4th of July Weekend Musings

It suddenly occurred to me that I have not updated this blog in awhile, so I am taking a not very well deserved break from "spring" cleaning (a few months late and I have not gotten very far) to post. We have had a very busy last few weeks since returning from vacation, and I was out of town for work for a few days, so I haven't been very vigilant at checking my email or the blogs. There has been a flurry of news, both good and bad, during my online absence, and I apologize to everyone for not responding as quickly as I could have. I really appreciate everyone's efforts to keep us in the loop. Hopefully both Uncle Daymond and Great Grandma are continuing to recover -- they are part of the girls' prayers every night, as are all of you. It has been a bittersweet last two weeks for the Moo as her fiancee C has stopped attending Beantree (his mother has decided to stay home for awhile and they have a million things planned for the summer) so we have had several playdates to try and compensate. These pictures are from our trip to see Wall-E, which the Moo and C enjoyed but the Bean was less than enthralled by (five seems to be a pretty good cut off age -- it is an adorable but slightly dark movie, and the themes are a little too sophisticated for a three year old mind -- at least, the Bean's three year old mind). We also went and played miniature golf with C on Friday. Of course I forgot the camera, which is a shame, as the results were quite
hilarious. Both girls wanted to use their clubs more as croquet mallets, and the Bean would hit the ball once or twice, and then pick it up and throw it in the hole. We had a lot of fun though!
Yesterday was supposed to be our big cleaning day but I ended up going into work for a few hours -- usually there are two of us in my office who do what I do, but my coworker is off on language training (she is pregnant with twins and moving to Japan!) and her replacement won't come until the end of the August, so I am trying to pick up a lot of slack on a part time schedule. I have actually toyed with the idea of going back to work full time as I have been struggling to make sure everything is done and done well. When I called Grandpa D and Grandma L on my way into work to check on them, though, Grandpa D reminded me that you only get so many weekends with your children, especially when they are little. So, I will try to suck it up and get through August, and hopefully things will calm down after school starts up again.

The Bean seems to have completely recovered from her tic trauma and is finally done with all of her medicine. Her teachers noted that she was extremely and uncharacteristically quiet over the past few weeks, but she has since recovered and is back to her bubbly self. She is chatting more and more now, and is starting to demand the attention that her older sister is usually able to usurp. The upside of that is that she is starting to reveal that she has absorbed a lot more knowledge than we previously realized, so it has been nice to see her give the Moo a run for her money, despite the fact that the jockeying for attention is not always pleasant. We went on our family walk yesterday and she pointed out a flower to me. I noted that there was a bug on the flower, and she looked me and said "Of course, Mommy. That's because he wants the delicious nectar."

Dad is doing great, and recently got a glowing performance appraisal and nice raise. Yeah, Dad! Not much else to report on other members of the family: Ruby the crested gecko and Hani & Pizza the fish are still alive by some miracle and we remain a dog free household despite the girl's best efforts and pleading. I just do not feel capable of being responsible for one more living thing at this point in my life. Maybe once the fish finally pass on . . . but don't tell the girls that, as I don't want to have little piscine assassins on my hands!