and speak in British accents. Everyone but grumpy-boy participated, so it was a bit of a giggle-fest there for a minute. We were having a good time - even Jack, though he'd never have admitted it.

 

After lunch, we tried the pool again, but it was still too cold, despite the Engineer's best efforts to warm it up for us. So we went back up to the room, where Sophie and M took a "hot tub" together. M told met they were pretending to be two elbow macaronis cooking in hot water, which I found to be particularly amusing!

For dinner, we had the hotel shuttle drive us sort of across the street to the Steak 'n' Shake for a dinner of, um, ice cream milkshakes. Yup. That's all. Even I got in on that one, knowing full well it would make me sick to my guts. (And it did.) The cool part was I saw a Mattaponi Indian's truck, which I know it was because it said something about "Custalow Landscaping," and that's the last name of pretty much all of the Mattaponi tribe. I tried to find the owner, so s/he could pass a message on to Ol' George for me (remember our field trip to the reservation?), but I couldn't determine who it was. And, you know, I didn't want to assume too much. I did ask one darker-skinned man, but he was from New York and recognized me as a fellow New Yawka by my accent, too. Weird that I still have enough of a Hudson Valley accent to be recognized, though I haven't lived there since I was six! Anyway, blah blah blah.

 

The next day, our shuttle driver drove us to the bus stop we needed, after we checked out at noon. Time to get home again. We waited a while for the bus, so the kids checked out the mushrooms growing all around and had a quick lesson from us moms about different kinds of fungi. Hey, it's always schooltime 'round these parts.

 

Finally, we caught our bus, and no transfers this time. Only, the driver pointed out the wrong place for us to take a "short cut," and it turned out to be a really LONG cut, which wasn't terribly fun with all the baggage we were lugging around. Super annoying. And we couldn't find a bathroom soon enough for poor Sophia, who had a little accident and had to change in a dark stairwell during our trek to the right location. Thank goodness I'd brought a pack of wipes with us to clean her up well!

We eventually made it to the real, newer Richmond Amtrak station, which is actually quite nice. We found a parlor-type room unoccupied, so we claimed it for our rambunctious crew. We had a three-hour wait for our train! There was no place to stow our luggage and go wander around town, and neither of us had the energy to take it with us, so we sat and "needled," while the kids played various games with each other. It worked out okay; we were even eventually joined by a brave college student who we nicknamed "Anime Freak," because, well, that's what his shirt said. Shout out to Anime Freak!

I knit while Jenny crocheted, and then we made our way over to the platform when our train was called. There was another 20 or so minutes of waiting time there, where two elderly women glared at us, sniffed the air repeatedly and generally disapproved of our mere existence. Jenny later sent me this link on Pinterest for those women. Hee. When it was time to board, we lined up the kids between us, with a mom on either end as we'd been doing throughout the journey, and walked past those two snobby women. I couldn't resist. I smiled cheerfully at them and said, loudly, "Thanks for all the disapproving glares!" before marching past them with the rest of the gang. Anime Freak caught up to me and said, "Nice job! I hate people like that." I wonder what side the rest of the travelers were on?

For the rest of the journey home, it was pretty uneventful as the two mommies kept needling and the kids kept needling us to entertain them. Ha. No. So they busied themselves somehow, and we soon reached Newport News once again. Jenny had driven us up there, so as she drove home, I entertained the kids with that "A my name is Alice" game. M really liked that; she and Chloë played it between themselves about three more times while the younger three children dozed and chillaxed.

All in all, it was a pretty swell time. The seven of us survived each other, public transportation, the state capital, and non-child-friendly old maids. Win.

Fin.

Friday Fragments

Link up here if you're fragmenting with Mrs. 4444 today!

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Is anyone else shocked it's May already? For Heaven's sake, our pool will be open in 3 weeks already! I can't believe how fast the time is flying. We are so busy all of the time, it's almost hard to keep up with flipping the calendar pages, I swear. Man. I wish I could clap my hands and stop time temporarily, and just... breathe.

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I haven't been here in a few weeks, again, because of our packed schedule. Aside from our usual nutso routines, we've had a billion and one doctors' appointment, and Rob's had an accident that has kept me occupied carting him to those, work, and everywhere else, so... I am off my blog routine again. But! I am here now, and that's what counts, amiriiight?

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If you've ever thought about visiting my town, Virginia Beach, I just wrote this sponsored blog post about many of my favorite places and things to do here. Check it out if you're interested!

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I love this cute picture of Jack eating wings during a mystery shop a couple of days ago.  With the watch and everything, he looks so grown up! For a nine-year-old shrimp, that is. I've been doing lots of mystery shopping again lately to make some much-needed extra fundage. It's fun, but man, all the reports! Ugh.

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I swear, Virginia must be the vanity plate capital of the world. They're so cheap here, after all. Even I have one! I'm going to start taking pictures of the ones that amuse or interest me and posting them as part of my Fragments posts each week (or month, as it were). Can you see this one that I snapped today? It says "RR M8T." Arggghh, Matey! Hee. Do you have vanity plates?

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On Wednesday, the kids took part in the coolest thing. We drove up to the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, VA, to attend a special event: a ham radio chat - which NASA said couldn't be done - with International Space Station Astronaut Donald Pettit! Here, the kids first learned about the early age of exploration, in the times before, during and after Columbus' life, so they could later relate that Age of Exploration to the current Space Exploration.

