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Today we had Alisa’s re-check on her eyes, and boy were we pleasantly surprised with the results. Going in to the appointment, her glasses got her vision to 20/20 in one eye (just glass in the frame for that eye, no prescription) and 20/50 in the other. She can now see 20/25 in that eye. Also, her crossed eye has improved so much that you have to seriously strain it to get it to cross and so she is down to only 2 hours a day with the patch. We were so excited for her, and proud of her for putting up with a patched eye for 8 hours a day. We were told 6-8, but always tried for the maximum. Now her gorgeous eyelashes need to fall out so that she can have the ones that were patched grow back in, because the ones that are there now tilt down from being patched.

The last month has been crazy with sleepovers, and this weekend was no exception. Gabby and Alisa went to a friends house in Hutchinson for a couple of days. We picked them up at the Munsinger Gardens in St. Cloud where Zach got a nice bee sting on the back of his neck. I’m not sure if they were swarming or not, because one ran into me at the same time, but didn’t sting me (still batting 1000!)

I also got Zach and Gabby’s schedule for the school year. Zach will be doing early morning seminary (a day I’ve been dreading since I started homeschooling and laughing about how I could sleep in and wear my pajamas all day if I wanted, HA!) and also going to band at 10:30, and Gabby will be doing choir at 2:30. 3, count ‘em 3 trips to town every day. Yuck. Double Yuck! I think I’ll volunteer to be the seminary teacher next year, though I hear the one we have loves it and is great!

Here are some pictures. My FAVORITE billboard in MN right now, and one of Zach’s bee sting, and a couple of my other favorites, plus a board siggy I made in photoshop.

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I mean this quite sincerely and kindly, I promise! Gabby did her Prairie Fire Theatre this week. We didn’t announce it to anyone just because we found out about it last minute and didn’t even know if they accepted students who hadn’t registered yet. Prairie Fire is the local company that puts on a play in one week (auditions through final performances.) That have 14 teams (of 2 directors) traveling around the state putting on plays. I am not sure how many different plays that have in production. This year they performed ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and as usual it was a more modern interpretation. Last year Gabby came home disappointed in a small part after having 2 years of good parts. I told her if she wants to get a good part, she has to step out of her comfort zone and put her personality out there. She is a very outgoing and fun-loving person, but does get shy around people she doesn’t know. Well she did fabulous and got the part of ‘Milky the Cow’, the third biggest part in the play. The other two bigger parts were played by sisters (whose parts were also sisters, so that worked out nicely.) The director told her that she was give the part because she had such a great singing voice and they needed her to sing 3 songs (not solos, like she does at church though.) We are proud of her!

This weekend Mark, Dylan, Reese, and I also had the opportunity to do our Mall of America and Minnesota Zoo meet-up with the ladies from the messageboard I post on (we all had babies the same month (except for those who went early and late of course!) It was so much fun to meet the moms that I have been chatting with for almost 2 years! They were wonderful, the babies are all adorable, and it was a nice break. Each of the babies have something special about them, be it there personality, their smile, the way they scoot around. Reese had her hair and eyes talked about a lot. Indeed some days here eyes almost look lavender (which is so odd for me, because I used to be obsessed with Elizabeth Taylor’s purple eyes, and then discovered that Rose Wilder Lane commented on how Laura (Ingalls) eyes would sometimes look lavender too, and everyone knows how much I love her!) The kids even went swimming in the pool and slept well in the hotel room. The zoo day was HOT but we slathered on the sunscreen and stuck with the shade and went on the monorail. Here are some pictures from that day: MOA Meet-up Pics

Our next door neighbors are being foreclosed on. They were supposed to be out last Wednesday. He has told us we can take all their trees because he is going to chop them down the day he leaves. Mark was out mowing grass and I hear the mower stop so I looked outside and there was the neighbor gesturing frantically and really in your face. For a minute there I was wondering what one of us did! Then Mark came in and said he was really bitter, he doesn’t know where his family is going to live, and wanted to know if he could store his truck and boat on our property for 2-3 weeks. (I told Mark to get a signed statement that if it wasn’t gone by the time the snow flies, we are resuming ownership and have a right to do what we want with them.) But apparently they’ve had animal problems (a horse and 2 dogs taken away due to neglect) and are bitter about whomever called the animal protection on them. I really don’t understand how you can not know where you are going, you have 6 months from the sheriff’s sale to the time you have to be out. They knew this was coming. So they think that they may have to all go on the road with him (he is a trucker.) But she is 7 months pregnant! I feel for them, I really do. So many people are in this situation, and most of us are only one job loss away from being there too.

