The Marvelous Journey Home - Tuesday Dec. 19

Alright. It’s 3.12 am on Saturday, December 23. I’m at home in one of our old recliners with the cat cuddled up in my lap. She’s actually on top of my forearms which makes typing a bit weird. I don’t think she minds the movements, though. She’s “making biscuits” (that kneading thing cats do when they’re happy) and purring. When we got home Friday afternoon we couldn’t find her. She was nowhere in the house. So we figured that she escaped when Terry & Gwen came over to deliver some groceries earlier in the day. Sure enough, that’s what happened. I checked the back door before I went to bed (at 9 pm) and there she was waiting to come in. Good kitty. She didn’t want anything to do with Steve at first, but once he started petting her, she warmed up very quickly. She slept on our bed until I got up at 2.20 am. I had been awake for a while and tried going back to sleep. Usually I can start counting sheep backwards from 100 and I’m out before I hit the 70s. When I got to 10 I heard Julie making noises in her room.

So Julie, Gray Cat, and I have been hanging out. Julie got cranky a little bit ago, so I handed her off to Steve while I tried getting a bottle ready. By the time I got back to them, he had her asleep. Hopefully he’ll go back to sleep, too.

Now for the huge long story of getting home.
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Tuesday, December 19
Today we finished clearing out the house and packing. Steve took a couple of hours in the morning to:
a) return some outside toys we borrowed to his boss’s family
b) take our Freeview box (to get more TV channels from their regular TV aerial) to his co-worker’s wife, Val, who is also Audrey’s teacher
c) take Jarrett his birthday present
d) take a load of trash to the dump

Then he and I loaded up what we estimate was about £500 worth of stuff to go to a local Christian charity shop that a lady from our church works at. It was towels, sheets, electrical stuff, baby stuff, kitchen stuff, etc. They will give some of it to needy families and will sell some of it in their shop.

Back home, he loaded all 12 suitcases into the van and we waited for the landlord & lady to come by for our checkout. We get the feeling from them that they are very house proud and very new at this and are still expecting this house, once their residence, to remain in the same pristine condition I’m sure it once was (yeah right - they have 5 kids...how pristine can a house be with 5 kids?). They are deluding themselves if they think rental property will be taken care of well. I mean, we took care of it just fine, but that’s my point: “just fine” and “house proud” are two different states of caring for a house. Anyway, all our cleaning efforts were rewarded when the landlady walked into the kitchen and the first word out of her mouth was “Wow!” when she saw the stove. They have one of those ceramic-topped stoves. It’s completely smooth and you have to use special stuff to clean it. Just like ours here at the house. It was a no-brainer for me to clean it, but apparently she believed me incapable. Ha.

Then came the part that I didn't particularly like. After we gave them back their keys and got coats on, we got in the van. With the 12 pieces of luggage, 2 strollers, and 6 carry on bags. Steve had the idea for him and Caleb to ride on the floor between the 1st and 2nd rows. I didn't like the idea, but couldn't really dissuade him from it. So this means that I got to drive the ninety-minute drive to our hotel through the fog, knowing that I needed to avoid both cops and accidents. Not a relaxing drive.

As we're getting closer to our hotel, we decide that we'll stop at the good old services nearby. So we get off the motorway, get parked, get out of the van and FREEZE on the way into the facilities. It is below freezing! This is the first time since we've been in England that it's freezing. We get everyone situated with dinner (kid meals for the kids, Burger King for Steve, and Indian for Mom and me), eat up, then head on to the hotel.

It's easier to locate than we anticipated. Yay! We wait in the parked van in the "Fire Zone: No Parking" zone while Steve checks us in. We end up in adjoining rooms and have to call the front desk to come unlock the door between the rooms. But it works well. Two bathrooms, 2 double beds, and 2 twin beds. While everyone is getting settled, I volunteer to go park the van. I end up parking in THE LAST PARKING SPOT ON THE PLANET. Seriously. Belatedly I realize that this is a hotel that offers a parking deal with their room packages. You can stay at the hotel the night before your flight leaves but leave your car at the hotel. Nice if you're going somewhere, stinky if you are trying to find a parking spot.