Then, we migrated over to the closed studio, where we connected with three classes (in New York, Michigan, and Louisiana) and the astronaut in outer space, about 400 km above Earth, over Italy. Selected students were able to ask questions and hear Pettit's answers in real time, and we learned a lot about living aboard the ISS. Did you know it only takes eight minutes to get up there, but two days to transfer into the space station? Wow. I would kill to have that opportunity. Maybe one day they'll take an old fart like me and see what they can do with me. I'll be like the female John Glenn. Anyway, it was really cool, and my kids - especially Jack up there - got a lot out of the experience. Way cool!

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I took Rob in for his Neuro follow-up today, after his mini-stroke scares and subsequent finding of a benign brain tumor back in November. I was hoping for a more thorough check-up than the five minute "How are you? Fine? See you in six months" that he got, but I guess no news is good news. He hasn't had any weird things going on like he did six months ago, even after his accident, so I suppose all is well for now. He'll go back in another six months.

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Also today, I went in for a my regular dental check-up, fully expecting to have two new cavities. My teeth have been ultra-sensitive lately, especially in two places, so I thought fillings were going to be the order of the day, if not a full root canal or some badness. But the diagnosis was surprising: I grind and clench my jaw and teeth so much that it's causing my gums to recede, and my enamel to wear, which is causing the pain and discomfort. The dentist said he'd be happy to sell me a $600 mouth guard, or I can go pick one up at any drug or sporting goods store for five or ten bucks and try that. Hmm. Tough choice. But yay for no new cavities!

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Stay tuned for a post about our train trip up to Richmond last week; we had so much fun in our two short days. I'm so glad MIL suggested it!

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Aren't these newsprint nails so cool?! I am totes going to do this as soon as I find where I put the rubbing alcohol. Hopefully that'll work, since Rob drank all the vodka and stuff. Kidding. There's probably not even a beer in this house. I love this manicure, though. Trés cool.

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And finally, my 10½-year-old, Chloë, has a "boyfriend," S. Yeah. We've reached that stage. They're mad about each other. I even had to go on a ride with them to make sure they didn't kiss!!! WHAT?! She's TEN, FPS. I'm keeping a tight rein on this one and don't let them hold hands or anything, but S did recently give her a necklace in her favorite color, with hearts on it... oh, my word. I'm not ready for this part!

Since Chloë had a photo shoot for her acting and modeling "career" recently, my friend Saritah - S's mom - was joking about, "Great, my son is dating a model. That'll go to his head..." but yeah. He is. Hee.

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Well, I hope you all have a great weekend, and I'll be back in a bit with my Aloha Friday question & some more updates from our latest travels and adventures. Ciao for now!

Fin.

Something's Fishy At Sweet Pea Academy...

So with the help of my MIL and her brother, along with lots of bonus points from doing community service with the Scouts (both Cub and Girl), we turned in enough Labels For Education to get the following goodies:

(Photo from LFE site) A world map, which hasn't come yet, or I'd have a better picture to show you,

a dozen bottles of tempera paint for our artistic pursuits, and,

 

our new 5-gal fish aquarium! The kids are decidedly most excited about this new swag.

We ran as soon as possible over to Petco to get some gravel, silk plants, food, and dechlorinator to set up our tank, as well as figure out which fish we were probably going to get after the tank had time to set up for a few days. I put it together, and the kids were beside themselves the whole time. Jack kept saying, "I'm going to cry happy!" He said it again today when we went to go get our fish.

This is Steve, who helped us both today with our new fish and the other day when we picked out what we'd need to get the tank ready, pulling out Chloë's Starfire Red Glofish and Sophia's Galatic Purple Glofish (both are Danio rerio).

The girls with their new fishies!

Then, Steve plucked out a Neon Tetra (Paracheirodon innesi) for Jack. We were originally going to go with something else, but Steve said no, too big. Jack recovered quickly from that setback.

Does Jack look like a little white monkey when he's super-excited, or what?!

We also picked out an algae-eater (Hypostomus plecostomus) for the tank, although eventually it'll get too big for our tank. That's okay; we planned on upsizing eventually anyhow. Sophia got to carry it on her lap on the ride home.

 

This is Hallie, the very friendly Scottish Terrier we met at Petco today. I always wanted to get a Scottie and name him Hamlet. Hallie was all over me; cute pooch!

 

I went against common knowledge, sense and practice and unceremoniously dumped our four new fishes into the tank, instead of taking the proper time to acclimate them to their new environs. Sue me. They seem fine.

I stopped at Jenny From the Block's house after Petco to bring her a few things, and we collectively decided that, since she's the tank "maid," we'll name the plecostomus Alice. Get it? C'mon, please tell me you get it. We briefly considered "Hazel" as well but quickly decided that was too old school for Alice. Hey, Alice? You lookin' at me?

And finally, we have Jack's Tetra, originally named "Little Frankie" but renamed "Speedy" since "he moves so fast" on the far right; Chloë's hot pink Glofish named "Moon" on the bottom left, and Sophie's "Starlight Starbright" above Moon. They all seem happy with their new home.

The kids are totally thrilled. I mean, it's been a couple hours, and they're still in their staring at the tank. Jack exclaimed, "This is even better than going to the Aquarium, because now we have our own aquarium!" Ha! I'm so happy they're delighted. So. Happy.

Fin.

P.S. Thanks, Mamacita and Unc!

 

Friday Fragments

Hey, y'all, link up with Mrs. 4444s if you're fragmenting today!

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My husband texted the following to me, but he didn't ID which kid said it, so I can't give proper credit (my Mommy senses tell me it was 6yo Sophia, though): "Unicorns are real. They're just fat and gray and we call them rhinos." I was out shopping when I got his text, and I split a gut laughing and had to share it with the other person shopping near me, lest they think (correctly) that I was loony! Too funny!

