Back... in Homer AK

Home.

This crazy wonderful Hamlet by the Sea. Friends, Mess, Rotting Snow, Purple Couch.

DeeJay aged while I was gone. Marina can't leave him alone. Falcom is rocking out.

I spent the afternoon drinking coffee with Priscilla and having a wonderful catch up about all the things that she's been feeling and experiencing over the past two weeks.

Had big laughs at Weight Watchers, and lost 1.8 pounds! (Which if you will remember is 1.2 pounds more than I gained at the meeting I went to in Canton, Illinois.)

I love this place. Glad to be home.

Leaving Lewistown

Today was our last day in the Central Illinois region. I spent most of it thinking about all I needed to do to get ready to leave. I also spent a great portion of the day drinking tea with my Aunt and shopping at Goodwill. I spent 2 hours shopping at Goodwill. I spent $200. I was flabbergasted, but when Aunt Jeannett and Kathy and I took an overview of my purchases we all knew it was money well spent. A new dress suit, a new sequin dress for my birthday, tons of cute clothes for Marina, totally worth it! Then more ice tea drinking. I am now home and packing.

Tomorrow we leave early for Peoria where we will catch an express bus to O'Hare. After check in we will call the hotel that we stayed at before and they will pick us up and bring us to them where we can spend a few hours swimming and eating before flying back to Alaska. Ah! Alaska... hard to believe the journey is ending.

Thank you to all my wonderful family and extended family that made this trip so memorable and fun. What a joy it's been spending time with each of you. Thank you for everything. Kathy, I want to say a special thank you to you for making this trip so memorable for the kids. We've really had a fun time.

Regular Wednesday with Aunt Jeannett

Today I had the good fortune of sharing Aunt Jeannett's regular Wednesday. Not unlike my Regular Tuesday with Irene, Aunt Jeannett has a regular date with her good friend Doodle. We picked up Doodle at 8:30 and went directly to the Weight Watchers meeting. I was a little anxious about this meeting because I have walked through the Midwestern veil which immediately places 5 pounds on your body like a costume. It's like our traditional garb. Excess Fat.

In fact, I don't think I wrote to tell about how I took the kids and their cousins on a long bike ride through Lewistown and we had many nice stops and then ended at Subway for lunch. Next to a promotional poster of Jared (who has been skinny for over ten years) stood two women who were each over 250 pounds. The lettuce they put on my sandwich was white iceberg turned brown from the knife cut. When I asked them for water cups instead of soda they looked at me like the anomaly that I am and then gave me specific detailed directions as to how get water out of the soda fountain, "under the picture for the ice tea, you will find a white button..."

Needless to say, I was willing to face the music and find out how much weight I had actually gained. I learned that women friends who go to weight watchers around the country have very similar conversations to the ones Suzanne and I have. "You should have seen the amount of scalloped potatoes I had on my Easter plate!" and "Well, I ate 2 Easter baskets worth of chocolate this weekend!"

At the scales I had to laugh! Can you imagine that after all the fast food and iced tea and pie and cake and Hellman's mayonnaise I have only gained .6 pounds! I am absolutely mind blown. I went to the Spaghetti Factory for God's Sake! And yes, I put garlic butter on that bread!

Then we went to Hy Vee (their grocery store) where we picked up a hot tip from the meeting; this weird low fat peanut butter that is dehydrated and you add water to to make into the real thing. The women and I calculated points for all kinds of food stuff which was fun. We learned that a regular slice of carrot cake from a resturant is over 20 points per slice. 46 fat grams, Watch Out!

Then we drove through town back to Doodle's and when we got there Jeannett said: Oh! Doodle! I forgot to tell you, ~editing note! I just realized that perhaps this conversation fell under the secret G.I.P.P.A. agreement and I should not have posted it. Sorry!

Then Doodle said: Oh! Jeannett! Good News! No one is in jail this week but ~editing note! So sorry you missed this bit....~ BYE!

Jeannette: BYE!

That was the funniest part of my day. I wonder if when Irene and I are 70 if we will be able to condense our topics into a one minute sound bite. And be that funny!
Then we went home and had what would have been a three point lunch if I hadn't made Aunt Jeannette buy me a bag of Kettle Cooked chips and then we went to get my hair done. It seems that even in Illinois this hair was too wild. I was certainly the most lively patron at the salon. But, I loved the gal doing my hair because I pretty much said, "I'm not paying you the big bucks for me to tell you what needs to happen here. If I had a thought about that I would not look like this now would I?" She said, "Fine, here is what I think..." and I said, "as long as you remember that I'm middle aged and keep me from looking like a zebra I will be happy." From then on we laughed and joked and 3 1/2 hours later I am transformed in a very positive way.