I'm not joking when I say I got the last spot. It was in a dirt parking lot adjacent to the hotel's parking lot. It took me about 25 minutes to find this little gem of a spot, too. When I got back to the room, Steve had his jacket on and was about to come looking for me.

After this little parking adventure, Steve decides to take a bath because he has a headache. While he's in the tub, I call for a "pack & play" crib for Julie. It takes about 30 minutes to get one, then when the porter opens it up, he discovers it's broken. So he hauls it back to the mysterious place cribs come from and returns 5 minutes later and sets it up. Julie goes down very nicely. Meanwhile, the other kids get into their beds in Nana's room. By the time Steve gets out of the bath, everyone except me is in bed. I want a bath.

So begins another weird event.

There is no cold water. Yes, I typed that right. There is no COLD water. It's scalding coming out of the "hot" tap and merely painfully hot coming out of the "cold" tap. But it's frigid coming out of the sink. So I grab the tea kettle and dump cold water into the tub no less than 24 times. I quit counting after that because I was also trying to work a sudoku.

After the bath, I slipped into my bed thinking about our adventure for the next day: the National Gallery in London. That will be my next post.
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Right now it's 7:41 p.m. on New Year's Eve. Mom, Dad, Aaron, and Laura are still here. They've been snowed in by the "worst storm in the state's history" according to our illustrious governor. The Nolens are enjoying having the Cummins for longer, but I think the Cummins are all a bit on edge because they can't go home. Hopefully the roads tomorrow will be cleared of both ice and accidents and they can get most, if not all of the way home.

I have a headache now. I took my brother to the ER a little while ago. He was nauseous and had a headache and had been sick a couple of times. We think it was altitude sickness. They gave him some medicine and an IV of fluids and he's feeling much better now. But I have a headache. Did I mention that? I don't do well with headaches at night. If it threatens my potential sleeping time, I view it differently than if it were in the daytime. Plus I'm paranoid about not drinking enough water and getting altitude sickness myself.

Signing off now to read a book and wait for my Tylenol to kick in.

I Forgot How Marvelous I Think Snow Is...

I love snow! Good thing since we have 8+ inches at the moment and are accumulating more by the hour. Steve is outside shoveling (again - we did it yesterday, too), and I'm sitting here in front of the computer. Lazy me. Oh well. I'm going to sit here for a while and catch the blog up on our trip home. Then I'm not going to do much after that. Maybe read a book. Actually I'm going to sign off momentarily and check on Steve, then I'll hopefully get our final adventure posted.

How Marvelous - We're Home!

No time to post much. We are back home in the States. Actually we're in Clovis at Steve's parents' house for Christmas. I will try to post our big ugly trip home soon, but wanted people to know we made it safely home.

:)
April

48 More Hours In This House - Marvelous!

I woke up this morning still with the stabbing anxiety-born pain in my lower back. Lovely. I had to get Steve to pull me out of bed. After a breakfast of chocolate crepes, we all trooped upstairs and started packing. Sorta. Mom entertained the kids while Steve packed and I watched. But we were all in our room and that was fun.

We got the kids' clothes set aside for the next few days and got toys sorted. Translation: we binned a bunch of junk and put their toys to go home in a stack. Mom's taking a bath now, Julie is asleep, the kids are watching "Lady & the Tramp," Steve is working the super-mega-brainmeltingly hard sudokus in Mom's book that she brought over and I'm freezing my fingers off typing. We're still using the computer on a trivet beside an open window, but it seems to work. I can't type as fast as I'd like, but it beats the alternative - no computer at all because it overheats.

So that's it for now. Time for snacks.

Quick, But Marvelous, Update

Mom made it here fine Friday.

We were starting to pack stuff today when I had a flashback to 18 months ago...

When Steve and I were getting ready to visit the UK, my back spasmed and locked up but good. (Did that sentence make sense?) Anyway, I could hardly move the day before we were supposed to fly out. It got better and I was able to join Steve, but it hurt for several days.

Well, today after packing up just a little stuff, MY BACK FROZE UP ON ME. It's actually down by my left hip joint making walking very hard. And I think I managed to finally burn out our heating pad. It got left in the suitcase we used 18 months ago (I'd looked for it several times back home and never found it) and Steve pulled it out when we got here. Anyway, I've used it a few times over the last 6 months, but today I think I finally managed to end it. I'm eating ibuprofen like it's candy and being very still.

