Catching Up

Oh, where to begin? We are coming off a quite eventful two weeks or so. Jimmy has finished his job at the middle school and is already off on another business venture as I write. He is awaiting the prospect of another job and meanwhile we have enjoyed a small vacation.

Our trip to my hometown area included us working on my sister Susan's house in Merritt Island, FL. Their family is moving to Sugarland, TX in a couple of weeks so we helped them prep their home for sale. I got to take some pictures of her house which was fun. Jimmy took multiple trips to the Cocoa dump, which I'm sure involved some interesting characters. My mom cleaned like only the queen can, and was so committed I had to force her to leave the room for fear she would asphyxiate from all the bleach she was swimming in. My family stepped it up if I do say so myself. If you need to clean up your house and make it look good, we're the ones to call.

My other sister kept the cousins, all 10 of them, ranging in age from 1 to 15. They called it the "cousin party" and for two days they swam, played the Wii, and just had fun. After the work days we were able to go to the beach and play. The disadvantage to having a nice professional camera is that I will NOT take it to the beach (unless I'm hired to do so)...I don't want it to get ruined with sand/salt. My sister did have her camera so I'll hopefully get some pictures from her. So, the only vivid memory I have from the beach is when I took Cash to the port-o-potty and had to live my own personal nightmarish Slumdog Millionaire community toilet scene. Aaahh!

After my sister's we went to see our friends Jeremy and Darcy in Vero Beach, FL. They just had a new baby which I was able to hold to my heart's content and got to take some pictures of her too. We enjoyed watching all the kids play together...Libby called Madeleine her BBF (she meant BFF) and Jimmy was amazed when Nena, their three year old spoke to him in Spanish. The last morning we were there Nena woke me with the song "This is the Day" sung about six inches from my face. She sang the whole thing. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Whew. I'm trying to give the condensed version but it's hard. After Vero we went up to my parents house in Waldo to spend the 4th of July weekend with my entire family. This included multiple skiing and tubing events and the entertainment of watching our dog and Dad's dog (the sister black labs) jump into the lake at high and long distances. I have some pictures but am not going to get to them for a couple more days...

The day before the 4th we drove to Itchutuckne Springs and floated down the springs, all 15 of us. (My mom stayed home with the little ones--the only kid I had to keep track of was Jackson.) I got really cold and was a bit delirious and really hungry and thirsty when we got out of the spring. Waiting for the tram to take us back to our cars, it appeared we would not fit and would have to wait for the next one. This was not okay with me. I was determined to squeeze on so I said, "Come on! We can fit!" and squeezed between Jimmy and my Dad on the last two seats left. I thought others from our family had gotten on. As we were driving away I heard my sister yell (from the line) "We've got Jackson!" and at that point I realized that I had not given even half a thought as to where he was or whether or not he was on or off or even with an adult. I felt like the worst mom ever! It was the cold! It made me temporarily selfish and pushy!

The vacation culminated with us bringing home our dog finally and feeling pretty bad about tearing her away from her sister and also my dad who had pretty much become her master. She's been having a blast at the lake swimming and jumping and now she's in our craziness here...seems to wonder if things ever slow down around here. Well, they don't. But she's gotten a lot of love from our kids and Jimmy and I pet her...well, occasionally. It's not that I don't like her, I'm just trying to get used to having another reason to wash my hands. They're getting all chapped and raw again. Yesterday morning I shoveled poop twice, wiped Cash's booty, and changed Penelope's diaper all within the space of 45 minutes. I'm going to buy stock in anti-bacterial soap.

So that's it for now. I'm going to try to get to my pictures soon!