Me Again!

OK, so I have all these grandiose plans for blogging and keeping my friends in touch, but I can never manage to find a solid block of time to come and post! Sorry.

I have finally got my Kodak picture software loaded on our new pc, so I can post pics again (one of the major reasons for not posting), but it takes a while to shrink them down and then upload them onto blogger, so there aren't any for this post.

We've been having a busy summer so far! Whenever the weather permits, we spend at least 2-3 hours at the community pool (DH says, "We'd better get our money's worth out of those passes!"). For the past 2 weeks, Dan and Katie had swim lessons every morning, so we pretty much spent every day there, except for the one day we got rained out. I am watching Katie's friend Meagan 3x/wk, and she comes over at 7:15AM. Anyone who knows me even superficially knows that that is an automatic UGH! for me. I don't usually like to get up before 9 if I can help it. When the kids are in school, I would get up, get them ready, drive them over, and come home and go back to sleep! But having a friend over is helping to keep K from getting too bored, and for the most part M is a good guest. Even Danny gets along really well with her, so there is rarely any tension there. The other day, the 3 of them were making up a Harry Potter the TV Show, and assigning each other roles. It was so cute to see them running around with make-shift wands and claiming, "I'm Harry, Dumbledore, and Sirius!" or "I'm Hermione, Ron, and Snape!" Hey, they were using their imaginations, and the tv was off - I couldn't ask for more than that, right?

This week, I signed up Katie and Meagan for a sewing class at JoAnn Fabrics, where they get to make a pillowcase. They both had a great time picking out fabric, and the class, which was today, went really well. I was most impressed with the instructor, b/c she had 7-8 girls, from 5-9 yrs old - Katie and Meagan were the 9yr olds. They each got to use their own machines, and use the iron when they were all finished. They did great! Katie can't wait to use her pillowcase - I won't be surprised if it's on her pillow tonight. Right now we are at the library; she and her friend Lizzie are doing a little beading jewelry activity. We also met another of K's friends on the way in - a nice surprise! Danny was supposed to come too, because he's been begging to come to the library and spend time on the computers, but he spent the day at Grandma's, and he said he was too tired to come. Tomorrow, Katie and Meagan are signed up for a jewelry class at JoAnns. I think I'll try to find something fun to do with Dan while they're busy (today I just stayed in the store the whole time).

Last week I took Meagan and Katie to the movies to see "Kit Kittredge an American Girl". It was really well done (especially compared to their tv movies), and I liked the messages in it. American Girl can sometimes be a little too liberal for me (read:feminazis) so I wasn't sure if they would go too far, but I really didn't find anything at all that I didn't like in it. Next week, we're meeting a friend of Danny's in the afternoon and going to see "Journey to the Center of the Earth". Dan's a little ambivilent, because he knows movies are rarely as good as the book (especially with a classic like this) but I'm hoping Brendan Frasier can add enough humour to make up for it. Speaking of which, I don't know if we'll bring Danny or not, but I am looking forward to seeing the next Mummy movie - I really liked the earlier ones.

We had a visitor last weekend - a good friend of ours from the South came for 4-5 days, and he and DH spent most of their time out of the house. They saw numerous movies, went to Dave and Busters, and ate out a lot. Did I get to participate at all???? Noooooo, of course not. But that's ok; I have friends here that I can see and go out with, whereas DH's keep moving away (another good friend moved to MD!). It was nice to see Dennis (when they were around), and I really wish his wife Lori could have come too. Hopefully, next time it'll be her turn and WE can do all the carousing! When they lived here, she was my best movie buddy. We'd borrow movies and watch them while the kids were in school, or go to the movies whenever a good chick flick came out. Now I just keep seeing ads for movies and thinking, "if Lori were here I'd love to go see that!"

My friend Michelle has been inviting me to go along with her to some orchestra concerts this summer - we've been to 2, we're definitely going again next week, and I'm hoping to go to another in August. Her family gets package tix every summer, and she has to go to help with her grandmother. She bought tickets for her son to go too this year, but he always has a softball game, so I get to use the ticket! Sweet for me, and for Ian too, b/c after the first 2 concerts he said he was bored anyway.

I have been reading like a fiend, and I'd love to have some kind of list of what books I've gone through, but I haven't been keeping track. Last weekend a friend introduced me to the Twilight saga, and I blew through the 3 books in 1 week. Now I can't wait for Aug 2! I won't be going to any of the bookstore parties -we went to the release of HP7, and it was fun - I'm not sure how much I want to hang out with vampire fanatics! I am not usually into vampire romance (at ALL) but 2 different friends had read it and the 2nd actually showed me the book, so how could I say no? What I'm really looking forward to is the movie in December. I saw the EW article and was disappointed with the actor playing Edward (he just looked creepy to me) but I've seen the trailer online and the movie actually looks good. Edward is played by the actor who played Cedric Diggory in HP, and he's much better looking on screen than the article portrayed. Even so, it's hard for me to dig up much sympathetic feeling for vampires - I am definitely on Team Jacob!!!

Well, Katie is done with her jewelry now so it's time for me to go. I'll try to post again soon!