So - if you're reading this and we're still in the UK, please pray that my back would get better and that the stress that I'm so obviously feeling right now would ease up. I don't get stressed often, but when I do - watch out! Actually, I guess I'm the one who needs to watch out. But you get the picture. Pray also that everything would fit in our suitcases and be under the 50 pound weight limit. I'm sure we'll go over on one particular bag, but I'd like to limit it to the one bag. Pray also that nobody else gets pink eye. Julie has it now. I think that's it.

And pray for our friend back home whose wife died in a car accident Friday. We got word today from Terry & Gwen.

EEEEEEEK!! My Stomach is Doing Some Major Non-Marvelous Aerobics!

I'm working on a so-far crash-free computer again. I have it on a trivet now to help disperse the heat. We'll see how it does...

There are only 8 days until we're back in the states. I only have 5 full days (not counting today and Tuesday) to get ready. Tuesday we'll leave the house and head to London for 2 nights. We've got a couple of rooms to accommodate all 6 of us (Nana included).

I'm just procrastinating now. I'm not quite sure what I can start packing and what I need to leave out...

DANG IT.

Audrey just shouted (AGAIN) and woke Julie. Gotta go.

Marvelous News About the Laptop

We think the fan has gone out on the laptop. Right now I'm standing in the kitchen with the laptop on the cool granite counter top with the window open blowing cold air on the computer and on me. I'm cold. But the computer has been crash-free for a couple of hours now.

Warning - A Non-Marvelous Development

Our computer is crashing on us waaaaay too frequently just to be a "little buggy," so our ability to connect to the Internet from home is dodgy at best. Be warned that if you e-mail us, it might be a couple of days (or even when we get home, depending on when you e-mail us) before we get your message.

So if you have something important to communicate with us, please call! If you need help with our phone number, post a comment on the blog, and I will rely on Dr. Bubba and Sparky's Mom to sort you out.

On another sad note...

Sad news of popular bullying victim...

The Pillsbury Doughboy died yesterday of a chronic yeast infection. The hospital report suggests that the infection was most likely caused by repeated pokes to his belly. He was only 51.

Doughboy was buried in a lightly greased coffin. Dozens of celebrities turned out to pay their respects, including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the California Raisins, Betty Crocker, the Hostess Twinkies, and Captain Crunch. The grave site was piled high with flours.

Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy and lovingly described Doughboy as a man who never knew how much he was kneaded. Doughboy rose quickly in the cooking business, but his later life was filled with turnovers. He was not considered a very smart cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked schemes.

But, despite being a little flaky at times he still was a crusty old man and was considered a positive roll model for millions.

Doughboy is survived by his wife, Play Dough, two children, John Dough and Jane Dough and their spouses. Plus, a soon-to-be grandchild which is currently in the oven. He is also survived by his elderly father, PopTart.

The funeral was held at 3:50 for about 20 minutes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks, Sparky's Mom!

10 More Fabulous Days In Our Marvelous Adventure

First of all - hope you're feeling better, "Passa Huk!" Maybe this last surgery will do the trick for you.

Next - Steve is home with me today. I woke up with a dodgy tummy this morning. Steve took Caleb to school, but the girls are both home, as Audrey is still trying to get over the pink eye. As Nana said, "pink is a good color, but not for eyes." There's not any goop coming out now, but she still is pink around the eye sockets. She's a trooper when it comes to letting me put drops in her eyes.

Finally - a story from Caleb. On the way from picking up Steve from work one day, I decided to take a minor detour to show the kids some Christmas lights on homes in our neighborhood. By the way - I've seen more of the tacky variety of Christmas lights than the classy variety. But can strings of lights on the outside of houses *really* be classy? Who cares? It's festive and it makes us happy! Anyway, after we went by the lights, I pulled into a side street to turn around. Audrey said, "Mommy, where are we going?' to which Steve replied, "Mommy doesn't know." He was joking around, but the humor was lost on the kids. This was the next interchange with Caleb.

C: Mommy, do you remember when we went to Sainsbury's today? (our local grocery store)
Me: Yes.
C: Why don't you head back there, that way you'll be on a road you know.
Steve: roars with laughter.