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I shared this gorgeous yarn I received from The Knitting Goddess (in the UK, so shipping took what seemed like forEVER) the other day on Wordless Wednesday, but it's so beautious, I wanted to see it again. Hehe. Tell me those aren't some luscious colors?! I'll be using these for hexipuffs on my Beekeeper's Quilt. Why haven't I started yet? That's a darn good question. I will today, I think.

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My husband's alarm has been going off for 45 minutes now (it's currently 0645). Why don't I wake him up, you ask? Because. It's IMPOSSIBLE to rouse that beast. Hence the 45 minutes. Are you easy or difficult to awaken? Most of the time, I'm hard to wake, too. I don't sleep well or often, but when I do, I want to stay that way, thank you!

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My gardening friend, Miss C., was a guest presenter at my Daisy meeting yesterday, and while I was editing the pictures, this one popped up as the first one. Yes, that's MY kid disrupting the group, not in uniform (she had it on but yanked it off, as she always does) and being a total goose. Sophia!! She is such a pill. Or as Miss C diplomatically put it, "She's spirited." Oh, I'm so glad I'm the Leader, because I'd be mortified if she behaved that way for others meeting after meeting (and she does). Argh!

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As far as what Miss C. did with the girls, she read them the next chapter in our yearlong story (aka our "Journey," "Between Earth and Sky) and then talked to them about how plants clean the soil and air. She then gave them a project that I'm sure we've all seen before, if not done a time or two: made pinecone bird feeders with peanut butter and birdseed. However, her yard had a dearth of pine cones but plenty of gum balls, so she brought those instead, and they worked great to clump up with PB and seeds. Sophia rushed right home and tied hers to her special 4th birthday tree, out front, and waited immediately for the birds. And did they come! Mostly gulls and crows (?) or some sort, but we're hoping for something a little more exciting colorful. Anyway, it was a great meeting, and I'm glad we did it!

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Jack, who will be 9 in a month and a half or so, has been asking for his own digital camera like his sisters for ages. I mean, forEVER (I used that one already, right? So what) - and I found a killer steal on one for him the other day. I'm even going to get $40 back in rewards for it, making it an even sweeter deal. I didn't pay a cent for it, because I am one of those crazy coupon deal girls, when I get the chance, and I'm so ecstatic about both (a) the fact that I'm going to make him SUPER happy and (b) my great deal, I just had to share it with you!

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Speaking of deals, kids and birthday presents, I got a robotic penguin toy for Sophia of a Plum District deal the other day, too, as she is a penguin fanatic. I mean, she is nuts for them. She likes all birds (and bugs!), but penguins are her absolute favorite. So yay me for scoring goodies - with slick deals - to make their upcoming birthdays fantabulous! (She'll be 7 a month after Jack's birthday; my gosh!!!! I can't even stand it that my baby will be that old. I wish I could make another one or three. Hehe.)

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So I've had that iron transfusion, confirmed with the oncologist/hematologist that I do NOT need to continue taking oral Fe supplements daily, and yet I still get so dizzy I almost pass out when I stand up half the time. What gives? My blood pressure is on the low side, but still within normal range. It's wicked annoying. I mean, if I'm gonna get that dizzy, can't I have the fun of passing straight out, already? That would make for a much more interesting fragment, at least. I did it once, in 8th grade. I was the talk of my class. What fun! Haha.

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By the way, if you're a frequent www.Amazon.com shopper (hello, Swagbucks money!) and you know about their Prime free shipping but don't want to lay out the moolah to pay for that service, here's something I scored that you might want to know: If you have an .edu email address - even if you're a college alum! - you can sign up for Amazon Student and get free Prime shipping! I've been taking loads of advantage of that sweet deal, since I do get tons of Amazon GCs from Swagbucks, surveys and other things I do on- and off-line to save a buck, and it is Teh Awesome. Check it out. Rats. I just went to go link you to Amazon Student here, and the free offer is now gone and replaced by a half-off deal. Still, better than $79, right?

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It's 0708. Hubby finally woke up. Just keeping you updated, since I knew you were in suspense about that!

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If you're at all interested in Native American culture, be sure and check out my post here about our field trip last Saturday to the Mattaponi ("matt-upon-AYE) Indian Resevation 90 minutes north of here. It was cool as all-get-out, and I can't wait to go back up in June for their annual Pow-wow. Worth a read, I'm told!

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And, as long as you're here and I'm in demanding begging mode, answer my Aloha Friday questions, will ya? I'm nosy interested. And I like strikethrough.

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I've been struggling with constant, daily migraines the past few weeks again, so schooling has been sketchy lately. Anyway, a recent day last week was quite warm, but rainy. Once the rain cleared, I was ready to get up out of the house and go for a walk to get some exercise for my and the kids' young bodies. Instead of just walking, though, we did a lot of running and jumping and splashing in the ubiquitous mud puddles around our neighborhood lake. It was too fun, and Chloë declared it, "The BEST rainy day EVER!" I had to agree. Sometimes, you just gotta be a kid again, right? We were so soaked (and muddy), we jumped right into warm showers when we got home. But what a memory that should make for all of us!

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Guess I'm out of fragments for now - lucky you!! I'm off to email my Girl Scout troop about Thinking Day, which is coming up. It's a day when we think about the Girl Scouts and Guides around the world, every year, and we always participate. Anyway, blah blah.

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Have a great week! 'Til next time...

Fin.