Back to Jeannett and Bob's where my cousins and I had a nice quick visit over Chinese food. I even found out that my cousin Dannielle is reading Skinny Bitches just like Irene! Small World! Grammy took the kids in for portraits today and that went well. I'm not sure what all they did today, but, they were both passed out by eight.

Tomorrow is the last full day in Lewistown.

Thank you wonderful Aunt Jeannett for a fabulous day!

Abraham Lincoln Library Museum

We started out the day early with a trip to Springfield and the Abraham Lincoln Museum. I don't know if this is a far reaching sentence, but I feel strongly that this may be the best museum I've ever been to. Well thought out, well planned, interactive without simply using touch screens in front of an exhibit and calling it interactive. The stove in the White House Kitchen was hot. Amazing. The ideas were inspiring. Ah! I was fighting back the tears through the entire time. The planners made Lincoln into such a complex character. I will go back again without my kids. I will take my kids again. I will make the pilgrimage to this place every time we come. It was kind of over the kids heads, but they got the basic ideas. Slavery, war, unity. Something that really held with me was, "Americans Detest Oppression". That sentiment reflects from long ago into current problems. Detesting Oppression... It was amazing.

The 'Ghosts of the Lincoln Library' was especially mind blowing. Fantastic.

The sun was out by the time we were home and the kids and I took a bike ride around town. There are signs of spring everywhere; birds, grass budding, daffodils. Then we went to the park to play for a bit. Now we are all enjoying American Idol and getting ready for bed.

St. Louis

We've been to Alton, Godfrey, and St. Louis and back this week. It has been a terrific experiance for me. We started out by using this interesting device of my fathers, a GPS navigator for the car. The thing took us directly to Lynn's house in Alton without a hitch. Amazing since I had no other way to get there, no map, no prior knowledge of the area, and her street did not have a street sign. Falcom loved the voice on the device, "In 2000 feet, turn right."

It was wonderful to spend time with Lynn again. Her house was the same as I remembered it (from high school!). It is such a comfort to go into these midwest memories; a friendly smiling aunt with a pot of coffee on and a cake made for my arrival. We chatted and laughed while the kids played with Lynn's granddaughters many barbies and bratz and high school musical dolls.

After a while Lynn took us to my gradfathers farm. Quite a famous location for me and for my kids who have heard all the stories of it. We were let in the gate by Paul who grew up with my mom and aunt. It was healing to hear all of the wonderful memories he has of my mother during her childhood. Then we went to the site of the old house and we walked down to the creek.
The creek was really swollen and unpassible in our current state of preparidness, but we had fun mucking about anyway. Then Marina and Falcom and I went to the farm equipment graveyard and did some climbing around on the rotting machinery, just like we did when Mike and I were small. It was beautiful.

We went to the Mississippi River where we saw our first riverboat of the trip. Made real by the Proud Mary song. I also learned that Falcom has a lot of knowledge of Abraham Lincoln that I was not aware of and so it was great to visit the memorials around Alton to the abolisionist movement.


The next day Lynn took us to the St. Louis Arch. What a fantastic bit of history and art. Seeing it on the landscape of the city is beautiful. More cities should have such art. I made the executive decision not to ride up into the arch when I found out that it would be a three hour wait for the tram. My family is not that patient, and the kids don't really care about vistas. So, we hiked along the flooding Mississippi river and Lynn told us stories of playing in the river and of river boats, we had lunch and went to the zoo.

What amazed me about the zoo is that it is a wonderful, award winning zoo and it is absolutely free. Fantastic. It was in the low 60's that afternoon and the place was packed. Super crowded. I am not used to that kind of crowd, but, it was not pushy or shoving kind of crowded, just crowded. The animals were all out in force for the first day of spring. Even the hippos were swimming and galloping around the place. Really fun.

That evening Lynn's granddaughters came for an over night and the four friends had a super fun time together.


The next morning we loaded up, and with the navigator in hand proceeded to meet Kathy and her daughter Laurie and her son Shae for an afternoon at the Magic House, which is an enormous Discovery Center in an old mansion.