Even later that night when we were going to sleep, I hear Steve chuckling on his side of the bed. When I asked him what was so funny, he said he was still laughing about Caleb's Sainsbury's comment. The thing he was most amused with was the fact that Caleb was so sincere and was trying so hard to be helpful!

Anyway - our computer has taken now to freezing up at odd moments, so I'm only on in shorts bursts to do stuff quickly before the dang thing freezes up again.

Oh Yeah - A Marvelous Revision

Revision to Christmas plans:

22nd - Gigi will come get Mom
23rd - We will go to Canyon for the afternoon, then on to Clovis for the evening

11 More Fabulous Days In Our Marvelous Adventure

You won't believe this - Audrey has pink eye. Big time. She went from clear-eyed to pus monster in about 30 minutes. I'm not kidding. It was *that* fast. Fortunately, one of the pluses of living here is that I can just run her down to the chemist (pharmacy) and the pharmacist can do some basic diagnosing based on visual symptoms and he sold us some non-prescription antibiotic eye drops. Their chemists (pharmacists) here can do some diagnosing for things like hay fever, allergies, conjunctivitis...Cindy even got her migraine medicine over the counter here. It's the same stuff from home but she didn't have to get a prescription for it. Unfortunately they only sell 2 pills at a time and it's very hard to get more within a short time frame.

On to other children...we have a stealth baby in our midst. Julie had pulled all the tissues out of the Kleenex box before any of us noticed. She was in the middle of the floor, but we were all occupied with our own things and didn't take any notice of her. Connor said, "Oh, Julie!" and it awakened us out of our individual reveries. The first thing Steve said was, "Stealth baby!" and went and got the camera...

So we're staying home again this morning from church, since we've got a highly contagious eye-booger monster. Connor spent the night last night (Jarrett spent Friday night over here) and we'll take her back home later today.

I went and bought 2 large wheeled duffel bags yesterday for the trip home. They're not as large as I had wanted, but Steve says that we can fit 50 pounds of stuff in them anyway.

That's all for now. More later.

A Marvelous Correction

"Doctor Who" aired until 1989 - there were 7 doctors in that run.

There was a made-for-TV movie in 1999 - one more doctor.

The series was revived in the last few years and there have been 2 doctors.

So TEN Doctor Whos in total.

-April

P.S. TWELVE MORE DAYS! Yikes!

Marvelous Contact Info Update...

The big kids have their own e-mail addresses now!

bubba.bob@mindspring.com
auddiebell@mindspring.com

This was in response to a classmate of Caleb's saying that she was going to give him her e-mail address to write her when we get home. So my 5-year-old is going to have an international e-pal!

What I Miss About Home...Marvelous, Fabulous Home...

I miss the Christmas music playing non-stop on 99.5 fm. There is nothing like that here. They will play songs here and there, but not the 24-hour-a-day stuff like at home. I love that. Nothing gets me in the mood for Christmas like the wonderful music.

On that note, Dad sent me a link to an online jukebox. I think its main purpose was to play songs from specific years, but it has as "Christmas music" as a "featured artist." So...I clicked on it and am now enjoying Christmas music. Like "The Christmas Song," "White Christmas," and "Silver Bells."

Aahhhh, Christmas. http://tropicalglen.com/ is the site.

Now for our official Christmas plans. I know that you all are just waiting with baited breath to find out what's happening...of course you are!

Fly home: Thursday - 21st - spend the night in Albuquerque, since our flight gets in after 11 pm
Go to LA: Friday - 22nd - unload luggage, get reacquainted with the house, eat dinner with the Adams (yay for BBQ!), and get packed for the trip to Clovis
Go to Clovis: Saturday - 23rd - after we hand of my mom to my grandmother, who will be coming to LA to pick her up, we will head to Clovis
In Clovis: Saturday - Tuesday - 23rd - 26th
Go to LA: Evening Tuesday - 26th

Ideally we would have more than just a couple of days with our extended families, but you know how it goes...

I need to scoot now. Caleb gets out of school in 18 minutes and we're supposed to go over to a friend's house after school to play for a bit. I'm going to leave Julie here with Steve since they're both asleep. He took the day off today since he did a big talk yesterday, his key co-worker is taking today off, and since Caleb's Christmas program performance that we had tickets for was this morning. He was a Christmas tree. We got film and pictures, so watch this space for our little tree!

