Year: 2014

Jeremy came home from Iowa at 4pm Saturday.  Look at this photo!  Button-down shirt with tie (+ nametag) in the middle of a corn field.  Funny.

Nice flower photo, Jeremy.

He took the new Silver Line home from Dulles which opened that day. There were some very exicited public transportation fans (other than Jeremy) riding the brand new line.

When he got home at 4pm, he started packing for a backpacking trip to Gila, NM.

At 5 am on Sunday (a mere 13 hours after he arrived home), we all tumbled into the minivan and delivered Jeremy and Vince to BWI.  Edda and I trundled home and took a nap.  By the time I had made breakfast for myself and fed Edda breakfast and had the dishes cleaned and put away, the boys had made it to El Paso.  Then onto a train from El Paso to Deming, NM.

Finally to Gila where it is surprisingly green.  They headed off this morning – hiking into the cellular-free wilderness.  They will come out on Friday.  Edda and I are furiously decluttering the house before they get home.

Edda has a molar growing on the inside of the regular tooth line.  It’s on the upper left side and it’s coming out in her palate.  We tried pretty hard to prevent it from happening (the middle baby molar fell out early) but the spacer wouldn’t hold on her other baby molars, so the space closed and then the tooth came out in her palate.  Our regular dentist recommended pulling it out, but wanted us to consult with the orthodontist that she works closely with to see what his opinion would be.  I went yesterday and he said that we should just leave it alone.  That if we ever needed to put Edda under for other dental work (which I’m sure we will have to someday), we can pull it out then.

I came home to find Vince watching Forrest Gump.  It’s one of my favorite movies and it came out during the summer between college and grad school where I worked at the front desk of my dorm sorting mail and hung out at the coffee shop and spent a lot of time doing nothing.  It was the Forrest Gump/Pulp Fiction (which was a great movie too, but I’m not sure Vince is ready to see that one yet) summer.

My kiddos watching the movie with me.

In one evening, Vince made broccoli for the family and labeled everything in the kitchen.

Vince is spending the week at a fishing camp.  It’s a week-long day camp, but they have one overnight camp-out.  The bus stop is at our local 7-11.  Vince revels in telling me everyday what interesting thing he has found in the store.  They sell something which appears to be a fried cheese nugget dusted with Dorito flavoring.   This 7-11 is right next to the spot where the old Blockbuster was where I spent countless hours with my high school friends deciding on what movie to rent.  And no, we did not get to eat any of the caught fish.  Strictly catch and release.

Jeremy is in Iowa this week.  That’s where the corn is and he follows the corn crop around.  I never thought he would know so much about agriculture.  He tells me that it’s a bumper crop this year.  This is the text he sent me within hours of landing in Iowa – a candied bacon sundae (and his colleague, Josh, but really, the star is the the ice cream).

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I’m starting to pull together all the information for fall classes in nursing school.  I’m starting clinicals this fall, so I needed to get a background check and drug screening done.  I’m not a felon!  Nor do I have any illicit drugs in my system!  I still need to get my TB test done.

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Edda got sent home again for lice.  After she got home, I recieved the camp-wide email alert which said that lice has been found and to look after your children’s heads.  A little embarrassing.  She was generally happier than the photo below shows as we spent a good part of the afternoon treating and combing through her hair.

Now we are just going to comb her hair every morning before camp.  I bought a handful of lice combs so we can all comb together – a family activity. It is not unusual to find me, Vince, and Nat at 8 am combing through Edda’s hair while Edda laughs and laughs.  A friend called me and recommended the lice lady – a very nice person who comes to your house to delouse a head for $200.  We are not there yet.  But I’m not above calling the lice lady if we are at our wits end.

What Jeremy wants to talk about all the time is his work.  I used to do this terrible thing where at bedtime, I’d ask Jeremy to talk about some work issue and he would get all excited and talk for 20-30 minutes without stopping and I’d gently fall asleep to the rythmn of his voice and the fact that I didn’t understand any of it past the second sentence.  Then he couldn’t go to sleep because he’d be all excited about work.  To be fair, I don’t do this anymore, it’s a little mean and self-serving.

There are only a handful of people in the world who know what Jeremy works on in enough detail for Jeremy to have a truly satisfying conversation about policy.  Jim is one of these people.  OMG, the policy chat over pizza and ice cream – the two of them were happy all evening long.

Drew moved away yesterday.  Vince really wanted to throw a going away party for him.  Twelve hours before he was slated to pull out of his driveway for the last time, Vince hosted a twelve boy party for Drew.  I guess we actually hosted, but it was all his idea.

It was really, really hard to get all the boys to stand still and pose for a good photo.  I tried.

A lot of the time the boys were like this:

I baked a cake for this party.  From scratch.  It was an excellent cake, but I don’t think any of the boys noticed or appreciated the from-scratch-ness of it.  I’m so proud of this cake.  Layers and everything!

Edda was in the Wizard of Oz last night.  I love Camp JCC.  It gives Edda the opportunity to participate in just regular summer fun.  Kara, her inclusion counselor, does a great job of including Edda in the swirl of the action.  I know Edda is having a great summer and it’s all beacuse of Kara’s hard work and attention.

It was an evening performance, Edda was a little overwhelmed – but she pulled it off.  And we all had a great time.