Out!

Little mini-vacation for me, starting in...oh, about five hours. My bosses might tell you it started two days ago, since I haven't gotten anything done, but at least I have been here:-) You are all going to have to survive without me for a little bit...quiet crying is acceptable.

Headed to the beach for the weekend, and then Munchkin and I are taking a little road trip next week to visit some colleges. We are leaving Monday morning and will make our way south as far as Washington, DC and then back again. On the way, we are going to visit about a half dozen schools, take the tours and bum around a bit. We may very well buy some T-shirts...

I have a lot of feelings about this. First of all, it makes me nervous...my baby sister is GOING TO COLLEGE. My baby sister that I held on the day she was born (and silently promised to always protect:-)). My baby sister whose first real word was a shortened version of my name, and whose first steps were towards me (is all of that true? It certainly is in my head:-)). And of course, my baby sister who moved in with me as a skinny 10 year old and has blossomed into a brilliant, stunning and remarkable young woman...seemingly in a period of about four minutes.

Second, it makes me feel old...probably should NOT have scheduled this the week after I turned 30.

Third, it makes me incredibly proud. The schools on this list are many of the very best, most selective schools in the world, and she will get into every one of them if she decides to apply. She will get into them because she is brilliant, because she works incredibly hard, because she excels at everything she does, because anyone who interviews her will beg her to come to their school, and because she has a remarkable life story that would have done enormous damage to most kids, but has just made her that much more stronger. And they don't even know the half of it!

She will get into all of these schools because she deserves to get into them. And that, folks, makes me feel better than I can put into words.

And finally, I think this is gonna be really fun. We are gonna be in the car all day and hotels at night and we are gonna eat junk food and listen to terrible music (total time spent with Demi Lovato on the radio? I'd say 4 hours...) and laugh. I am running out of things to do as her Mother, I have to enjoy them while I can!

Surprise!!!

Guess who got completely sideswiped with a massive surprise birthday party? Yup...this girl (imagine me pointing at myself). I mean...TOTALLY surprised...I didn't have the foggiest suspicion until we showed up and there were like 100 people there that I knew. I am almost a little scared by The Boy's ability to keep that from me, and to conveniently schedule an entire weekend when I never quite realized that we were staying home and making other arrangements for the girls in order to leave Saturday and Saturday night totally open.

We dropped the girls at his parents, put them down for a nap, and hung out there for a bit in the early afternoon, then headed back home. The Boy went for a run, and I took a nap, which I think is kind of the same thing, right? And everything seemed so totally normal, right up until we got to the bar and...SURPRISE!!!

The first reaction is confusion...like "wait, why is Munchkin here?"...but then pretty quickly it moves through surprise and then just plain gratitude. It is so incredibly touching to have people come out to be with you like that, and even more touching that others would go through all of the trouble to make you feel so special. Lots of my friends and The Boy's friends, and the pretend family, most of the guys from work, even a couple of the school parents that I am close with...it just all made me feel really special.

Super special thanks to The Boy for knowing just how to make me feel really loved. And also to Smoking Hot Roommate, too, for handling most of the organizing and logistics. I like to think I am pretty perceptive...but I missed the boat on this one big time!!!

O. L. D.

I hope you are all diligently baking my birthday cakes for me...you only have three days left, and they will have to be big enough to fit an awful lot of candles on them...

No major crises about turning over another decade...I am pretty much OK with it. I hate getting older, but whining and crying about it won't help (which won't stop me from whining and crying, but will make me get over it:-P). I guess I am pretty content, and am not going to feel all that much different on Sunday morning than I do on Saturday night...at least I hope not.

It helps that The Boy is older than me, as are all of his friends. Same with Big Sis...and most of my friends are around my age, so many of them are ticking of 30 this year as well. All except for the youngster of the group...Smoking Hot Roommate has plenty of time left.

No beach this weekend for a couple of minor reasons. The girls are headed to The Boy's parents for the night on Saturday, which is quite the birthday gift:-) We don't have any big plans...dinner, hanging with some friends and then enjoying the peace and quiet. I'm giving myself an extraordinarily awesome birthday present, too, because I totally deserve an extraordinarily awesome present, right?

