Saturday, August 23, 2003

 

Our vacation was a blast! Xander loved The Land of the Little Horses. He wasn't all that impressed with the zoo since all the animals were hot and tired so there was very little exciting activity. Tian Tian and Mei Xiang (the pandas) were both splayed out on a rock sleeping whe we were there. Mei Xiang had a sonogram done that morning and they gave her a lot of fruits and veggies. Since she was so full, she just laid around. I've been keeping an eye on the website that is following her pregnancy/psudopregnancy. It's interesting that pandas go through 'pregnancy' every year whether they are pregnant or not. They won't know until she actually gives birth.

Anyway, the first day we were at the beach, it was so calm it was nearly like a swimming pool. But then Ericka stirred things up in the gulf and the waves were so bad several days that we couldn't get in the water. Xander didn't seem to mind. Grammy and Papa took him to the Gulf Shores zoo one day and to the Oceanarium in Biloxi, MS. another. James and I played a bunch of mini-golf. The one hole that we both got a hole-in-one on we won free games. So we both have tokens for free games next time we go.

It was nice to come back all refreshed. The house we stayed at turned out to be very nice for $80 a night and had a washer and dryer. So, for the first time, we came home with clean clothes! Quite a feat for a two-week long trip.

So, now we are home and the house was a disaster. After such a busy summer, we've a lot to catch up on. Luckily, my mom flew my 18-year-old niece down from Oregan to stay for a month. She's been a great help just keeping Xander busy while I get work done.

Yesterday, James and I rearrainged our den so that now my desk is not stuck over in the corner and hard to get to. Now I actually have a window view! James made some bookshelves out of the free wood that I snagged from a local business that opened last year. They were unloading displays out of wooden crates and they gave us the plywood that the crates were made out of. They have been turned into a puppet stage for the library, two bookshelves for me, and I painted a sea background for pictures at the library. Not bad for free stuff. :)

Xander's kitten finally got named by him. Camel kitty. Don't ask me why. We were out in the pool one day recently and I was bugging him to name the kitty. A few minutes later he suddenly said, "Camel kitty."
"Camel kitty? That's what you want to name your kitty?" I asked.
"Uh-huh."
"Okay." I was a bit skeptical and not sure exactly what to think.
"Camel," Xander called as he looked around for the kitten. "Camel."

I couldn't resist laughing at him. The name hasn't exactly stuck yet. If I ask him the kitty's name he gives me a gibberish name most of the time. Sometimes he meows. He's a nut! Lately he's been hiding around the corner of bookshelves. At first I thought he had something he wasn't supposed to. "Xander, what are you doing?" I asked him.
"Hiding," he replied with a giggle.
Don't they make life such fun?

Dawn posted this at 3:11 PM.

Saturday, August 02, 2003

 

Wow, things have changed around blogger. Been too long again.

I'm on the jet set again. Tomorrow afternoon we leave on a flying (i.e. fast driving) trip to Virgina. James is teaching classes while Xander and I get to see the sights. We'll be about 2 hours or less from D.C. and Gettysburg. It's going to be fun. Also I'll get to visit a friend (Hi, Alicia!). Then, when the week is over, we'll be flying (see before) down to Gulf Shores for a week vacation with the in-laws. We have a beach house across the street from the beach! The houses were surprising-ly non expensive.

My writing has been portable-lized. I bought an expanding folder briefcase for less than $9 that holds my 'writer's toolkit' and even a couple of my favorite resource books. I'm working on two novels at the moment- my brain likes to flip/flop even though I want to work on a particular one.

I'm trying to work through the plot and characters before I write. With one of these two stories I've had many false starts because I don't know where the middle is going. I bought a book on plot, but the silly thing contradicts itself in the same paragraph! I even read the paragraph to the hubby and he suggested throwing it out!

Uh-well. Other news around here: My summer reading program work is over! Yeah! Xander one first place in the Read-to-me and believe me it was all him. He wanted to read those 464 books, AND to top it off, many of those books he wanted read 2 or 3 more times than we counted on his record. I wasn't like the other parents that forced their children to read that many books. But anyway...

Xander has a kitten. He showed up crying in the bushes one night. Some bowl of milk and about two 'kitten training' sessions (i.e. me sitting very still while kitten got curious and brave) and he was hooked. He is a pain about getting in the house all the time, but he's a sweetie. I'm trying to get Xander to name him, but he's stuck on 'Nanu'. He named his panda bear 'Nanu', so I'm trying to get him to name kitten something else, but to no avail yet. He spontaneously named a toy farmer he has 'Beau' and the Panda 'Nanu', but he doesn't name all his toys yet.

Xander is so smart, he amazes me. The other morning he woke up and as I was changing him he said, "Bats...fly...church...sleep." He's seen the bats fly around the lights at the church building and I wonder if he's dreamed about them. :)

Well, I'd better get back to packing. TTFN!

Dawn posted this at 10:36 PM.