More Time to Think than to Blog

We've had several busy days in a row lately. Last weekend, there were two concerts on the west coast, so we spent the weekend in Ft. Myers. On Friday, Rob left for the concert and I humored the kids by serving dinner on the screened lanai. (Note: Lanai is the Florida word that means porch.) We were on the 2nd floor and we had a nice little dinner and were clearing off the table when we realized we were locked out. My phone, the keys...both in the kitchen. Well, it isn't difficult to look pitiful with 2 little kids and a baby - especially if you are clearly locked out on a screened lanai! We waved down the next couple that passed by and they called Rob and he came to our rescue.

The next day we left our diaper bag at Home Depot...it's still there.

The 2nd concert was on Sunday night, getting us home in Miami around 1am. We started VBS the very next day - and we have not been the earliest risers lately. Somehow we got through the morning and that afternoon, I witnessed a miracle - all 3 kids napped simultaneously for 2 solid hours...and I got to nap too!

At VBS I offered to volunteer (this VBS was not at our church) and they put me in one of the two 3 year old classes. I decided over the week that the 3 year old class is offered as courtesy to the parents. It was a circus. About half of the 15 kids in the class were able to concentrate on the material. The other half would randomly get up and head for the toys. C & A both had a fabulous time, Natalie finally decided to be content in the nursery today. There was free pizza for all the volunteers for lunch today :)

Tomorrow, we are taking our neighbors to the airport. They are spending the summer with their family in Slovakia. I feel safe in assuming that most of my readership doesn't know where Slovakia is - mostly because when I asked my neighbors, they had a hard time telling me with out using a map. In short it is a small sort of bean shaped country directly south of Poland. A sort of lumpy bean, maybe more of a raisin. Once upon a time it was part of Hungary, but more recently it was the "slovakia" part of Czechoslovakia.

Next week Natalie turns 1! I have been too busy to even think about her birthday, but our plan is to have a sort of birthday themed playdate. I am going to ask people not to bring gifts. We are really going to invite the big kids' friends and Natalie doesn't need anything or care about getting anything. C & A just want to play with their friends and eat cake. Me too, for that matter! I don't know what direction to go with for the cake yet. She likes books, dogs, taking things out of bags, and well...Mommy. She is a real Mommy's girl :)

I think this post is more of a blog (in the sense of a web-log) than I usually post. But it is kind of dull, maybe I need to add a picture.

Ok, now I need to include the story. Also while we were in Ft. Myers...we had lunch with some friends at their bay-front home. They had a beautiful grand piano and the cutest little matching kiddie piano. They invited us to swim (in their pool) and the kids and I all changed clothes in their daughter's bedroom...which we found out later was the scene of a murder! Evidently a man had shot his wife in that room, wrapped her in a mattress and dumped her into the bay. Yeah, so I'm not sure if our friends got a really good deal on the house or what, but as the story goes, no one wanted to buy it for a while after that.

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If you comment, answer these questions:
Have you ever been locked out and trapped?
What's your position on 3 year olds in VBS?
Did you know where Slovakia is?
Do you think it's offensive to describe a nation as "raisin shaped"?
What should Natalie's cake or cupcakes look like?
And have you ever been on a non-famous murder scene? (for example, Ford's Theater is a famous murder scene)