Other than that, pretty low key birthday. SHR and I are going out with some girlfriends tonight, but it won't be a late night...The Boy has a golf tournament to play in on Sunday, so I will have the girls all to myself when they get back from his parents. I think we will undertake one of their favorite new hobbies...walking around looking for geese, or "Hunting Gooses!" as they call it...

And both Big Sis and Twin Sister's wife are on "Baby Any Minute" alert:-) Big Sis especially, but Twin Sister's wife is only a couple weeks behind. Could be any minute!

Destiny

One of The Boy's good friends got engaged over the weekend, to a girl that he met and started dating about two years ago. Their meeting is one of my favorite dating stories...

Simply, they were stranded on a train. They happened to be standing next to each other when a subway train got stuck for about an hour (they were in a train stuck behind another one that broke down.) They must have been feeling randomly chatty, because they somehow struck up a conversation during that time, exchanged numbers and, now they are gonna end up married.

I can't really say that I believe in "soul mates", at least in the sense that there is one and only one person you are destined to end up with. Nor can I see that I really believe in destiny...but really, if I think about the chances of those two both being on that train? And standing next to each other? And who talks to people next to them on the train? I dunno...just seems like there was something else at work.

(Also, they are adorable...)

It also gets me thinking about how people meet...and surely some of you must have good stories of meeting your husbands or wives or girlfriends or whatever. I got set up with mine, which is boring, but I am sure someone can do better than that.

Things we shouldn't mention

Someone turns 30 in 9 days. Let's all just ignore that, K?

In need of rest!

Absolutely phenomenal weekend...if you can call five days a weekend. We headed out after work on Tuesday, got to the ferry with about three minutes to spare and made it to the beach house in time to get some very cranky toddlers to bed. While it was blistering hot across most of America, bordering on downright dangerous in most of the midwest, I can happily report that it was absolutely divine on "Island that shall not be named but is in fact not remotely a mystery and has been identified in the past" (I think that is the actual English translation of the Eastern Algonquin word...)

The house was still largely occupied by members of Smoking Hot Roommate's mother's family, so there were a ton of people there, and tons of activity. LK has finally gotten to the point that she will put her toes in the sand, although it was a long process to get to that point...(what can I say, she has some complexes;-)). They really do love the beach, which makes me super happy. I don't know what I will do if I have beach-hating children...

We also found out that they love lobster, especially MA, who devoured most of the tail of a three-pounder. Let's hope she doesn't get too attached to that habit. Also, ice cream, but we already knew that;-)

The bad news is that the girls got WAY out of their normal routine...waking up late, staying awake until almost 11:00, napping from like 3:30 until after 5:00 (normal nap time is from about 12:30 to 3:00 or so). They are not going to be really fun campers at day care today, but the teachers there will get them back into their routine in no time. They have a magic way of doing that...

Overall, summer plans are pretty well set. Munchkin and I are heading on a college tour in three weeks, and Frenchie is coming after that for a week or so. Tinkerbelle is going to come for most of a week, too, maybe by herself and maybe with one of our cousins. Super excited about that, obvs;-).

And now, back to work...phooey...vacationing is MUCH more fun...

Three Things Before the Fourth

I was going to write about health care and the Supreme Court, but I can't bring myself to be that serious (short version, the ruling seems really confusing...not that the law was upheld, but that it was upheld in the way that it was). Maybe next week, although frankly there will probably be a bigger news story by then. So, on to my three things...

First of all, Magic Mike is awesome...just thought you needed to know that. It's not a terrible movie, really, and there is just so much campy man candy that it can't be counted as anything other than fantastic.

Second, I am pretty sure that Munchkin got maybe a little bit drunk at the wedding she went to on Saturday, but she won't cop to it. She stayed with another friend of hers, so I didn't see her until Sunday, and she had the good sense to not claim a hangover...but she was definitely dragging a little bit.

Third...headed to the beach for the next five days, and looking forward to it very much! Weather should be good, there should be tons of people around and everyone should be in a great mood. There will hopefully also be fireworks!

And that's all for now...class dismissed!