catching up

i have so much to catch up on, at work, at home, on the internet! just got done reading my blogs for the first of ten times today. wonderful stuff. i owe a big, belated thank you to sweet jes for the awesome snailmail swap package i received from her! ( i hope you were not worried that it didnt get here, it did im just so tardy with things...) check out the goodies!

this is the first of a three month swap, julys theme being summer fun! jes put in all kinds of fun for the summer. A beach inspired journal, some party lights (used them last weekend!) fun summery papers and fabrics and some yummy treats from maine (used a bunch of the beer mustard last weekend too)! thank you so much jes! one of the reasons i was so late in posting was that we went on a spur of the moment road trip two weekends ago (making me miss the delivery of the package). david got an urge to get out of the house, so by 7:45 friday evening we had reserved a hotel room (thanks hotwire) packed the kids, loaded the car and were off! unfortunately having kansas city as your starting point limits the choices a bit, as does having two kids to keep happy, so we ended up heading to oklahoma city for the weekend. big zoo = big requirement. we spent most of saturday at the okc zoo and it was great! eliot had a blast, and managed to tame a baby rino...


there was also a great hands-on science museum that we spent quite a bit of time in, because it was fun and because it was air conditioned. the rest of the day was spent napping, eating and swimming in the hotel pool. on sunday morning we went downtown to visit the okc bombing memorial. it was very well done and peaceful. david captured some wonderful pictures.

here is one of the gates. there were two this one has the time 9:03 carved on it, the other 9:01 to bookend the time of the blast. the pool was so peaceful and made a beautiful sound. it was only two, maybe three inches deep. off to the right is the field of empty chairs, each representing a person or child killed in the attack.

after the solemn morning we headed to tulsa to visit their big aquarium, much to the delight of collette who just learned how to say the word fish. well, ok, it just sounds more like ssssshhhhhh and can involve spitting. i think she spit the word fish on just about every tank in the place.

that blur is eliot jumping up and down saying "i want up, i want up!". which makes you wonder why they put the tanks so dang high up, i mean its for kids right? after looking at all that water i had to go pee, then we packed it back up and headed home. it was really fun to just get away for a bit.

this last weekend was full of spending time with our good friends clark and kerry who are moving at the end of this week. very sad. clark is in med school and has a year of residency to do in columbia, missouri. luckily that is only two hours away, so i think we will be getting away on the weekends more often. its still sad though...

on a parting note, what do grandmas do with their granddaughters when mom and dad are on date night? cast magic spells on them that make them sit still so their tiny, tiny toenails can be painted i guess.