Practicing Empty Nesting

Cinderella made it to camp.  Her fever broke, and since she had been fever free for more than 24 hours, we decided to let her go.  Her leaders promised to make her take it easy and that they would take good care of her, and since it has been 24 hours since they all left, we are pretty sure all is well.  So glad she was able to go.

And now, we are premature empty-nesters and we are not sure we like it.  Last night we were driving around looking at tile options for our kitchen backsplash.  (Oh, the options!  So many.  And so many we love that don't really match.  And so many we think are good but we're not sure.  How do we decide if we want the tile to "pop" or just blend in so the cabinets can "pop", or if we want the tile to be neutral or colorful?  Wow.)  As we left one store, we decided we needed to eat.  What to do?  Neither of us wanted to take the time to go home and cook for just the two of us.  But we didn't really want to spend money eating out.  And then we realized, we have three more nights of dinners this week with just the two of us.  Yikes.  Can't go out that many times.

It's not that I don't love spending time with King, it's just that it is so quiet.  Not that I'm complaining (because I sure love quiet), it's just a little strange.  When I think about the fact that in just six short years(!!!), all of our girls will be done with high school and moving on to college, I get a little bit panicked.  (I think the fact that King is ripping apart our old swing set to take to the dump is contributing to this panic.  How did they grow so fast?  How is it that none of my babies want to swing on a swing set anymore?)  Six years is not a lot of time!  It will go too fast.  And I better think of more meals that are easy to make for two.  There aren't a lot of great restaurants in our neck of the woods.

And, I also need a career.  Just now, being a full-time mommy takes all I've got, but I'll have 20 years of time between when the twins graduate and King retires.  That's a lot of years.  What will I do with myself?  Have any good ideas for someone who has a debilitating headache 45% of the time, a really bad headache 45% of the time, and a stressed out lingering headache 10% of the time because the other 90% of the time her body is worthless?  Yep, me neither.  ;) 

Which is why I'm really excited to have those noisy campers come home in three days.  This week is enough empty nest practice for me.  Let's get back to the crazy life.

Getting Ready

Things we had to get to be ready for Girl's Camp this week:

• Flashlights
• Camp Chairs
• A Whetstone
• A Compass
• A Swimming Suit

Things we the girls just wanted to get to be really ready for Girl's Camp this week:

• Starbursts 
• Cookies
• Chips
• Lunchables

Things we didn't want at all, but got anyway, for Girl's Camp this week:

• Cinderella's 102 Fever
• Her Cough
• Her Sore Throat
• Her Lethargy
• Her Loss of Appetite

So, pretty much only two of us are going to Girl's Camp, as of now.

Bummer.

Voice Lessons

Cinderella started voice lessons a couple of weeks ago. When Grandma was here last, she said it was time for Cinderella to begin lessons. Not being one to know if someone has a voice mature enough for voice lessons or not, I listened to the expert and signed Cinderella up. (Grandma's a voice teacher and professor of music--she knows.)  I have a friend who is a voice teacher, so it actually works out quite nicely for us. My friend's out of a job just now, so it works out extra nicely for her, I'm guessing.  

And Cinderella liked it a lot.  She said she liked it much better than piano lessons because it was much easier. She asked if she could now quit piano lessons and take voice lessons. I said, "Sure...."

She grinned.

"...for the summer," I said, "...until your teacher starts teaching again in the fall."

"Dang," she said.  But she smiled.  I know she secretly loves piano lessons.  But she'll never tell me that.  And she'll never tell me she loves voice lessons either. 

Which is totally fine with me.  I need forms of torture that aren't really torture, and she needs excuses to hate me.  So we're both good.

Four Days?!

I read yesterday that you should change your personal razor every four days.  I'm guessing they assume you actually shower and use the razor each of those four days.  Which I totally do, of course.  And I change my razor every four days as well.

I also floss twice a day.  And do a self-breast exam each time I shower.

Yep, I totally do all that.

