Rocks and Mimis

Yes, yes, yes, I know. It's been far too long since I've posted an update. So sue me. I've been busy. And grumpy. Busily grumpy. Grumpily busy. But I'm neither busy nor grumpy today, so I have information for you.

I'm not going to post about Sea World right now. We got to Mom's house last Friday, hung out with my brother & his family (wife and twin boys), saw Steve's brother and his family (wife and 2 kids), then the 5 of us plus my mom and dad drove to San Antonio on Sunday. We spent the night and went to Sea World on Monday. It was a fun time and needs its own entry another time.

When we left Sea World late Monday afternoon, Mom and Dad went back to Bryan and we headed to Sonora, Tx. Caleb told us later that day during dinner at Dairy Queen that he didn't realize the town's name was S-O-N-O-R-A. He thought we had been saying S-N-O-R-A. We had a nice chuckle over that one.

The hotel we stayed in was a total dive. DIVE. Complete with spiders and roaches. Blech. I'll not go into detail because...well...ew.

Anyway, Tuesday dawned bright and cheery, which was a good thing since it was Audrey's 5th birthday. We gave her a few small gifts then headed home.

The only thing that complicated our trip home was The Rock here in town. If you've never been to White Rock, you won't know that The Rock is a large boulder (6-ish feet tall) by one of our two stoplights that people paint with all sorts of messages. I painted it for Caleb's 5th birthday, so I felt a need to keep things symmetrical and paint it for Audrey's 5th b-day. Problem was, I was in a car.

In steps the fabulous McCullough family to solve my problem. I got the paint, left it where they could get to it, and they were putting the finishing touches on this masterpiece as we pulled into town Tuesday evening:




Amazingly enough, it's still pink. And the pictures don't do justice to the utter pink-ness of the rock. It's beautiful! Thanks McC family!

On to the next story. Julie, now 2 1/2, still has pacifiers. She calls them mimis (mee-mees). I have been planning on trying to break her mimi habit in the next few weeks, but had no inspiration or desire. So imagine my enthusiasm when I opened the latest issue of "Parenting" magazine and saw a picture of a pacifier tied to a pink helium balloon. Eureka!

I asked Julie if she wanted to tie her 2 mimis to some balloons and let them fly through the air to Mimi Land. She said, "Yes!" very enthusiastically. So she and I drove to the grocery store, bought a Mylar balloon and 2 latex balloons. I was a bit worried that the Mylar balloon was fresh enough to fly, but I figured the other 2 balloons would give it a little boost.

We get home and I asked Julie, "Are your mimis going to come back from Mimi Land?" She said, "Yes!" and I was a bit worried. Maybe the flash of genius wasn't going to work after all. I told her they weren't going to come back and she didn't seem to concerned.

I got the 2 mimis attached to the balloons and realized that they were too heavy to fly. So at the last minute, after she had blown kisses to both pacifiers, I yanked one off and stuck it in my pocket. It's probably a good idea to have an emergency mimi, right?

So here are the pictures and videos from our little mid-afternoon adventure:



If you look just below and a bit to the right of the whiter spot in the middle of the cloud, you can see the balloons. The stupid Mylar balloon is being dragged by the 2 latex balloons, so it's lower down.

Audrey is asking in the second video, "What if they don't make it to Mimi Land?" Little worrier, that one.

And, as you can see in one of the pictures of the great mimi launching, Audrey is still in her sling and swath. The doctor saw her last Wednesday and said her break is starting to heal. He wants her in full gear for 2 more weeks and he'll do another x-ray then. It's not slowing her down at all, she just needs help getting dressed.