Marvelous or Disgusting? You Decide...

http://www.drugstore.com/products/prod.asp?pid=156269&catid=44601&aid=333840&aparam=sxMilxQi9ZA-kW76TywNjKV1Q4n.64LR0A

Answers to Your Marvelous Comments

Ok, fine. Obviously I know next to nothing about "Doctor Who" but I *do* know that the current Doctor is number SEVEN.

THUNDER! Wow! I didn't even know it was raining this morning! I had big huge plans to go shopping today. I was going to head to the shops after everyone was delivered. I got up earlier than usual to shower and get pretty-fied, got everybody dressed and fed and into the van. We dropped off Audrey, then Steve, and Jules, Caleb and I were on the way back to Caleb's school when I smelled something suspicious...right as Caleb said, "I think Julie threw up." Sure enough, she had.

After I dropped Caleb off, we came home and I carried Julie in her carseat inside and popped her beside the sink for the stripping of the girl and the chair. Got everything stripped and stuff in the wash and Julie in the living room. She's fine. She just does this every few weeks. Nasty. She's now laying down for her morning nap with her Lambie from Harrod's.

Lightning now! Big thunder! I wonder how long she'll sleep through this?

I guess it's a good thing we didn't go shopping. I remember thinking as I was driving home with puke baby that God had a reason to keep me home from shopping. I just figured it had to do with money.

Julie's crying now. I'll see how long she carries on. Hopefully not long....

I've forwarded the comments about Mozilla to Steve. We'll see what comes of it.

Still crying but not as urgently. More intermittent wailing now.

Since I cleaned the ground floor of the house yesterday, I'm going to sit on my bum now and surf the net for a nice long while. At least until I have to go get Jules.

On to surfing!

How About I Catch You Up? Would That Be Marvelous?

All right.

When last we met, I regaled you with our harrowing aqua-adventure. Guess what - when we gave the kids a choice of things to do this weekend, they chose to go swimming again. The clincher for Audrey was getting to wear her new pink "My Little Pony" swimsuit. The kids talked again this morning about the adventure and how rescuing Audrey was a joint effort. We were discussing this after Caleb came downstairs and reported that Steve would be down after he finished bandaging his sliced toe from the whole affair.

Today is Steve's b-day. He's 35. Grannie, we got your card last week. Gigi, we got your card yesterday. The kids gave Steve a "new black jumper," according to Caleb. It's actually a dark navy blue sweater. I gave him a set of cds with show tunes. After we dropped off Steve at work, the kids and I listened to "Anything You Can Do" from Annie Get Your Gun about 12 times. The kids kept requesting to hear it again. It's a fun song for little kids, I guess. It's a fun song for me!

Now the girls and I are back home. Juju is taking a nap and Audrey is marching in circles using a pencil and a little plastic water clock (a clock that uses water for power) as a drum. Lovely. I have a friend coming over this afternoon for coffee around 2 p.m., which means I have to straighten the house. Oh well. The visit will be worth it.

Back to recounting our adventures...

Last Saturday we were supposed to meet Cindy and the kids at the photography studio where I had Julie's pictures taken. We were going to do some pictures of the cousins since we thought Cindy & her kids weren't coming back to the US for Christmas. When we got there, the people were surprised to see us. They said that they hadn't been able to get in touch with us to confirm the shoot and get a deposit, so they cancelled the shoot and sent the photographer home since our now-cancelled appointment was the last in their day.

WHAT? I paid the deposit over the phone! Turns out the lady who I had been dealing with had broken her leg on Thursday night and had not been at work on Friday to pull our information like she would have normally. So the other people cancelled on us. They tried to get in touch with the photographer, but he was already long gone. In the meantime (while they were in the process of trying to locate the photographer), we found a gas station for Cindy to fill up at. She had already been to 4 stations and had found NO UNLEADED GAS at any of them! Everyone was out. Weird.

So we ended up back at Cindy's place. A nice flat in Charvil. About 7 minutes from the studio. On the way there the studio called and said they couldn't get the guy back and could we reschedule? By this time I had decided that since the Baldridges were going to be in the states for Christmas, we could do a real cousin photo shoot (like we've done for several years now) with all 7 cousins - my 3, Cindy's 2, and Greg & Lora's 2. So I said, "no thank you" to rescheduling and we went on with our day.