Aloha Friday

Link up here if you've got questions for Kailani and friends today!

My two-part question for you this week is:

What's the highest education you have achieved, and are you using it?

As for me, I have a B.S. in Marine Science/Biology with a minor in Chemistry from the University of Miami ('97), with some graduate work in my Ph.D. in Biology and my Master's in Science Ed. from the U. of South Florida. I've been a stay-home mom since I got married 11 years ago, so no, I'm pretty much not using my education, except for the fact that I homeschool my three kids aged 10 and under. Eventually, I plan to go to law school, but I'll probably be in my 50s when that happens!

Anyway, that's my story, and I'm stickin' to it. What about you?

Fin.

Field Trip: Mattaponi Indian Reservation

The leader of one of the homeschooling groups to which we belong set up this field trip today (Saturday) to the Mattaponi Reservation Museum near West Point, VA, and the price was right, so we decided to go along for the adventure. It took 90 minutes to get there, and it was turned out to be worth every second of the trip. We had an awesome time, and I have lots of pictures to share with you. So sit back, grab a cuppa, and scroll down. We arrived 30 minutes before the rest of our group, all of the rest of whom lived much closer, so we sat and parked at the Reservation church, facing the small cemetery. 

I noted with interest that nearly all of the last names on the headstones was "Custalow," which turned out to be the significant, main last name of the Mattaponi Tribe, which is the last remnanat of one of the 32 tribes once ruled by the great Chief Powhatan. (If that name doesn't sound familiar, it should if you've been reading here, as we learned about him on our field trip to the Jamestown Settlement earlier this school year.)

The girls went on the swings of the Reservation school with some of the other children while we waited on a few more families. Jack hung back, cranky and tired, with his dad.

I really didn't know exactly what to expect from this field trip, other than that we were visiting an Indian Reservation. I didn't know we were going inside what seemed like this teeny-weeny museum, or what else we would be doing. So I just went with the flow. Here we are, entering the Mattaponi Indian Museum, which was much larger inside than it looked from afuera.

As you can see from the sign just inside, on the front door, Custalow was indeed the major last name of the Mattaponi Indian tribe, once ruled by the powerful Chief Powhatan.

A more descriptive explanation of the tribe; George, who you'll "meet" at the end of the post, was the son of the Chief who died in 1969. Two of his brothers later became Chief of the tribe.

I took this picture of Jack examining the bear's head, then listened to him telling me how dry the tongue was, and then noticed the "Do Not Touch" sign he was obscuring. Whoops.

There were several old wasps' nests hanging inside the museum ceiling. The children were very concerned about this at first, until I explained they were no longer inhabited by their former owners, and no stings would be happening this day.

Having touched a much smaller living specimen at the Living Museum a week prior, Sophia was fascinated by this "ginormous" horseshoe crab!

Jack, still unsure about those wasp nests...

A small diorama of a Mattaponi homestead provided interest to the girls. In front of another family's dad, I asked Sophia what she saw there. She said, "It's about Jesus' birth!" and the other dad laughed and laughed. She was so embarrassed, she ran away and hid, almost in tears. He felt bad about it, and so did I, but it was pretty cute.

"Mom, look at all these spears!"

The girls had no reservations (sorry) about touching the mounted deer head, and they were especially curious about touching his eyes and how cold he was.

There was a plethora of relics and artifacts to capture the eye and keep our attention throughout the visit. I'll show you plenty, up close. George "W." Wa-huh-sun-a-cock Custalow, museum curator and son of the chief who died in '69, told us that he kept the museum open on weekends only, unless a large group was coming, because daily opening wouldn't pay enough. He also shared that Richmond government helped pay for the display cases to keep the treasures preserved, since the tribe couldn't afford to do so alone.

The card reads, "Mercy Tomahawk used for mercy killing when braves were wounded in battle" - yowza. How'd you like that?

Spelling variants and errors were common in the museum, because, of course, English was not their, um, native language, and common spellings varied regionally. Anyway, do you remember the picture of Sophia dressed up like Pocahontas at Jamestown, with the necklace and all? We come full circle. I just have found all the learning we've done on this subject this year so fascinating and incredibly, richly educational - for me, personally. I just hope the kids have gotten as much out of it.

Incredible beadwork on a leather bag

I found a few things like this and thought they were, to be quite trite, very cool.

The club Captain Smith was supposed to have been executed with before Pocahontas pleaded on his behalf

A rudimentary canoe, for which Richmond supplied the preserving case

Sharks' teeth found "90 feet below the Mattaponi River Bed" (how??) and some yellow jasper found on the Res.

More sharks' teeth (still, how??), semi-precious stones, and yellow jasper found in Oklahoma in 1962. How they all wound up here was not explained.

I didn't see anything explaining whose skull and bones were in this case; I was just glad they weren't mine!

The card reads, "Statue of Chief Powhatan as he stood on the banks of Jamestown in 1607 to welcome the settlers."

A petrified turtle body, which invited an explanation of the different meanings of "petrified" to the kids

The card reads, "Indian Hunting Outfit: Quivver [sic], arrows, tommahawk [sic] and bow."

More native dress

The card tells us that these ornately beaded moccasins were passed down for three generations over 135 years, the beads were put on with "strip sinews of red deer" and last worn by a Mattaponi Indian princess.

Old coins

An eel pot, which George said they used for catching turtles, a better tasting meat, along with a Pomogan war weapon

The card reads, "Feathered Head-Dress (with horns symbolizing war" worn by Indian Warrior Opechaneough in 1622."