Afterwords I put on the nagivagtor and headed toward Lauries for an egg coloring overnight before heading back to Lewistown. We all decided to stop and get drinks at the gas station before driving the 35 minutes to Lauries, but there was not a station in sight. So, we take an exit and for the first time I was really getting annoyed by the navigator and her backseat driverness. It was 2 miles out of the way to the 7-11. Marina was freaking out in the back, shouting, "why are you trying to kill me? If I don't drink I'll die!" and the navigator was saying, "you are off route. Make a U-turn in 200 feet!" Beween the two of them someone was going to have to get flung out the window and it was not Marina. Finally we got there, and now, I find it pretty funny.

A fun overnight with Laurie. She is a super fun gal and gave me some ideas and angst about my current special education situations. (She's an educator). We decided that if we lived closer we would definitly be meeting for coffee regularly.

Back in Lewistown we prepared as best we could for Easter Sunday. My dad bought Marina a beautiful Easter dress and Kathy got her a white bonnet. She looked like a doll.

Easter came too early for me. You see, Falcom woke up at 1 and then 3 and then 4 and so on for the entire night. I had as much sleep as I ever got on Christmas. I tried to tell him that this was not Christmas and he could relax, but that is not his method. The next morning, I had to give the kids their warnings, that sleep deprived, bizerk mom was on the prowl and that they had better be especially good!



They were! We went to church breakfast and they were open and friendly. We went to all different sunday School classes and they practiced for the kids bell chior. Marina knew all the answers to all the questions, and it was funny for me because my dad got the report which said, "Marina knows Everything!" and I had to say, "do you know that because she proved it or because she told everyone that as a fact?" We both really laughed. The kids did great in the bell chior. The service was lively and inspired about staying positive. A really fun morning.

Kathy and Dad made a great dinner and Kathy's son and family came to join us. They are a very nice family and we had fun visiting. They have kids Falcom and Marina's ages and all of those kids have been playing around like mad. They decided to have a sleep over last night and so I fell asleep to the sounds of little girls lying in bed giggling. Such a sweet sound.

Happy Easter Everyone!

Lewistown Illinois

Where to start. We went to see Cats. It was amazing. In fact, I was seriously tearing up the entire show. Why, you may wonder, as I have seen the thing so many times that I know all the moves just as well as Falcom? Because Laurie, left us in the totally super nose bleed section and went to the ticket booth and told the people that we were here from Alaska to see the show and were there any better seats they could put us in. Next thing I know we are in row J and the cats from the cast are roaming up and down the isle in front of us. You know how some kids light up at the sight of Disney characters? Well my two could have been in a commercial for the show. It was awesome. I mean, Thank you Laurie! I'm tearing up just thinking about it now!

The next day we made what felt like an epic trip to the Shedd Aquarium to see the sea life. We checked out of the hotel and carried our luggage to the blue line, rode that for 40 minutes to Union Station where we had to haul the luggage and find lockers and then find the bus to connect with bus to transfer. You can imagine how difficult this was, especially when I'm trying to figure out the high tech lockers and I look over to find Marina with her shoes off scaling a formation inside the train waiting lounge. Yes, both kids were totally in an ADHD induced haze and were tired of having to think the way city kids have to think I guess. Anyway, the Amish that were watching the show did not seem offended so....

Shedd was crowded. It was wonderful to be with Baluga Whales and Sharks. We walked into Wild Reef exhibit and I smelt the sea air and I missed the islands so bad! Laurie and I found a secluded spot where the shark tank was kind of over our heads and we sat down in that corner and cracked open diet Pepsi's and dreamed of our days near the warm water seas. It was a perfect moment! And like all perfect moments it ended abruptly with Falcom telling me that he had to go number two but that he didn't need help in the public restroom and running off, and me jumping up to follow him while the security guard came over and busted Laurie for drinking soda in the exhibit. Nice.

Fortunately for us, Laurie had bought the kids these little St. Patrick's Day hats on headbands and it made the kids very recognizable in the huge crowd. I told Laurie that whatever she spent on those things was worth it and she agreed. We left the Shedd and Laurie said, "I don't care the cost we are taking a taxi to the station!" And so Falcom got to have one of his dreams fulfilled and wave down a cab. We rode in peace for $8.75.

