‚ Sarah had a birthday on Tuesday. I couldn’t be there because I was taking Lena back to Chicago, but we got together on Wednesday to share some BLTs and Banana Cream Pie (birthday girl’s choice!) We were supposed to take the kids to Reiman Gardens where Sarah works but we had to go home instead. 
We are looking forward to taking them another time though, and I recommend to anyone traveling near the Ames area looking for something to do that they stop at Reiman and check out some of Sarah’s work. My daughter Elise especially likes the butterfly garden. I gave Sarah a fun Summery dress and some coordinating nail polish and lip gloss for her birthday. I can’t wait to see her in them.
Archive for July, 2006
‚ Here is a photo of my Russian sister and me taken on our one day together in Muscatine. It was great to see her again. Unfortunately we really didn’t have enought time to actually do much. I hope she felt it was worth the trip. ‚
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Last night was Elise’s last Jazz dance lesson for the Summer. Tonight I took her to ballet and she posed for me to take her picture to show everyone. She has one more ballet class. It’s amazing how, as her parent, when I watch her dance, one moment I find myself thinking “Wow! She is so good at that, soo much better than the other girls, look how she pays attention and remembers what to do. She could really excel at this, I need to get her into real lessons.” And then the next minute I think “Look at her running around and goofing off and messing up the pose, why isn’t she getting it, she’s not really paying attention she’s more interested in the tape on the floor than perfecting her leaps.” Silly parents. Overly proud and overly critical at the same time. I’m glad she’s having fun!
Here are just a couple of the very cute pictures I’d promised of the very cute Elena having her first cupcake at her first birthday party on the first of July.
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Ok, so it is just one Russian, but I am excited! My Russian host-sister from my time abroad is coming to see me! I haven’t seen her in (gulp!) a decade! It is impossible to list or describe just how different my life is now than it was when she knew me as a teenager. Of course I realize that is normal and I’m sure she has changed a lot too, after all, she was only 13 last I saw her! Still. I am very excited to see her, but she only has one day here with me before she has to return to the East coast 
. She won’t even have time to come to my home. I’m meeting her in Chicago and I’ll get to take her to see my folks and I’ll have Josh bring the kids so she can meet my family, but then its off again she goes. I am hoping that maybe she will spur some memory of the Russian language for me. I am a little bit nervous about communication. Her English is alright, but my Russian is uber-rusty! Not that I’m worried about important things like needing a drink or a bathroom or anything like that. I’m more afraid I won’t be able to sustain “girl talk” ‚ to get the scoop ‚ on everything I’ve missed ‚ over the last 10 years! Of course my Russian was never perfect, and already she has reminded me that I used to ‚ have a lot of favorite silly words and phrases that I probably overused. Da Ladno. No, it’s true. I did. Anyway, long story short, too late. Did I mention I was excited to see my Russian sister for the first time in 10 years?!
For dietary purposes ‚ I don’t supose I can get away with the statement that all I’ve eaten so far today is fruit and vegetables when the specifics are that I had the inside of a strawberry pop tart, corn chips and salsa.
Omigoodness! I used to have a Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy daily calandar and this was like one of my all time favorites!!! But I haven’t seen it in years and when I would try to retell it to people I’d always mess it up! So here it is for you to enjoy, unmessed up!
So Thursday was fun. And Kate and I watched Monkey Business starring Cary Grant . ‚
So we ‚ arrived at ‚ the Wheeler’s in pretty good time Sunday, July 2nd–just in time for dinner. Josh and the kids got some of Chris’ spaghetti, I had a frozen pizza (one of my ‚ latest addictions–California Pizza Kitchen White Pizza). We discovered that separating the kids and having Elena in a bedroom made a huge difference in getting the kids to sleep. With the kids asleep we were then free to ROOK the night away! Oh yeah, and we watched Send Me No Flowers (Doris Day & Rock Hudson). ‚ Monday Chris and Kate had classes, I hit Wal-Mart to get some pictures developed, and Josh and the kids went fishing with his family–the last we’ll see of his sister Laura for the next year and a half, she’s left now for her mission in California. Then of course, more ROOK. And Kate and I watched Pillow Talk (another D.D. & R.H.). Tuesday ‚ Josh and ‚ Chris took the kids fishing in the morning then they brought the kids back to Kate and I so that they could go ‚ to Hu-Hot for lunch and then to see Superman Returns in the theater–in honor of Chris’ upcoming birthday which we were not going to be around for (which is today by the way!) Wednesday, the 4th is kind of a blur to me except that I know Cameron crashed early so I stayed with him while the others went to see the fireworks–which everyone said were great. Thursday Josh and Chris went to Fort Madison and I went to visit my Grandma and do ‚ jewels–we got through almost a whole box! On my way back to Coralville I passed the scene of what looked like a pretty serious accident that had traffic backed up a bit so I missed all of Michael’s tee-ball game. When I finally got back to the Wheeler’s ‚ Kate’s parents were already there and Rusty and Erin arrived soon after bringing a Cookie Cake! At dinner (yummy taco salad) Chris experienced what I would venture to say was one of if not the most embarrassing moments of his life (which I will spare him further embarassment by not repeating here.)! More to come, same bat time same bat channel!