More heavily beaded bags, along with come "Japenese [sic] cigarettes" from 1943, evidently brought back from war by one of the Custalow sons.

Beaded bags; as someone who does handwork, I can appreciate how much time it must have taken to create these works.

Some arrows, weapons and pottery, among other relics

Various tools and weaponry hung from the museum ceiling, near the front.

I'm not exactly sure now what it was, but the card reads, "Hand Made by Brodia Newton, Father of Elizabeth Newton Custalow." Speaking of the Newtons, they were cousins to the Mattaponi Tribe out of Fredericksburg, and one famous Newton you'll know is Wayne, the Las Vegas relic himself, who denied his heritage for years and claimed to have come from Virginia Beach. George W. did not have a lot of good things to say about Wayne Newton, not at all.

An English-made portrait of Pocahontas and her son, Thomas Rolfe

Newspaper articles about Chief Custalow - George W.'s father - and the Pamunkey Tribe, also formerly ruled by the powerful chief Powhatan

The card reads, "Morter-Pestal [sic] used for grinding corn by hand"

As I made my way up to the front to find some postcards to send to my good friend Erin, who has a collection, I snapped some photos of the other items for sale in the small museum. Here are a few:

Mini-totems

 

Dreamcatchers, which prompted Jack to ask George W., "How do they catch your dreams? I mean, how do the dreams get out of your head?" We all kind of just looked at each other and laughed, leaving the boy to wander off, scratching his sweet head...

Gorgeous beaded earrings, which I admit, I coveted a bit.

Thunderbird Necklaces, which made me think of my mamacita, Rob's mom, and her Boy Scout Camp Thunderbird...

More beaded handiwork; admittedly not the best photo...

I'm not sure where the $6 Head-dress was, but the canoes were $5 each, and a little girl proudly bought one with her own money while we spoke with George.

I found this trio of Cherokee prayers on wooden tablets; I could see these in my home:

I was amused when the jolly former chief's son, George, asked me about 3/4 of the way through our lengthy conversation if I believed in the "Great Spirit," pointing upward, telling me he didn't want to talk to me anymore if I didn't. I assured him that indeed, I did; I do. His father was also a minister; it was very important to him.

 

I made my way quickly around the small museum again, snapping anything of interest I missed on the first pass through, when I was equally interested in keeping the kids from touching anything they oughtn't. By this point, they were exploring outside, and I was free to do my exploring unpestered. I mean, uh,... yeah.

It reads, "Jewelry, Treasured, Belongs, for the women and girls, was kept in this {turtle} shell."

This one reads, "Treasure Chest used by the squaws of the Chiefs 1607 - ??46"

Self-explanatory!

"Historic Mattaponi Indian Tom-Tom - over 200 yrs. old"

See the leaf-shaped white objects? The card reads, "Teeth from indian Marsh Hog used for necklaces." Cool.

 

A tray of various-sized arrowheads

Click to embiggerate, if you can't read the sign here.

I'm not sure if this was an Indian girl skirt or just what. The letter was a thank-you note for a visit from a long-ago group, so it wasn't any help, but still, it's beautiful.

This was a portrait of George W.'s mother, who died when he was 8, having hemmorhaged to death hours after giving birth to her 13th child. Very sad. Chief Custalow later remarried and had a 14th child. (I believe George was #8 or 9 in the family. He shared that five of his brothers then went to war at the same time, and as a young boy, he couldn't understand why his father spent so much time by himself, crying.)

A carving of Chief O.T. Custalow

Photograph of Powhatan's Chimney

I didn't see this on the first tour 'round the museum, but I sure caught how it sparkled in the light on the second pass. I've seen plenty of this sort of artwork for sale at the Pow-Wows we've attended here in the Beach.

This was an actual treaty! Fascinating. I love the peace pipes, and trying to figure out the rest. Fascinating!

A similarly-depicted of the story of Pocahontas' intercedence on behalf of John Smith. Priceless.

 

Oh, here's another kind of eel-pot. George, having discovered that I don't eat raw tomatoes, or mayo, or beef or pork, asked me if I had ever eaten eel. No, of course not, but now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I have had eel sushi. We've exchanged phone numbers; maybe I'll call him up and let him know, because his next question was an amused-but-demanding, "Well, what DO you eat?" to which Rob replied, "Not much!" I redeemed myself by sharing that I had eaten frog legs on a cruise once, which started George on another story about gigging for frogs.

 

This hand-carved canoe also hung from the ceiling.

I'm not sure what the sign fully says, but it belonged to George W.'s dad, the Chief O.T. Custalow - the weapon, that is.

The card reads, "The back scales of a 200-lb sturgeon caught by Chief Custalow May 8, 1964."

A carving by a Seminole (blah!) Indian. Sorry for the (blah!) but I'm a Hurricane; it's a learned response.

At that point, I went out to check on the kids, who were out there with their dad. The Littles were swinging lazily in the sun, so I went off to find Chloë.

She had come in while we were engaged in conversation with George W. the first time, carrying one of these things, and he said he had no idea what it was. He immediately broke off a piece and ate it, telling us it tasted bitter, "like acorns. Have you ever eaten an acorn?" he asked me. I admitted that I had, as a young kid. Mattaponi eat them regularly, or at least they once did. Anyway, we're supposed to look up these things, because the childrenc collected bunches of them, but I haven't done that yet...

 

Small teepees in the yard outside the museum. Want a closer look? Okay:

I wanted to crawl inside, but I dared not.

How cool is this? I'll tell you how cool: pretty cool. Hee.