On Amtrak we were all comfy cosy and everything was good, until this large woman took Marina and my seat and when I mentioned that she had put her stuff on our jackets she said, "You didn't have your name on it! You don't get to hold seats around here!" The train was only half full and so it was strange to be about to go to blows over seats. That's when I said, "Your kidding, right?" and she said, "NO I'm not kidding I'm not giving you those seats." I said, "Come on kids lets go, the whole car in front of this is empty." And then she said, "You don't take that stuff out of the seat. How do I know it's yours? Finders Keepers." I said, "Now you must really be kidding! That is just unbelievable. Lets go." Falcom said, "mom, I like my seat." I said, "we are getting away from here honey." And then, strangely, the woman said, "No, please stay. I'm sorry." I said, "No, we are moving." And then she said, "No really, I'm sorry." So I sat down and tryed to imagine that all the meanest girls from grades 4-8 were not embodied in this woman directly in front of me.

Wouldn't you know...She then decided that she loved us. "Go to the food car. Believe me, I'll keep eye on your stuff." and when she got off the train she went to my dad and told him how he has the best family! Marina became good friends with her daughter and Falcom with another older daughter and the four kids had a great train experience. I'm kind of wondering if my Greyhound Karma has transferred over to Amtrak...

This is a picture of my dad's house. I have not been able to transfer any of my own pictures yet. Maybe tonight or tomorrow or Saturday. It is super to be here. This big house is a heaven for the kids who are constantly finding a new nook to explore. Also, at home, with our wide open floor plan, this old style house with all these small rooms and doors has been a real fun hide and seek place. Grandpa and Grammy are throwing down the spoilage. And it has been fun.

Today we leave for St. Louis for a couple of days to hang with Mema's family and Kathy's daughter Laurie and then we will be back for a week of adventure in Lewistown.

Chicago!

We made it! The drive with S. and I. was easy and effortless. Lots of chatting and Hank the Cowdog. Getting on the airplane was easy enough because Marina made friends with the clerks and they allowed her (and us) to be the first to board the plane. After most everyone was on she went into the back and made friends with the flight attendants who let her make an announcement over the speaker, "Hi Mom!". You can imagine my slight embarrassment when everyone around us was asking what was going on and if they needed to do something because they did not fully understand the message.

Laurie is Fantastic! It's such a great opportunity to visit. She chose a wonderful hotel which let us check in at 7am when we arrived. I was able to sleep for a couple of hours and then the kids and I hit the train and the world famous St. Patricks day parade!

Now, even though Vince did not think this was the best idea for entertainment "How are you going to manage them with all those people? Are you going to tie the three of you together with a rope?" The kids were tremendous.Even with thousands of people all around us, they managed to remember all their crowd rules and I was not having to worry about them. We managed to get this close to the parade route when I found a wall and hoisted them both up. They snapped this picture from there. It was incredible the amount of people. We heard the bagpipers and we got the vibe of the thing and we all decided to bail on the whole thing. We saw Irish dancing girls walking through downtown. Marina was shoved into a 'customers only' toilet by some sneaky sorority sisters who lied to the the employee toilet police for me.

On our way back to the blue line we stopped into Nordstrom Rack for some shoe drooling. Falcom loved it!

On the train we got to see the city of Chicago and it was fun to see how people live. Marina made friends with an artist with a lip ring. He was a mid-twenties guy and very self assured (just like her). Finally she asked him, "why are you always chewing on that thing in your lip?" He got embarrassed and said, "I don't know, but I'm sure I'll never do it again!" She is really something that Marina.

Back at the hotel we met with Laurie and we spent the afternoon enjoying this wonderful pool. Laurie was able to snap some great pictures and I'll try to upload them for the next post. Today is swimming and then the musical CATS! Should be great! We'll I'd better get on with the day...

Leaving Town or Midwest Bound

Look who was spying in Priscilla's kitchen window while she and I were having coffee this afternoon! What a fun place to live where all of God's creatures feel so comfortable peeking in the windows at you.

I've been spending the morning preparing for Illinois. Not actually packing, but preparing the house for my absence. OK, I could have been packing, but there was still the Regular Thursday Duties and I wanted to spend an hour drinking coffee with Priscilla. Is that so bad?

Things I've learned today:

-Bunnies like to eat pizza crusts
-Marina has big hair when it is clean
-Medicine to help you stay awake can be good
-Teenagers may act like the birthday was no big deal, but when you go into their room you find their shrine.
-People with tidy homes (Priscilla) do not fiddle with cookie crumbs on the counter and then absentmindedly flick them to the ground. (Yea, I got busted while in an absentminded daze. Luckily she thinks her floor needs to be cleaned anyway.)

Priscilla is great by the way. She went to the doctor today and is feeling just great. She makes great coffee and is such a fun friend to have. Thanks Priscilla!

