Random Tuesday -- Happenings and Upcoming Trip

-- Eliana had her last gymnastics class for the summer this morning. She has learned a lot since the first class and practices every day on her cartwheels, handstands, and summersaults. She has asked to continue it this fall which is a first for her. She usually wants to quit after the first session so she must really enjoy it!

-- Emily is going to be in a musical at church called, "Joseph - From the Pit to the Palace, A STOMP musical". She brought home the CD and book last week. Every night as they are going to bed, she and Eliana will listen to it. I also hear it on upstairs when they are supposed to be cleaning their room. The performance isn't until the end of August so she has plenty of time to practice. She will miss the next three practices though because we will be gone next week.

-- Speaking of being gone next week, we are going to Dallas this Friday. The girls are going to spend the week at my sister's house while Andy and I go to Hawaii to celebrate our 10 year anniversary! I am praying that things will go well while we are gone. I hope my sister will still talk to me by the time we get back. She will be dealing with my 3 girls along with her 2 1/2 year old and 13 month old AND she is due with her third girl in October!! She is definitely a hero in my book!! Thankfully, she will also have my mom to help her out while we are gone. They have some really fun activities planned so I'm hoping the girls won't miss us too much while we are gone, especially Sarah.

-- I am really nervous about flying over the ocean. I have a fear of crashing into water, any water, no matter what form of travel. When we drive over bridges, I roll down my window so that if the bridge collapses, we will be able to get out of the car without having to wait for the pressure to equalize. I also keep one hand on my seatbelt latch. I want to be able to quickly unlatch my seatbelt as we are going into the water to make sure it doesn't get stuck somehow under water. To me, the ocean means sharks. Being in the frigid ocean water after a plane crash doesn't scare me. I picture sharks swimming around me and I freak out. I'm hoping that I won't even realize we are flying over the ocean until we have already flown over.

-- In preparation for our trip, Andy has suggested that I dye my hair blond. While I would LOVE to get rid of my gray hair that keeps popping up, I keep trying to tell him that I would NOT look good as a blond! My features are too dark and I would have to dye my eyebrows to match. The salon would have to bleach my hair and then dye it blond in order for it not to look orange. Then there is the issue of my old color growing in since I wouldn't be able to keep up with getting it dyed all the time. Black roots do not look good on blond hair. He thought if I wouldn't go all out blond, maybe I would do a lighter color, but he didn't have any idea as to what color. I'm thinking I will just get some kind of highlights done, but I'm not sure about what color either. Maybe I'll wait and see what the stylist suggests...if I can find a stylist before it's too late. I called a couple of places yesterday and left a message, but I haven't heard anything back yet.

-- We sold our old Montana van FINALLY -- not that we actually did any real advertising or anything...I was just getting tired of having to move it in and out of our driveway to the street and back. Our city ordinance says you can't park a vehicle on the street for longer than 48 hours. Our neighbor down the street is going to buy it from us. It will be a relief to have it gone.

-- Emily had a birthday party at Build-A-Bear last Friday. While she was gone, Eliana and I had a mother/daughter date at the outdoor mall there. I don't remember the last time I went anywhere with Eliana alone and we both had fun. We went out to eat at a cheeseburger joint, read books at Barnes and Noble, played with kittens at the Animal Shelter, and finished up with an ice cream cone from Ben & Jerry's.