Back safe

We did make it back safely from our road trip to Sioux City. We took Friday and Tuesday off work and school and made the 10-hour each way trip out to visit our friends who are also Emmelia's Godparents. We had a wonderful time visiting with them for 3 days. We went to the Sioux City Art Splash, liturgy, and the mall. We got a babysitter one night (best idea the Deac's ever had) so we adults could go out for dinner and eat, drink, and be merry without constant interruption or meltdowns. It was bliss. We watched a really good movie called Everything Is Illuminated. We cooked out for Labor Day and ate well the entire time, thanks to the culinary genius of Emmelia's Godmother. The Deac got a cool Romanian hat to wear with his cassock and jibbee. Here is Maura modeling it (she looks good in black - I think the nun's habit will agree with her):

On the way back, we stopped at not one, but TWO Cabela's stores. Oh, a funny story on the way there... as we were driving between Omaha and Sioux City, a crane suddenly flew up from under a bridge and nearly collided with our windshield. We were seriously frightened for our lives for a second, before lapsing into exclamations of "Wow - was that a CRANE? How cool!". As we turned the bend in the road, there was a giant billboard in a field that read "Prepare to Meet Thy God." Ha, ha, ha! Maybe you had to be there, but it was pretty funny.

So this week we've been trying to catch up on sleep, get back into our routine and launch ourselves into fall. Emmelia got another stripe at karate and is only 2 stripes away from being able to test for her yellow striped (white stripe on yellow) belt. She is doing really, really well with violin and soccer, too. She's really matured in the past year.

Yesterday was our first practice for Maura's soccer team. I was very apprehensive all day, but it turned out well. The kids are a lot of fun and listen surprisingly well for 3-year-olds. I though their attention spans for games and drills would be about 4-5 minutes, but I was wrong - it was more like 3 minutes. But that's okay. We played lots of games with the ball, including Simon Says, Red Light Green Light, and Feed the Dragons. We have one more practice and then we'll have our first game! Emmelia's first game is tomorrow morning. Suddenly, I find myself a soccer mom minus the minivan....

Anyway, I think I would've gotten more done this week if I hadn't discovered Facebook. If you are on there and want to friend me, send me an e-mail.

I did manage to scrap today. I need to scrap for Amy and Seebee's CTs, but am not sure I'll have time to do another LO today. I just really HAD to scrap this photo with this kit, if you know what I mean. Here's credits for Dinosaur Rest Stop:
Today I read that one of my favorite authors of all time has died: Madeleine L'Engle. I have always loved her books and her way of looking at the world, both physical and spiritual. May her memory be eternal! She died on the 20th anniversary of my baptism. That somehow seems significant, as does the fact that the book I am now reading the kids at bedtime is "A Wrinkle in Time". She really was an awesome author.