The kids were happy and safe playing outside the back of the museum, and I wanted to talk to the captivating chief's son some more, so I went back in and stole his attention for another hour or two. Really! Until Jack rammed his head into me one too many times, telling me how hungry he was, I chatted him up. I told Rob they could go have lunch and come back for me later, and I was only half-kidding!

This was behind the counter with George Custalow, who told me that it was funeral regalia, stressing the "regalia" and somberly cautioning me against ever calling it a "costume." (I hadn't. He was just warning me how offensive it was to Native Americans.)

This was the old car George had, which had a tree fall on it during the recent Hurricane Irene. He and his son are fixing it up. He said they wanted to haul it away to auction and give him $900 for it, but he stood his ground, got much more insurance money for it than that, and kept the car. Then he pointed to his head and said, "This isn't a hat rack; I use it for thinking!" with a wink.

I look terrible in this picture, but George, who recently turned 79, looks great. He kissed me on the cheek several times as we were saying our good-byes, and when Rob left the building to get the kids in the van, he told me, "now turn your face to me," and when I did, he planted one right on the lips! I just laughed giddily. He was sweet on me, definitely. I told Rob about it later, but he didn't believe me! What a guy. Both of them.

Hope you enjoyed our tour a fraction as much as I did. We'll definitely be seeing this guy again; keep your eyes open for a return to the Mattaponi later this year for their annual Pow-wow, the day before Father's Day.

Fin.

Friday Fragments

Link up with here with Mrs. 4444 if you've got bits and pieces floating through your brain today!

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Right off the bat, I have to say I'm excited that tomorrow is the day I'm spending ~8 hours getting my iron transfusion! It's my first one, and it's not unusual for gastric bypass patients to need them. I'll probably be getting my first of many Vitamin B12 shots, as well. My hemoglobin levels are abyssmally low, which means it's a struggle and a chore just for me to make it through the day, every day, let alone cover everything that's on my plate. I've been dropping a lot of balls lately, admittedly, and I'm hoping this will make a huge difference for me - and my family, who have to put up with me. Hopefully, too, I'll be able to stop consuming the massive daily amounts of caffeine that I do to stay functioning and focused. So, yay!

The only downside is I won't be able to knit during the procedure... but I have about eleventy-billion magazines to catch up on, so I'm covered there. And I can always nap. What I'm wondering about now is, when do I pee? And eat? (I'll let you know. Hee.)

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In awesome news, my kids have been focusing on their reading in our homeschooling so far this new year, and they have progressed dramatically. My oldest, a fifth grader, had to write her first book report, after much gnashing of teeth over it, and she did a splendid job. I had to make just a few corrections - all mechanics - but the content was fantastic. I was so pleased!

As for the two Littles, my son is in 3rd grade and came out of 1st grade public school hardly literate at all. So I remediated him from the Kinder level with our K-2 Hooked on Phonics program, and he just "graduated" from the program! It only took him a year and a half to do all three years' worth, so that's pretty great. Yes, I'm proud of him, but even more incredible is how visibly proud of himself he is! I love it!

The youngest, a first grader who was a late bloomer with regard to reading (she's the most active, physical of the lot), has suddenly pushed through the block and is now almost to the 2nd grade level of the program. So go, kids!! Starting next week, we'll slow down on so much all-reading, all-the-time, and focus more on math, with which all three of them also need remediation. No child left behind, my butt! But the buck stops here. :)

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We were supposed to go on a field trip to the Food Bank with our two respective Girl Scout troops today, but I found out two hours before the trip that they had to reschedule it. ARGH! I had no choice but to cancel our regular meeting, since I have it planned to have a guest speaker come in, and there was no way to get her on such short notice. It was pretty stinko (my word of the month), and I was bummed, since we're behind where I wanted to be in my Daisy troop at this point. But with the iron deficiency, I have to say, I wasn't too terribly disappointed to get a reprieve! Just sayin'.

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We've had Sophia to the Emergency Department 3-4 times this past week, as her breathing struggles have suddenly kicked back into high gear. It's not the weather, since it's barely cold here, and it started in the summertime anyway (in 2010!). We've seen 8 or 9 different doctors and gotten just as many "suggestions" about what it could be, with no real answers. It's frustrating for me, as her mom, to watch her go through this, so I can only imagine how much of an annoyance it is for her. My husband thinks it's entirely stress-induced, but I disagree. That may be a component, certainly, but since it frequently comes on when she's just sitting around, doing nothing remotely upsetting, how can that be?? I just wish I could help her.

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A local-but-online-only friend of mine is a potter, and she fashions these awesome, funkadelic business card holders that I've been coveting for a long time. Last week, she made this red one, and I KNEW it was the one I had to have. It arrived today. Do you love it?! I do! So cool. Check out Lisa's Etsy shop for more awesome clay-mations!

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We drove up the Eastern Shore of Virginia on Sunday (here's my view out the windshield of the Chesapeake Bay), for a high-paying mystery shop. Great, except I kind of screwed it up a little, and now I don't know if I am going to get paid for it. Argh. Well, if that happens, at least we had a fun trip and enjoyed lots of interesting scenery, right?

This is the kids in the back during the trip, watching Judy Moody and the Not-So-Bummer Summer, which they've been waiting for me to rent from the Blockbuster kiosk for ages. I waited until it dropped to $1, so I could get it for free (lots of codes out there, folks!), because I'm cheap like that!

