Unfortunately, all visits have to end or they wouldn't be visits! Aunt Christine had to leave on Monday. Grace was extremely sad to see her go and still misses her. When she and Christine are together, they play and play and play for hours on end and it is rare that Grace has play-time like that with anyone else. Since Christine flew into the Providence airport, we got to add another state to our list of states we've been. Grace and Hattie and I drove her back to the airport (and no, Jared, we did NOT get a geocache in Rhode Island!) and I got to experience a long car ride alone with the kids on my way home.
Needless to say, I'm not going to make any road-trips with them any time soon by myself. I use to think that if we could just move somewhere within a day's drive of Utah, I could drive us back and forth to Salt Lake instead of relying on air travel. Now, I'm not so sure that I would make many (if any) drives by myself. My mom use to drive us back and forth from Wyoming by herself, but she must have had a patience gene that she didn't pass along to me. I would still like to live closer to Utah - it would mean shorter, less-expensive flights, and opportunities for other people to drive to our house as well as for us to drive as a family to Salt Lake. Whatever the case, we'll just say that I'm not going to go get myself a nice minivan for the road anytime soon!
Other happenings this week:
Grace enrolled in pre-school for the fall! After inspecting a few, I was shocked at the wide spectrum of programs, curriculum, and physical condition of the schools that you can find! I thought I knew exactly what I wanted for her until I saw the school and we quickly made a different choice and other arrangements. I'm very happy with the school we chose and we spent a long time there on Wednesday morning. You could just see Grace's eyes beaming with curiosity and wonder and excitement about all the things she would get to do and learn. She is one of those kids who is just going to love school. She is so ready for it too. She'll be going to a 3 day a week morning program for next year and then she will start kindergarten in September 2008!
Grace is also a total social butterfly (which could be good and bad for school.) She's become quite good friends with the little girls in dance class. On Wednesday, we went to dinner with all of them after dance at "Old MacDonald's." We weren't prepared for what the girls would do, but we walked in and as the moms were at the counter ordering, the girls were organizing themselves together at one table. They all sat together and asked us to sit "somewhere else" with their siblings. They ate and chatted like miniature college kids. They found out where each other lived, what their houses were like, what they like to do, etc. It was amazing the natural social skills that they all had and how easily they all took turns speaking and listening to each other. By the time we left, they had planned several play dates and times to meet in the future.
Also, of note, this week Harriet has really been trying to do whatever she can to walk. It seems that she is still a long way from really walking, but she wants to so badly. She stands up to anything she can get her hands on and lets go quite a bit to see how long she can stand alone. She can't stand alone more than a second or two, but I can tell that her legs have gotten much stronger and that she is much more ready than Grace was at this age. She will be having her first birthday in less than 2 weeks and it would be so cool if she walked near the time of her birthday!
For her birthday, we do plan to celebrate here with our family, but we are also planning a trip to Utah to celebrate with our extended family. So, we will have lots to write about in the next month. We can't wait to get to SLC and possibly have a little REAL spring-time weather. 60 or 70 degrees please?
Ok, one last thing... I just HAVE to write about this because it was such a fun and rare occurrence. On Friday, we had Rita over for "tea"! The idea was spurred on when she came over for a quick favor the week before last and I said it would be nice if she could just stay for the afternoon and chat. We decided that we should plan a "tea-time" and do just that - chat all afternoon! Who does things like this in real life? I don't know, but we tried it and it was great! When I was in Kenya several years ago, we had "tea" at 11am and 2pm every single day because they still keep up some of the British traditions. Since then, I have thought that taking a break at 11am and 2pm every day was so nice and refreshing (not productive, but nice.) So, at least for one day, we did it. Grace and I made little dainty things to eat with our lemonade and Rita came over and we just ate and chatted and had ourselves a little tea party.
Onto another busy week...
1 year ago
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