There's No Place Like Home

We're back! Back to school (officially tomorrow for Paul), back to toys, back to PG, back to family, back to life without a dishwasher. Oh wait, I have two of the best dish washers around. One isn't wearing pants a lot these days.

That was one quick summer. And before you know it, our family of 3 will be a family of 4. I have a tentative induction date of September 23rd, which puts us at less than a month to go. Are we ready? I don't know. I've been trying to get everything ready for baby the last week; you know, organizing, cleaning, freezing meals, making baby bows,etc. They call it "nesting." I just call it "crazy."

It's been good to be back. Sabrina was happy to get back to "Utalk" and her cousins and grandparents here. The toys have been nice too. Best of luck to everyone at the beginning of this school year (that includes my teaching friends...I think about you guys daily...hang in there ladies, things calm down in October!).

A Few Observations...

*That Michael Phelps is one amazing athlete!

*Tim Daggett (the gymnastics announcer) is the biggest "Debbie Downer" there is.

*You can't throw blue eyeshadow on a 12 year-old, 73 lb. gymnast and say that she's 16. Seriously, one of those girls had a toothless grin. I've seen enough first-graders without front teeth to know that she's NOT 16.

*It's tough when you're forced to root for Kobe Bryant.

*Despite the age thing, those Chinese women gymnasts should win the gold. They are feeding their families for the next 20 years, and they've only seen them a handful of times ever. All that Shawn Johnson has had to sacrifice is her youth and Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

Weekly Update

Well, we're another week down and will be home in three days. It hardly seems possible that summer is nearly over. This has been a great week! First of all, we were lucky to be visited by Paul's friend Ben Welch who came out here to do some interviews and had the luxury of sleeping on an air mattress in the living room. Sabrina grew somewhat attached to him and even called out for him in a desperate attempt to not go to bed. When I tell her we're going to get dad from work, she says, "Let's go get daddy and Ben." And then just a few days later, we were lucky enough to have the Blacks (Jami, Scott,and the adorable Bayles) come stay the night and see some sights with us the next day. They are always a good time, and if we make it back here, we'll have to head down to Richmond to see them. Sorry no pics.

Note: Sabrina went 4 days with no accidents. This includes going on foreign toilets yesterday and today. Then tonight, she had one when we were at the Hansens for dinner. Argh (with a smile...don't let her know I'm upset). I am pretty proud of the progress she is making though. Tomorrow is always another day, I guess.

From the Mouths of Babes...

Okay, so I have been trying the whole potty thing, and we have seen significant progress. I don't think I would have started trying to train her this early except for that baby #2 is on the way, and I knew that if I didn't give it my best effort before the newborn is here, that I would always regret/wonder about trying. I am not going to say that she is "potty trained" because to me that really means she shuts the door and does it all herself with no reminders/bribes. By that definition, some of my first graders probably weren't potty trained. Although, we went all of yesterday with no accidents, #1 or #2 (until SUPER FUN dad came home, and then who wants to go to the potty when they can just play with SUPER FUN dad and wet their pants...mom will take care of this, right?). Well, today we were on the potty, (Sabrina wasn't too happy about it) and she looked me right in the eyes and said, "It's no use, Mommy. It's no use." (She has been calling me "Mommy" and Paul "Daddy" the last little while...we have no idea where she got that). Anyway, I was floored. Does she know something I don't? Was that her telling me, "Look mom, when the baby comes and we move once again, I am just going to go back to my old ways, give it up"? A little advice here would be good.

And another thing, "It's no use?" Where in the world did she pick that up? I have been amazed by how much she has grown up this summer. The true signal that she was no longer a baby was when she and Noah and Eli were eating lunch here and laughing about burping. She's not supposed to think that's funny yet, right?

Mortician in Training

All who vote for Paul to start posting his own stories say I.

As if his danger ride with the Po Po wasn't enough, they now have him visiting the morgue to witness autopsies. Will this knowledge come in handy? Doubtful. All I know is that the morgue was not his kind of adventure. All he really mentioned was that he skipped lunch. Let's just leave it at that.

Sadly, there are no tough phone camera pictures to document this event. It would be more than a little creepy if there were.

Mamma Mia!

As stated in the last post, Paul and my mom and I got the chance to go see Mamma Mia (My dad more than happily volunteered to stay home with Sabrina. As he put it, "The last musical I saw was Oliver. That was enough."). We headed into a somewhat empty theater and watched as girl after girl after girl filed into their seats. Paul was looking a little nervous. You see, the last time my mom was out here with Shelley, we went to see the "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" and Paul has never let me forget it!! I began to wonder if this would be the movie that I would be watching action flicks to make up for, for the next 20 years. I don't know if Paul really knew what the term "Movie Musical" meant before this experience, and from the first "burst into song" moment, I knew I might be in trouble. Not only that, he seemed to be bonding with the big guy next to him over their mutual repulsion for what was going on here. I'm happy to report though (and I give all credit to ABBA here) that by the end of it all, we were all singing full voice including one PJ Sampson and the big guy next to him and everyone in the theater. In all my years of movie going, I've never had quite an experience like this. Good times.

A Shout Out

This is a shout out to George and Shar (my parents) who came to stay with us this past week and did nothing but spoil us the entire trip. I have to say that I had a hard time keeping up with my parents who love to go go go (even on vacation in 98 degree weather). In the week they were here, we saw the Natural History Museum, the Air and Space Museum, the Portrait Gallery, the National Archives, Mount Vernon, the Monuments, the White House, Gettysburg, Arlington Cemetery, and the National Gallery of Art (okay, I stayed home for this one as I have seen it many times and needed a break). We also ate out multiple times and even fit in a late show of "Mamma Mia" (see next post). This would be the perfect post to add pictures too and believe me, I have some, but alas we have yet to figure out how to put pictures from our camera on this computer. Thanks mom and dad. Sabrina already misses you!! I'm glad we'll be seeing you in 3 weeks. I thoroughly enjoyed my week as a tourist.