We chatted for a while and then went to the local pub for dinner. The Waggon & Horses. Pub food has been redeemed for me. We had some fabulous mussels in a garlic butter sauce, then some prime rib (me), lamb shank (Steve), and fish & chips (Caleb & Audrey). Cindy had this salad that had all sorts of veggies and some apples, even. The dressing had some interesting spices in it - I know I tasted mint, and I think I tasted either thyme or rosemary. I'm not sure. Anyway, it was good.

Sunday was a restful day. Cindy and the kids came over late in the afternoon and we ordered pizza and played Uno. Good times. Jarrett won the whole thing. After the Uno game, we let Caleb & Audrey get in to their advent calendars for the chocolate for 3rd day. We then lit our advent candle that Gwen got for us at Windsor, and read the kids' new book about the Christmas story. We all got involved when Audrey chose Connor & Jarrett to read parts of the story.

The kids have enjoyed their advent calendars. Audrey's is a Barbie one and Caleb's is Dr. Who. Dr. Who is a long-running and very popular sci-fi TV show over here. We never watched it, though, because I think it would be like trying to get involved when the story's almost over. What's the point? Maybe when we get home we'll see if we can rent DVDs and watch the thing from the beginning in 1963. Apparently it was cancelled and brought back on another network.

Anyway...what's Christmas without a dancing Barbie and a time-traveling scientist?

So that was last weekend. Everything has been normal for the last 2 days, except the computer has been freezing up on us. Irritating. I finally ran some super-duper anti-spyware detectors and discovered TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY-FIVE "infections." Got them all cleared out and now things appear to be back to normal.

I've been telling the kids for weeks that we can't go home until we have a final surprise visitor. They didn't know until Saturday that the surprise visitor is Nana. She comes in on the 15th and will help us get ready to go home and will fly home with us. I'm relieved to have another set of hands. Everyone has their own seat this time - no holding Julie for the whole flight. The seats on this plane are 2-aisle-4-aisle-2. Not conducive to a 5-person family, but when you add a 6th, you can come up with some nice configurations. We'll be sitting on 3 rows in the 2 seats on the side. Make sense?

I'm going to sign off now and go get a cuppa coffee before I sweep the ridiculously uneven slate floor in the kitchen. I hate to do it because nothing seems to work except the vacuum and I can't find vacuum bags for the darn thing and this one is filling up fast. Hmmm.

What Gave Me Heart Failure...It Was The Opposite of Marvelous

Yesterday we took the 3 kids swimming at the Rivermead Leisure Centre. They have a big pool called "The Lagoon" that's really cool. It has a huge slide - it's 3 or 4 stories tall - and the big kids rode down it with Steve a few times each. It lands in a side pool that's sort of connected to the main pool. There is a little dividing wall between the 2 pools, but water and people can go over the wall.

The main pool is sort of fan-shaped with the narrow end being deeper (about 1.5 meters) and the wide end being very shallow with little steps for little kids to sit on. Julie could sit on the top 2 steps without the water coming up to her armpits. She liked crawling along the top step in the water. There is a baby pool on the side opposite the slide pool. It sat up a little higher and had a metal railing around it. There was a little slide inside the pool itself and then a ramp that went down into the main pool that the kids could slide down. The entrances to both side pools (baby and slide) were facing the shallow end of the main pool so that when they turned the wave machines on each 1/2 hour, the waves wouldn't get into those areas.

They had big floatey raft-things that the kids could lay on. They were about 3-4 inches thick and very stable - they didn't bend and were very stiff. We would haul the kids "out to sea" during the wave times and hang on to their little rafts and ride the waves with them.

We were all in the baby pool area at one point. Steve and I were sitting with our backs to the main pool watching the kids. Caleb was on the slide in the pool and Audrey was on the ramp. She had a little kick board and was laying on it to slide down the ramp. At one point, Steve was fussing at Caleb for jumping off the slide. During their interchange I looked around for Audrey.

I couldn't see her.

