I guess it is very difficult for Rena to hand-wrapped these things with her elbow injury and it must take a long while for her to prepare. Well, but it was good and tasty though 🙂 Appreciated.
Out late last night, we didn’t leave the restaurant until 10:10! Way past our bedtime. I had to drive into DC for this dinner date. I planned on meeting up with Jeremy who took the Metro. Because of the location, it would just be easier to drive home afterwards than to take public transit. I can not parallel park for the life of me and DC parking rules are so difficult for me to understand; I parked half a mile from the restaurant.
The annual Rett conference is in town. I’m not attending, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get to see (along with a few of my fellow Rett mom pals: Laura and Lauren) Duncan who flies in from England and has done a tremendous amount for our little community and break bread with him.
When we moved every year (all over the US and all over the world), we were always the ones to say goodbye. Now that we stay around, other people are always saying goodbye to us. Meghan – good luck on your new adventure! Come back and see us, OK?
Vince is off to Sweden. He and Kiki left yesterday, late afternoon from Dulles. I’m hoping to track him via Instagram, but do far, no sign.
Each summer, I try to schedule “just enough” for Vince. I think it’s important that Vince has some time just to hang out with friends and sleep late. This past week, Vince had some down time and we hosted so many boys. It’s like a frat house here. Well, minus the girls, the beer, the loud music and the sticky floors. OK, maybe it’s only like a frat house in the sense that there were stinky boys staying up late and sleeping in and eating cold pizza.
Hey – where are you going with that pizza?
Food only in the kitchen and dining room! This is Jeremy’s rule. I am not good at following this rule either. Only Edda is disciplined enough to follow this rule.
The handoff.
Watching a movie and playing video games.
Burritos.
Chicken tenders.
Three boys asleep. Wake up! The day is a-wasting.
Edda’s going to Camp JCC starting on Monday. We love Camp JCC. Here’s Edda with some returning counselors who stopped by to say hello. I don’t know who they are because I’m not really allowed to be at camp. Edda has this WHOLE OTHER LIFE that I know nothing about. I just pay the $; she has a good time and comes home tan and tired and makes friends and she tells me nothing about it.
We met Edda’s one-on-one counselor on Friday. We taught her how to fold/unfold the wheelchair, how to use her old Android phone to play videos and how Edda walks but does not go up and down stairs and does not use her hands. It’s always a little nerve wracking handing Edda over to someone for 6 hours. It’s not that I think Edda’s going to have a terrible time, it’s just that I hope the counselor has a good time! I think I would collapse if I had Edda for 6 hours a day on the go-go-go, to the pool, to camp game, to sing, to do arts and crafts and to dance. It already sounds tiring and I’m only typing it out. This is Edda’s 4th summer, and it’s always been great.
Edda’s secret talent: eating and sleeping at the same time. Bet you can’t do that.
The house is crowded now with our cousins living in our basement, so when guests come to the house (like Kiki to take Vince to Sweden), we bring Edda into our room and let the guest stay in Edda’s room. Good night, Edda!
After dinner, Vince ordered a slice of cheese cake. I guess he has the same DNA taste buds as Donald’s. Both of them like cheese cake and I do too. May be, everyone likes cheese cake, just like everyone loves beacons, even Ruby does. Just don’t know.
I am glad that Rena’s left elbow and hand are getting much better and she has been trying to make 水饺 (dumplings) for me, at least, for past several days. Since it requires a lot of coordination of both hands, I think her should not over work her left hand until it gets completely healed. Too few exercises are not good, too much is bad also. Though her dumplings are delicious, but I can wait.
Well, Happy Anniversary 🙂
Katherine is in town to take Vince to Sweden for two weeks. Lucky Vince! We still need to get Vince a haircut before his flight leaves tomorrow. Hopefully in the am.
I love taking portraits. Especially of people who want to get their portraits taken. Do you want a portrait? I’ll take your photo. With portraits, I think I’m a one-trick-pony. All the photos look the same – off centered with eyes focused using the Rule of Thirds, natural light (find the light!) and bokah for the background – but the people! Oh, the people make the photo interesting! Everyone, stop being so beautiful and easy to photograph. You are going to slay me.
I raced a 10K on Saturday morning. 51:41 – 8:19 pace. I still can’t believe it really happened. It was hot and sunny and a lot of running on exposed sun-baked pavement – but it was not half as bad as it was the week approaching the race and not at all bad as it is right now. I think it’s almost 100 degrees outside now.
I fully intended to take a sweaty selfie to put on the blog, but right after I finished the race, my phone was able to send a quick text, a quick email and then it promptly died. I think all the water I spilled on myself during the water stops made it to my phone and shorted it out. So all you get it is an at-home post-race photo with the shoes that I ran in and Maxi who is looking at me and wondering why I don’t take her running anymore (Because it’s crazy hot and humid and I barely make it through my runs and I actually sweat whereas you, my doggie friend, can only pant. It’s inefficient and you will keel over.)
I was doing well until mile 4 and then it became very difficult and then I realized, my God, I have to keep this up for another 2 miles. No wait! It’s actually more like 2 and a quarter miles! Argh!! It’s like another 20 minutes – how the hell am I going to do this for another 20 minutes!?! But I did and it was over and I was very happy. I woke up Sunday completely sore all over, even my intercostal muscles were sore (those are the muscles that run between your ribs to expand the rib cage so you can breathe).
Mom is worried that I might be training too hard – my knees in particular. Mom, there were 799 people who ran the race faster than me. I was the 800th runner to cross the finish line. There are at least 799 people who are running faster than me who still can use their knees.
With the end of this race, I feel like I’m truly on a break now. There’s no running for a few weeks so I can rest this old body of mine. My quarter at work closed the day before the race, school for the kids ended at the same time. I’m not doing my own school. Jeremy’s home and his big work obligations are easing up (kind of). That means I’m left only with what I consider my core responsibilities of work, family and the house. Somehow I can insert back in 20 hours a week of “found time” and then everything expands to fill the time; these things always do.
I’m such an awesome daughter. I took my dad to McDonald’s on Father’s Day. And not even to one of the fancy remodeled ones with the McCafe in it. A plain, old, regular McDonald’s. It was very early in the morning because Dad wanted to head out promptly to drive back to TN. To balance out the fact that I spent very little on the food (I think my mother bought the food), I did buy Dad a nice wallet. I’ve always known my father to carry around a fat wallet, so I did get the larger size from the store. Secretly, I was hoping that the new wallet would inspire my father to declutter his wallet into a more manageable size. But my fantasy did not come true. I watched my father stuff 217 loyalty cards, 17 ID cards, 36 one dollar bills and three keys into the new wallet. He did hand the one twenty dollar bill to Vincent.