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Speaking of mystery shops, Rob and I finally went out for a nice dinner - with the kids, so it was only semi-romantic! - to celebrate the 11th wedding anniversary we shared on the 2nd of this month. Here's my Appletini. The kids love cherries and all clamored for mine, but um, no. Not the ones all soaked in Smirnoff, kiddos! It was really strong, and I got drunk very quickly. I drink maybe once a month, if that, and wow. I'm such a lightweight since my surgery!

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And here's me, that night (tipsy), showing you my hair in its awkward growing-out phase. I can't stand my hair right now. I want it to be long NOW. I'm half-tempted to just chop it again, but it grows soooo slowly, I may never have another ponytail. Is 35 too old for ponytails, anyway? Not around the house, or in the summer at least, right? ;)

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Last week (which I can tell ya, because I skipped FF then, sorry), we totally kept the kids up and took them to the 12:01 AM first showing of the newly re-released Beauty and the Beast in 3D. It was AWESOME. I think I had as good a time as the kids did. It cost a small fortune; I had sticker shock, but it was worth it for the "cool mom points" I earned, I think. At least Rob managed to stay awake during the whole thing - he'd had a nap first to make sure! Have you seen it? It was great.

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Lastly, speaking of Etsy, I have to share this story. I bought this gorgeous yarn on clearance from Summer of Perfectly Handmade, and the whole situation quickly turned into a comedy of errors: First, she accidentally sent me the wrong yarn, and then she sent me the correct yarn after I mailed it back (and she was GREAT through this whole process, and I totally recommend her, so don't think I'm speaking too badly of her). Well, it was badly skeined, and when I wound it into center-pull "cakes" with my swift and ball winder, it took about two hours vs. the 10-15 minutes it should have, because it was such a mess. I finally got it, though, and managed to knit ONE hexipuff for the Beekeeper's Quilt I'm making before going to bed for the night. Well, I stupidly left that troublesome-but-lovely yarn out overnigh, and our two kittens decided to make it their plaything overnight. When I woke up early, before the kids, I went to go knit another puff with it... and it was GONE. So I instantly knew "the twins," as they are, were the culprits and headed upstairs to look for it. I found two 8mo kittens, each with a shred of the yarn hanging out of their mouths and looking at me guiltily. They immediately dropped it and went to go hide under my son's bed! Then I searched around and found the yarn strewn all over my older daughter's room, some of it chewed it into short strands, some of it just a gnarled, knotty mess, but all entirely wrecked. GAH!!  However, I kept plugging away at it, and look! Up there! I managed to eke out 13 or 14 hexipuffs out of the yarn, which I eventually sorted out, and they'll look great in the quilt. But what a pain!!

P.S. Summer sent me some more yarn as a gift, for all my troubles. So if you're a "yarnie" like I am, don't hesitate to check her out!

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I'll leave you on that note. No, this one: "All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

RIP, Dr. King.

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Fin.

Friday Fragments

Link up here if you're fragmenting along with Mrs. 4444 this week!

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I had, like, the worst headache ever yesterday, for half the day. Coincidentally or otherwise, I was also in the worst mood ever. Every single thing pissed me off royally. You ever get in that mood? I Hate it!! Even being mad makes me mad. Ah well. I'm over it now. But still, very annoying. I had to text Rob to steer clear, to give him fair warning!

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We went to the Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg, for the third time, earlier this week. It was our early Christmas celebration. I enjoyed it immensely, though our budget for this trip was more strict than ever, because the kids were old enough to let loose in the waterpark. This allowed Rob and I to go on the more grown-up slides plenty of times without worrying about the kids. I gave them two rules: No leaving the waterpark area without a parent, and if you needed one of us, meet at our table and wait until one of us showed up. I checked back frequently, and it worked out well. Other than finding Sophia with some lifeguards getting a bandage after a scrape, there were no issues, and we all had a fantastic time. I've been SO stressed and anxious lately, and it was a nice little 24-hour escape from that for me. I needed it!  (Pictures to follow in a separate post.)

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Speaking of GWL, while there, we gave Chloë her big Christmas present: a cell phone. She's SO excited about it and wants to use it like crazy, but we've reined her in pretty well. She understands, at ten, that there are strict rules about usage, but we felt that the time was right for her to have one, especially since we occasionally leave her home for very brief periods and don't have a landline. Peace of mind, basically. Do your kids have their own phones? How old were they when they got one?

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Tonight, we're going to the Pumpkin Farm for their Christmas celebration, as part of a homeschool field trip. We went last year, too, to visit the farm animals, see the lights, and - to the kids' utter delight - roast marshmallows and hot dogs. They don't know yet that we're going, so it'll be a lovely surprise for them later in the day. Hopefully we can get plenty of school done first, since this week has largely been a bust on that front!

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If you do yoga, can you give me some tips for getting started? I used to do it years ago, but it's been so long, I don't know where to get started. We have it on the Wii Fit, but the Wii Remote has vanished, so I can't do that, argh. I need to do it to help control my anxiety. I'm more worried I'll be stressed about my form, but I guess I just need to let that one go and concentrate on the breathing and meditation aspects, eh?

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I guess that's all I've got for now. I think I'll go knit a hexipuff before getting back to the work I was doing before: getting my list of bills together. Exciting stuff, bills. The hexipuffs are way more fun:

 

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On that note, see you next week and have a great weekend!

Fin.

Good Things Of The Many (And The Mail)

Okay, so the mail has brought in packages lately that are of major delightfulness, so the stars of them have been photographed and are ready to share. I've been a busy little bee lately, so I have't had a chance to edit them 'til now. Wanna hear about it? And see some pictorial evidence? Awesome. Read on, then, ye three followers of me.