My heart stopped. I very loudly interrupted Steve's lecture to Caleb and asked, "WHERE'S AUDREY?" Caleb said, "She's over there" and pointed behind us to the big pool. I stood up (while holding Julie) and saw her just on the other side of the baby pool. She was underwater, and was flailing around. We were about 4 feet higher up than she was, plus there was a 3-4 foot railing separating the 2 pools. I saw that there were at least 3 grownups within 4 feet of Audrey and I shouted, "HEY! HEY! SOMEBODY GRAB THAT GIRL!" Before I got the last word out, Steve had clambered over the rail, jumped in, and pulled Audrey to the surface.

Our little family unit went to shallow water and Steve and I took turns holding her. She sputtered just a little and cried a lot. We ended up staying 45 more minutes and she had fun. Turns out, her little kick board got away from her and she was going after it. She didn't realize the water was deep.

I was disgusted by:
1 - the lifeguards. Not only did they not see this happening, they didn't take action, nor did they come over to check on her after Steve hauled her out.
2 - the adults who were so busy chatting that they didn't see her when she was flailing around. Then they just stood where they were frozen when I yelled at them to grab her.

Steve managed to slice his big toe during his rescue mission. It bled a lot. Eww. A little price to pay for the life of our daughter.

I still get the yucky pit-in-my-stomach feeling thinking about it. I know these moments come when you have children. These life-and-death situations. I hate those moments. I think this is the closest we've come to death. Granted, we were still a bit away from it and I do think somebody would have seen her, but still. We were closer than we've been with any of the kids.

I have to stop writing now because I'm getting sick to my stomach. It disturbed me that much.

Marvelous Words from a Marvelous Boy

So last Sunday morning, Steve comes downstairs after helping Caleb pick out clothes for church. He's grinning and trying not to laugh. He leans down and quietly tells me this little anecdote:

While helping Caleb pick out a shirt to wear, Steve grabbed a collared knit shirt that has pictures of golf balls and golf bags on it. It's a cute little shirt and he usually loves it. Caleb looked at it and told Steve, "I can't wear that. It has golf on it." Steve said, "What's wrong with golf?" to which Caleb replied, "It's not for the Lord above."

How funny is that?

Later in the morning, I was in our room doing my hair and I heard Caleb in his room. This time he was praying. Here is what I heard:

God, can I wear these Tonka shoes to church? pause Ok. Thanks, God.

It took all the willpower I had not to laugh out loud. How adorable! By the way - his Tonka shoes are just his everyday tennies that have Tonka dump trucks on the sides.

It's Friday now. The girls and I are just hanging out here at the house. I'm working on laundry. I have this compulsion that makes me do all my laundry at once instead of spreading it out over several days. Then I'm inundated with clean laundry all folded that sits around my bedroom floor until Steve or I get tired of it and put it away. It takes all of 5 minutes to put everyone's laundry away, yet I still walk away from doing it.

My hair is no longer pinky-purple. I got tired of all of my red clothes clashing with my coiffure. I like to wear red. It's a good color on me. Just not a good color with pink hair. So I bought some temporary color in my regular shade, knowing that it wouldn't do much to my non-pink hair, but that it would darken up my pink hair. But it seemed to have darkened all of my hair. Oh well. It reminds me of the time in 8th grade that I bleached my hair orange over the summer and before school started up again, Mom had me dye my hair back to normal. I felt like Snow White with pale skin and dark hair. That's a bit like I feel now. I don't have black hair now (and I didn't in 8th grade, either), but the change is enough that seems dramatic to me. Audrey has said nothing about it, and I doubt Caleb will. Steve might because he called me mid-dye job for some information and asked me if I was busy. I didn't lie.

I've not heard from Caleb's school today, so I'm assuming that he's fine. We sent a note to his teacher letting her know that the "thin dirties" are gone, but that he still needs to visit the loo frequently. We'll see if the note worked. He had to take some clothes for his Christmas Program to school today. A green shirt and brown trousers. He's a Christmas tree. I bought him some brown cords and they are very cute. They're actually like a dark dark khaki. He still wears a size 4 over here but they can be highwaters if we're not careful with what we buy.

Tomorrow we're going swimming at the place with water slides and a wave pool. We had to buy Julie a swimsuit and we got Audrey a new one too, since the one we brought is all stretched out and faded. It's rather shameful. So the girls got matching My Little Pony swimsuits. They were on sale for less than £3 each.

That's all for now.