Visitors

We love having visitors!  We especially love visitors that are old friends who just fall comfortably back into our lives.  We pick up where we left off and have such a great time. 
The M family came to visit last weekend.  They shared a duplex with us when we were attending graduate school at Purdue, and now live way, way too far away! We played games and laughed and reminisced about all of the old times when the kids were little and spent hours together.  We remembered when we used to trade babysitting and nights when we would just pile all of the kids into the same room for a big sleepover (obviously we can't do that anymore!) when there were long temple dates, or when new babies were born.

We visit them every few years on our drive to Utah, and it seems their kids grow at least 12 inches between each visit.  This time was no exception--although looking at the pictures, I suppose our girls have grown just as much. (Sigh.) It's hard to believe it was more than ten years ago that they were all little ones.  They always thought they were cousins, and they really almost are. We love them like family and wish they could come visit more often!

Almost Over the Hill

A couple of weeks ago, King turned forty.  We had a small gathering at a friend's house to celebrate.  I asked Snow White and Sleeping Beauty to snap a few pictures of the festivities:

You can tell what the girls' favorite part of the party was, can't you?  But, besides little cute people drooling and chewing on blocks, we also had dinner and Daddy's favorite lemon cake, and even played some games.  And sang Happy Birthday.  Thanks to E&L for hosting and our friends for joining us to celebrate!  We love our King!

Piano Recital

I really should never be allowed to record anything.  I'm not steady enough.  And add that to having the camera on the wrong setting and you have a pretty bad recording of a pretty great performance.  Alas, here is Cinderella playing Send in the Clowns. 

Whew

The girls finished school.  Cinderella had a lovely piano recital.  (Video coming soon.)  We already love the fact that we decided to pay for a membership to the neighborhood pool.  (Phew.)  King turned the big 40, and we had a little birthday celebration for him. (Pictures coming soon.)  I got a new calling at church.  (Ward Music Chairman. What?!)  We (the girls) made 15 cups of delicious strawberry jam.  We went out to our favorite ice cream place to celebrate a good year of school. (Yum.) We attended a baptism, had two piano lessons, an orthodontist appointment, and a long day of chore-doing. That's pretty much the rundown of the last week.  And now I can be done with summer, is that okay?

No?  Bummer.

One Last Day

Am I the only one that feels like the last couple of weeks of school are lived in fast forward mode?  It seems there are so many extra activities thrown in.  We added a three day weekend and a piano recital into this week.  But, we have made it to the last day.

Tonight, as Sleeping Beauty and Snow White were being tucked into bed, Snow White said, "This is the very last time that we will go to bed before the last day of school being sixth-graders."

To which Sleeping Beauty replied, "Well, it's also the first time it's happened."

True enough. :) But I still can't believe they are done with sixth grade.  And, WE SURVIVED having three middle school girls all at the same time.  (Just barely on some days, I must admit.  But we did it.)

Only eight more hours of finals and they are done.  Cinderella has three finals tomorrow.  So, since she should probably be well rested and ready to excel in the morning, she came into our room at 10:00 at night to explore incomprehensible and imaginative math equations.  Just for fun.  :/

She was asking how high I thought her grade needed to be on her Language test to still get an A+ if she already had 113% in the class.  Well, how should I know?  Isn't she the one with 113% in a class?  (True, it is Language, not Algebra, that she has this ridiculously high grade in, but her Algebra grade is up there, too.  Why is she asking me these questions?  I know nothing.)  She became frustrated with my inability to perceive her Language teacher's requirements and somehow come up with a mathematical equation to figure out her possible grade and turned her questioning in a more general direction.

"Do you think taking tests is a strength of mine?  Do you think I'm a good tester?"

I said, "Uh, yeah.  It's pretty obvious."

And King said, "Well, you do extremely well at testing our patience.  So, I'd say you're pretty great."

She suddenly decided to go to bed.  But not before we saw her smile that gave away the fact that the rolling of eyes and shaking of her head were all just a show.  She thinks her dad is pretty funny.  And sometimes she thinks he is a good tester, too.  :)

(And, YIKES!, after tomorrow, this girl is an official High School-er.  Please tell me the next four years won't go as fast as the last four.)