I totally stink at keeping presents from their recipients when I'm excited about giving them, so I've been, uh, kind of giving the kids the Christmas presents I swore I wasn't going to get (because we're doing Great Wolf Lodge again this year and, you know, I wanted to make it about memories and not stuff and all...), but since I have gotten them, and since, well, they were there when I opened this box from Disney, I couldn't really not gi-- oh, I'll just stop babbling and say that I got a kick-butt deal on these fleece blankets, with free shipping and personalization of their names, to boot! Jack got a Cars-themed one, Chloë's is Cinderella, and Sophia's was Tinkerbell. They LOVED them and carry them around all. the. time. WIN!

Mamacita, which is what MIL and I have decided I shall call her (after 10½ years or so) henceforth, sends us Hallmark Christmas ornaments each year. We have an awesome collection of them, thanks to her. This year's package arrived last week, so we all gathered 'round to see what she chose for us this time. Jack always gets a Santa in some sort of transportation, which thrills him to no end, and this year it was hot air balloon. So cute!

 

I will say two things: these pictures were taken in my cluttered, messy office-slash-craft room, but my excuse is that things are ALWAYS happening in here, so cut me some slack, will ya? And also, I did a poor job of focusing on the ornaments in several of these photos, but I didn't realize that until today, so since they're already put up in the attic until we set up the tree, I can't fix that. My bad.  Chloë usually gets one to do with the year or her age, ever since birth, and she loves her little snowman guy!

Sophia's was, appropriately, a gymnast - with her name on it!! Love it!! Also, the tiaras the girls are wearing in these two pictures are from the same Grandma package, which is why they're wearing them here. They light up, too!

This one appears to have been handmade, but if there was a note about that, I missed it. Mamacita? I'm guessing it's from the childhood of Rob, at least, since we've gotten a few of those in the past as well. Isn't it cute?

Rob's an angler of great enthusiasm, so he's gotten lots of fishing-related ones over the years from his mama. Too bad the expression on his face took precedence over the ornament, because it's The Awesome. So many of these ornaments have such great detail, and this one is no exception!

Ditto the above, about his (hehe) expression and the clarity of the ornament. Boo, me. He always gets a Navy/military/patriotic-themed one, since he's been in the US Navy for about 18½ years, so this year he got a flagged-out Santy Claus.

I love, love, love, love, LOVE the ornaments Mamacita chose for me - not this year, but every year - because she puts such great thought into them (well, everyone's, not just mine, but you know what I meant, right?). IMHO, I saved the best for last, because look! Apropos of the baking business I started this year (which is on hiatus for the time being, although I'm starting to reconsider that idear), I received a Christmas-themed cupcake ornie. Sweet! (Heh. Sorry, pun-haters.)

Also, since we homeschool, Mamacita gave me this "World Class Teacher" one, with a laptop on the, well, top. I adore this!! So very cool. Thanks, Mom/Grandma, for the wonderful additions to this year's tree!

But that's not all that was in the box. There were a few things I forgot to photo, like the Thanksgiving tablecloth and napkins we put away already, but not this train set for Jack! He immediately opened it and started choo-chooing it all around the office and living room:

(Again, 'scuse my mess!)

Oh! This guy was in the box, too! He'll grace our table this Thursday. Mama-jamma, did you make this?

Oops, speaking of trains, this mini-set of ornaments (or should I say set of mini-ornaments? Yes, pretend I did) was included also, for the whole family's enjoyment. Isn't it darling? Maybe it'll go on the fireplace this year, all set up. Of course, Jack thought it was just for him, since he and his gram share a love of all things train.

 

I got this fabu book of recipes in the box, and don't you think I should make that gingerbread house? I've never made one, but I want to and think about it every single year. This might just be the one. We shall see, we shall see.

And last, but certainly not least, the kids received another one of these recordable books from Grandma, in which she reads the story aloud to them. This year, it's Under The Same Moon.

Sophia immediately sat down to enjoy the book, but the other kids, who had already danced away to other adventures downstairs, heard it and clamored for share-age. So she traipsed on down there, where they all sat around the book and listened to it approximately 18 times. And no, I'm not exaggerating. For once. They love these books from Grandma.

My dad sent a small package of trinkets and things for the kids and us, but I only managed to get this one of Sophie with the toy maze things - you know the ones? - she opted to get. She also chose the mini-Bible he sent, which the girls have sat down together to read on several occasions since then. Isn't that lovely?

 

I got a package I ordered from Old Navy, but it didn't contain the Christmas outfits I bought, so boo. They better come soon, because they're awesome. I mean, so we can take our holiday card photos ASAP, y'know?? Anway, there were a bunch of shirts I got myself on clearance, as well as four fleece hoodies for the girls, in this package. The lady-babies insisted on trying them on straight away, which is the sole reason I took their picture. Plus, they're cute, are they not?

And these are the other two. No, I didn't pose the girls; they linked arms of their own volition. ♥ Yes, Sophia is now taller than her sister, who is 3½ years older, which Chloë definitely does not appreciate. Sorry, darling.

Okay, so technically these three sundaes I made for the chirren didn't come in the mail, but the ice cream, caramel sauce and whipped cream did get delivered by Oberweis, so I'm including them in this post. Can you stand it? They look so good, I want to make (them?) some more right this minute!

 

Okay, so I made one for myself, too. I got about five bites in before I passed it to Rob - not because it wasn't delicious, because it was, as is every-dang-thing we have gotten from Oberweis. I didn't want to overdo it, though, because I have such a grumpy pouch!

And that is all. I have to go break up an argument. Oy.

Fin.