Little Update on This and That...

I'm still here. Not a whole lot going on that is all that compelling.

This past week was school vacation week so it's been a bit busy around here. I managed to keep the kids fairly busy with activities - despite the nasty weather at the start of the week - and tomorrow the older two will be back to school. Happy dance!

Today is Sunday so it was church day. The girls were very excited because we missed last week. They love going to church school so it's a disappointment when they miss a week. Rick wanted to get some work on making more concrete pavers for our eventual backyard patio (it's been in the works since last summer/fall and he hopes to finish it this spring!) so we took E to church with us for the first time since she's been so mobile. I wondered how she would do with being in the nursery without me for the first time. The last attempt was futile. She screamed and screamed until they finally came and got me. Today she did great! She and A were in the room together and one other toddler was with them. E stayed busy coloring, eating snack, and playing and she was absolutely fine. She is finally able to stretch her naptime to just after lunch so that helped, too.

We are in the process of planning our summer trip to Virginia to visit Rick's brother and nephew. It's a long drive, but we hope it goes at least as well as it did last year. I need to research hotels and find a suitable one (read: 2 queen beds and an indoor pool) for our first and last nights. It works best if we break up the driving into two segments each way. We usually drive a longer leg the first day and stay at a hotel and then do less driving and hit an attraction of some sort (usually a musuem) on the second driving day. Last year we drove to Philly, stayed overnight, and then headed to the Maryland Science Center for the afternoon. It was fun, but we saw less than half of the exhibits so I think we are going to try for a similar itinerary this year on the way down. Our visit this year will include seeing the new house that Rick's brother just bought, a visit to a few local attractions (both in D.C. as well as in the greater Northern Virginia area), and hopefully some hiking/geocaching. I guess Rick is going to need to start building up his back muscles so he can carry E in the backpack for moderate-length hikes!

The weather has finally turned spring-like (even verging on summer-like) around here. This weekend has been mostly sunny and in the 70's and tomorrow is supposed to hit 80 or higher. But, then we will see a crash back into the 50's later in the week. The t-shirt weather is here but briefly this week. We will enjoy it while it lasts.

Yesterday my parents flew in to a local airport for a short visit since the weather was expected to be beautiful all day. My parents own an aircraft electronics business at a small town-owned airport and they both have their private pilot's license. Due to their buisness they also own a small four-seater airplane which allows them to cut their travel time in half when they come to visit us. They arrived at lunchtime and we invited Rick's parents over to join us for some salad, sandwiches, and dessert. It was a really nice visit and the girls were thrilled to have my parents here for the day. It was such a treat for A to be able to include my mom in her pretend play so much that she actually gave Rick's mom the day off telling her "Grandma, you can go and talk or do whatever you want to because I have Grandma G. here to play with today!" Wasn't that so nice of her to allow Grandma T. to do whatever she wanted for a while?? LOL My mom dutifully went into the playroom and played 'classroom' with the girls (she was given the moniker of Mrs. Floogle for that game). She also read them a few stories and played with them for a bit outside. The girls are very excited about their next visit with Grandma and Papa which will hopefully be in about a month. This time we'll make the 3-hour tour down their way for a weekend.

That's about all the news for now. I'm still hovering at the 20-lb. mark with no more losses seen this month. It's kind of frustrating but I'm trying to focus more on how far I've come and less on what I still hope to lose. It will happen eventually - sometimes it just feels like the plateaus will never end! I had bought some new jeans last week and with the change in weather I went out and bought a pair of capris, a skort, and a few t-shirts to get me through this transition weight. I found that I'm actually down 1.5 sizes so I'm currently "between" standard sizes which is kind of annoying. I can almost fit in the lower size but it's just a wee too snug for comfort so I bought a couple of the larger size and hope to be buying the smaller size before too long!

So, that's all for now!

Ciao!