Oh, and I guess I should mention that we figured out that Zach had been playing around with the camera settings, working with aperture and fstops and iso, and I didn’t know he left it on manual. Putting it back on automatic (after the play and the get together, of course!) is taking care of some of the graininess and lighting issues, but is still has the black spot. I can think of a certain line from MacBeth that I could use at this point!

(Clickable thumbnails of Gabby’s Play. We also bought a DVD that we should have in a month, if anyone wants to see it.)

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It’s been an interesting week. The church youth-aged girls have gone to summer camp, and I’ve taken on 2 boys, aged 9 and 12, whose mom is a leader at camp until Thursday. The 9 year isn’t a big fan of babies and toddlers, and Dylan is just stubborn enough to really be a thorn in his side. They argue constantly, and really aren’t very kind to Dylan. Ok, I get it that Dylan can be bossy and irritating. But he is 3 (”That’s why we don’t like 3-year olds!”) and this is HIS house. So if you try to play hide-and-seek with him, and then sneak down to play Nintendo while the poor thing is hiding for 30 minutes excited that you are paying attention to him, it not only hurts his feelings, it breaks my heart, and you will not be invited back again. Add to that, another leaders husband has taken the week off from his job, but he owns the company and has the occasional meeting to attend. So today we added 3 girls (11 kids!) Dylan calls them his ‘cousins’. They are very girly and quickly have him in the dress up clothes in pink dresses and tiaras, or being the ‘Mom’ when they play with the doll house. Sometimes Dylan comes away saying “I LIKE being a girl.” Uh no, you are indeed a boy, will always be a boy, and need to dress like a boy. And trust me, there are certain things he likes very much about being a boy, so I don’t really worry about gender identity issues, but still too much is too much!

We had a couple of tents up, and when we took them down so that we could mow, some kind of lizard, Mark calls it a skink, was under there. We released it under the deck in front, and found it IN the basement. Yuck! And today we found a frog outside. The boys visiting said they wished they had frogs and lizards too. They have ducks and bunnies at their house, which apparently aren’t as ‘cool’. Thankfully Mark is my hero and never complains when I ask him to save me from the horrid tasks such as reptile removal!

I added a new calling at church. Cub Master! I now have my 2 favorite callings (along with Primary chorister.) Our Cub Scout program was really awful. Nothing was getting done, the boys missed day camp, the leaders weren’t getting trained or going to Roundtable meetings. We haven’t had a pack meeting since December. I’m going to make sure that all of that happens!

Reese has been adding a lot of words to her vocabulary. Of course, I can’t remember what I listed last time, but she says this, that, shoes, all done, all gone, soft, on, off, up, down, and if you count ‘1′ she’ll say 2 and three. Now will you understand all of that? No, but we do. She is so cute and funny, loves to touch peoples belly buttons, loves to ‘pet’ babies, loves Nerds candy, screams to get her way, climbs onto the couch and jumps on it, gives everyone kisses, shakes her head ‘No’, and mimics pretty much everything else we say or do. She loves to run to Mark or me and then get lifted high in the air.

Alisa is getting brave enough to do it too. Her lens fell out (an effect from the face plant) and we had it replaced. Zach had a Scout Court of Honor and received 5 merit badges. He has about 7 weeks until he is a Life Scout. He has 3.5 Eagle required merit badges, a service project, and 6 months of leadership left, so around his birthday we will be having an Eagle Court of Honor. Gabby is at a friends house tonight escaping from the boys we have here, and then a sleep-over birthday party on Friday. She is such a gracious and sweet young lady. Ethan is having fun with the boys over. The one that is his age is also into Legos and K’nex, so they are having a blast. Me? I just look forward to night time when it’s quiet! Some summer pictures can be found on our Summer Pictures Page.

And, holy cow, the brother of the girl Gabby is spending the night with just asked to sleep here because his house is full of girls! And I said ’sure’! I must be crazy! I did always say that I hoped my house was the house where the kids would want to be.

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