DeeJay's Birthday

I am so tired today. I probably need to get upstairs and have an intervention with the help of modern medicine... Why am I so tired? Yesterday was DeeJay's 17th birthday! And we partied until late.

Sadly, when you throw a party you never get to just start with the party and work backwards (although I think we did that during college). There was house cleaning, veggie box moving, cupcake baking, a pizza to be delivered to school on time, more cleaning, more crisis management, and finally the actual entertaining of 16 and 17 year old boys and the adult friends of that birthday boy.

After delivering the veggie boxes,
I was walking through the grocery store when I ran into some old friends, S. & S. J., who asked how it was going having a teenager all of a sudden and I told them. "You know, this teenager is a really nice person and that is making this very easy. I mean, I know what I did on my 17th birthday and I know it included beer. His birthday plan is to have everyone over to our house where we can eat pizza and drink soda. How many 17 year olds do you know that want to do that!" We all laughed a guilty laugh reflecting on our wild childhoods and then turned to face the cashier.

Irene let me borrow her kick ass car cupcake pans and so the kids all decorated their own cupcake. Mike M. told me that it was 10 years ago yesterday that he started working at the airport (on advice from me) and then he also mentioned that it has been 10 years since we left for Saipan. Thanks Mike for reminding me of my age. I also need to congradulate Priscilla who managed to stay at my house for an hour and a half without pacing or loosing her mind! Good Job P!

After everyone went home we got a call from Saipan and there went another hour.

Today, I'm tired. Was it worth it? Absolutely. I think DeeJay had a great day.

Regular Tuesday with Irene

Ah! Back to the mundane... What a calm relief to just clean the house and take care of pre-trip, pre-birthday party details. And then to Irene's for a strong cup of coffee. She is settling for Chai now. That is how Skinny Bitches find the middle ground between coffee and green tea she says.

Topics Covered Today

-Her FANTASTIC meal of veggies and polenta
-Why I decided to wear so much BLING today (It's because I've lost 15 pounds)
-How her husband said to me, "the reason you don't want to be in Long Term Care with J.D. is because Vince dated her before the two of you hooked up" with a grin
-Jr. Seavey died
-Our husbands serious job dis-satisfaction and the potential need to leave the country and go to Saipan where we could swim in a pool and live on a little commune for a while. "Yea, it would suck but at least the sun would come out regularly!"
-How it has been grey here for a week
-How Irene called Vince at work today and learned that there is an amazing amount of medications she can prescribe for that she didn't know she could prescribe for
-Getting Maya out of Vietnam
-Falcom's choice of music he wants to sing for the Jubilee
-Things we can't really blog about
-How we love Bono
-My summer in Wyoming and how, looking back on it from here, it was a little too wild and dangerous, including that whole hitchhiker thing
-How that is a Horny Toad on her jacket
-How we will use the stories of me and that hitchhiker thing to upset J.D. when we are all in LTC
-How we are getting old and looking a little stoned in all of our pictures

After leaving Irene, I had a delightful and wonderful coffee with Priscilla (Irene's mom). I realized I'm going to have to find something for her to do at my house while she is over for the birthday party because usually she can only sit and visit for 20 minutes at someone else's house and since she is riding with Irene...


The sun is shining somewhere in Homer. Too bad it is over the ocean.
Now tonight I will make dinner and start the cupcakes and get ready for the 17 year olds birthday!

Getting Away with Eating

Here are Suzanne and I at the scales at our Weight Watchers meeting. How on Earth it happened, I don't know, but I feel like we've cheated gravity. We lost 6 pounds between us this week... What happened? I was quite sure that I gained, maybe, two pounds this week. I posted all those wild nights out. And Suzanne, geeze, she got all liquored up with those great Russian Gals at the Jewelry party and she "sat on her ass for 14 hours" of bus ride on the field trip for her school. Whatever it was, we are highly motivated now.




On the way to the meeting we stopped by Blackbeary Bog to admire "an architectural piece" which I am going to buy for my f-abnit (future bathroom cabinet area) and we got a piece of advice from Shawnee that was amazing. She was telling us about her children and what it was like to raise children and about the time when she was sure it was over for her, that she was entirely lost to the world of small children. Then she said,

It's a really short period of time where you forget who you were...and then when you come out of it-it's fiery! -Swami Shawnee

We left there feeling magically lifted.




















Our evening on Mansfield Road was filled with Disco Dancing.

