Run to Grandma!

Deepo and the kids at the Georgia Aquarium



My mom came and visited us last week. The kids were soooo excited. They went with Perry to pick her up from the airport while I stayed home and did some last minute picking up. The weekend was pretty quiet- grocery shopping, church, the usual. On Monday, we went to the Georgia Aquarium. That was pretty neat. There were 4 whale sharks there. Tropical Diver and Ocean Voyage were the best exhibits. We went really early, to avoid the crowd. We took the light rail train there, so that added to the adventure. One part of the Ocean Voyage exhibit I thought was really neat was the schools of rays "flying". I had never seen them in schools before. The Tropical Diver had the jellyfish and garden eels. It was kind of creepy to see them sticking out of the sand. This aquarium was different, in that it almost felt like a theater. Music was a big part of the experience. I did wish that they had more docents telling about the animals.

A school of stingrays

One of the four whalesharks

Too bad this one didn't turn out- they were in front of a huge glass wall

Do ya think Caleb thought it was cool?

We started potty-training Joshua on Tuesday. Not fun. He hasn't had a successful poop yet, but at least he isn't peeing in his pants anymore. He won't voluntarily go to the bathroom, though. He has to practically be bursting, and even then he might not go. He just cries and cries. He's been really cute, telling me "no, thank you" when I ask if he has to go, and when we told him once that getting off the toilet wasn't an option, he insisted that "it was an option".
On Wednesday, the kids played in the pool and went to Jeronimo's. Right now the kids can jump free on Wednesdays, from 3-5 p.m. In July and August, he's having a special of a $50 family pass, unlimited jumping. We are so going to be there, lol. On Thursday, we went shopping and got some outfits for my birthday. I hate clothes shopping for myself. I am never good at finding the deals or what looks good on me. My mom did a really good job in picking things out, things that I would've never picked for myself. I'm slowly moving away from my jeans and t-shirt college look. The only bad thing was that I'm a size 10 now. Really gotta get cracking on the exercise. It didn't help, either, that my mom bought a whole bunch of snack foods. If they're in my house, I'll suck them down like there is no tomorrow. I even quit buying the poptart flavours I like just so I won't be tempted.
All in all, the week went by way to fast. Perry was gone Wednesday-Friday, so the company and help with the kids was really nice.

Another year gone

Well, I'm 34 now. So far it doesn't feel much different than 33. It doesn't seem too much different than 33. Now when I hit 35, that just screams middle age. My wonderful husband got me a pillow. My poor pillows were in such sad shape. I hardly washed the pillow cases because the pillows had rips and feathers would go everywhere. But they were very comfortable squishy pillows and I couldn't find any that I liked. This seems like it will do the job quite nicely, thank you very much.
I'm not feeling all that philosophical about this birthday. Yeah, I never imagined myself with a son going into second grade, a daughter going into first, getting ready to potty train another kid, and a walking baby that I worry about not eating. I never imagined being crazy enough to be leading a Brownie troop, MOPS discussion group, and having a job in the PTA. If 34 is like 33, I'm going to have a great year.

What a week!

Perry was gone this week to Louisiana. I dread him leaving, not just because I'll miss him and I hate to do the single mom thing, but almost every time that he leaves, something MAJOR breaks. I've had the car fan die, my apartment start to flood in a hurricane, and the main breaker to our house go in the middle of summer. This week, I had the fan on our 3 month old fridge die. Luckily, they were able to come and repair it the next day, and I had our old fridge in the garage, so losses were minimal. I let the new fridge cool to the right temperature all day, then moved the food over. About 5 minutes after I finished moving all of the food over, the power went out. Go and check the houses around me, no power. Call a friend of mine down the street. Her husband said that he heard an explosion right before the power went out. Great. Took the kids to the park for an hour. Saw the electric guys checking all the boxes. Come home and still no power. I decide to make a little run to the Publix down the street just in case this isn't a temporary thing. Grab some dry ice and M&Ms (a must have in every emergency) and come home to find the lights on in the house. The neighbour next door said that the lights had been on for about 5 minutes, so if I had waited another 15 minutes, I wouldn't have had to make the trip. But I also wouldn't have my M&Ms either. Silver lining. So the next day I decide to take the kids to McDonald's. Turning right out of the subdivision, I hit the curb. Hard. Great. Say a little prayer and keep driving. No noise, no pulling. Just before I get to the first place that I could pull off the road, the noise and pulling start. I quickly moved over into the right turn lane of a little subdivision. The tire is decimated. There is a hole the size of the tire jack handle in the sidewall (as I found out later). I open the back of the van and call Perry. I can't decide if I want to cry or laugh, so I do both. Caleb had done this very same thing (back right instead of front right tire on the same curb) with Perry a few months ago, so he was talking me through how to get the jack out. I was such a mess. Just after I got the jack out and was about to figure out how to get the spare down, a man pulled over and helped me out. He showed me the hole. It really was the hand of God getting me there. I went back and looked at the other 4 places I could've pulled over at along the way- 2 were parking lots of churches (not very populated on a Thursday), and the other 2 were side streets into small subdivisions. I probably would still be trying to figure out how to get the darn tire on if I hadn't gotten to where I ended up. An hour at the tire store and we were on our way. I know Perry's at home for at least the next 2 weeks, so I think I'll go into hibernation as soon as he walks in the door.