Daylight Savings Time

Another spring around the corner? In Alaska daylight savings time means one thing: the beginning of the season in which it is hard to get your children to sleep at night. Is spring around the corner, really? Considering that Saturday night the wind was blowing gale force into my house and there were 5 inches of fresh heavy snow on my porch in the morning, I would say not.

Vince and the kids had spent the night at the cabin and as they were walking out the door, Vince and I had made a plan to meet at the parking lot at 8.30 in the morning so he could pick me up and take me to the cabin. We did not think to specify 'with spring forward?' And so I set my alarm for six, showered, drank coffee, started my chores that I wanted to get done (but blew off in exchange for dinner with Mindy) and turned on the computer. Lo! with DST I was late to meet Vince! Luckily, he knows me well enough to know that there was a good chance that was going to happen and so he was not upset.

Marina and I got some snowshoeing in. The kids did some riding. Everyone celebrated the fact that DeeJay learned to stand up and move around while he was riding so there were less serious accidents. Not saying that there were not many accidents. In fact, there was one where he blasted off a cornis at full speed and then the machine was going so fast he flew off and right onto his back and the machine kept on going. These are the pictures that document the event.

Fat Olives with Mindy H!

Now I realize that this is not the most flattering picture of Mindy. In fact, she is practically unrecognizable. However, it was the one that summed up the fun I had for the three hours that we were able to sit at the bar and visit with each other.

Sure, there was the sharing of mutual angst about a child or two and strategies and confessions about solutions. But mostly we just laughed our heads off. I loved especially that she was willing to follow me into the men's restroom so that I could confess to her how I found out that I was the Homer Town Grand Disseminater of Gossipy Information. She is a Bush Bitch for sure.

I know that I should have been home, cleaning the house...which was my plan...a good plan... Life got in the way today. The bakery,
the beach, and then another supper out. Ah, the life.

Thank you Mindy for a great night out and I will begin my planning in earnest for the Bush Bitch Birthday Bash.

Spaghetti Feed Fundraiser and Hockey Tournament

Another day, another outing!

Today we started with watching Riley (Irene's first son) play a fantastic game of hockey! Our town is hosting the state tourney and so the place was packed full of little hockey kids and their parents. I never realized what a fantastically noisy sport hockey is. The bystanders bang furiously on the Plexiglas surrounding the rink and WOW what an exciting feeling. Next time I will bring earplugs.

I will admit that I got very sentimental at the singing of the Alaska State Song. I love this state! Why do the winters have be so dark! I also love it when I see Riley doing something that is so reflective of his deep inner talents. He scored two goals and really shines out on the ice.

You might be wondering what my kids were doing during the game...listening to the ipod with M.R. and dancing in an empty lockerroom.

Then it was off to the Lutheran Church so that we could attend the spaghetti feed potluck auction fundraiser for Marina's preschool. There was a good turnout and everyone had a Lutheran style good time. What do I mean by that? There were lots of delicious deserts that people brought, like butterscotch friendship bread muffins, and lemon cake, and pies, lots and lots of pies. The kids were milling around until a teen put on a movie for them in the back room. The adults were polite and not rambunctious. The auction items went for reasonable prices and there were no bidding wars. The last item up for bid were 5 gallon buckets of lettus that had been donated for the dinner, but were not eaten. Why let something go to waste? After the second item sold Vince rolled his eyes at me and said, "I'm going to watch the movie with the kids. Let me know when you are ready to go." He's such a good sport.

Falcom and Mom on the Town

Falcom had no school today. It was a fun quiet morning around the house and after we dropped Marina at school we went shopping for a gift for DeeJay's birthday. First,we went to the Fringe, a store that we had never visited before. Falcom grabbed the camera out of my purse and started clicking away. Good thing the proprietress was cool with that. Kari then told him about upcoming fashion shows and he is excited. Then off to Blackbeary Bog where we were complimented highly by the super awesome clerk/bartender who was at the show where Falcom did Proud Mary. She was blown away by the crowd response.
Great to hear. Then to Ulmers where I visited with my dear friend E.W. while Falcom used the bathroom and belted out some song in those great acoustics and the whole store was flabbergasted with the sound. Even E. said, "I had no idea."

Then Regular Thursday started with Marina grudgingly going to ballet. K.F. took them while Vince and I went to parent teacher conferences ("He is doing so well in so many things, but math...") and then home and dinner in the crock pot and Falcom, Marina, and I curled up to watch the movie Kinky Boots which I ordered off Netflix. It was the perfect end to a day with my son.