Mother's Day

May 14 -- Mother's day was lovely. I'm sending out a thanks to C12 for saying happy mother's day, and a super-special thanks to Q11 who had a  grand vision and put it together, with the help of TCR, who paid for it all, and a teacher who created some fun things with the kids, too.



C12 DID offer to give me a hug if I gave her some chocolate, but I declined the offer. It doesn't work that way, dear. I did share the chocolate with her, but there was no quid pro quo.

I'm going to jump ahead to May 21 ... when we busted into the Mother's DAY spa and this is how it began. YIKES, right???!!! We did get all spa'd up and our skin felt Ah-MAZING. But the masks were weird to wear.

The Beginning of the end of the school year

C12 is in the Creative Writing program in her middle school. Which means she gets extra classes in writing. Cool. One of the things they did was enter their writing in a county-wide write-a-book contest.

C12 won 2nd place for her entry in the Illustrated Fiction, 7th grade. M13 did the illustrations, C12 did the writing.
SO, we went to the award ceremony. Here we are waiting for the ceremony to start.

Here they are getting their awards. Nice job, girls!!!

Organized Chaos - I Love Rock 'n' Roll

We LOVE the elementary school talent show. Some incredible kids and they are ALL super brave to get up there and share their talents. These 5th graders were my favorite, of course.

Cousins!

Easter week/vacation was busy.

First, M48 visited with K13. Then Meme and Pep visited for Easter Day only and we all had Easter dinner together. I have no photos. Then Meme and Pep left, then M48 & K13 left. Then G41 arrived with G, S5, and C6 (ages Unknown). We hung out with them at our house then hit monuments. We did a LOT of walking

We took the Metro down to the city, and just out of the metro we arrived at the the Navy Memorial

Walk walk walk ... West, along the Mall. We arrived outside the new African American History Museum and headed to bathrooms.

We found the bathrooms near the Washington Monument.
All the girls and Me & G41.

The WWII Memorial. The water looked REALLY inviting.

More walking, more water. The FDR Memorial.

Visiting Eleanore

At the FDR Memorial

Visiting with George Mason. His fountain wasn't on. What?? But there was a cool place to sit.

We've walked around the Tidal Basin at this point, and are at the Jefferson memorial. We were starting to get tired. Especially the smallest of us.

Walking near the Vietnam Memorial, trying to get back home.

Q turns 11 -- at IFly Baltimore.

Birthday, of course. Q asked to go to IFly.  She wanted to take 5 friends or so but I balked at the $$ so she took one friend, which seemed just about right to me. Q11, K10, and I did the indoor skydiving. C48 was ineligible because of his separated shoulder, and C12 decided sleeping in was more interesting.

This is us getting there:

 

And inside and waiting to fly!

Me flying!

Q11, flying!

Watch the videos!



Q Flying:

Me flying:

Back in time, again. MARCH.

MARCH. Biggest thing in March was that I went down to Florida to visit Meme71 as a late birthday visit.  She picked me up from the airport, we visited botanic gardens, we ate out all of the time,  we went to a play, we went swimming, and basically had a lovely time.

Back in Maryland, Q10 and S10 worked baking cookies to sell. They are working to save enough money to send a girl or some girls to school from countries where girls are disadvantaged. They are doing great, making a lot of money. After baking and selling we all walked to Yogi Castle for a weeeeeeee little snack.

And the neighbors got a cute adorable Portugese Water Dog. I took him in during telecommute days a few times so she could be walked during the day to bridge the gap between them being home and when the dogwalker could start coming.

And, as a finale: Me in Crazy I'm on the PLAAAAANE to FLORIDA mode!

Feruary 2017

Not much happened in February, apparently. There are lots of selfies on my phone that I send to Q10 over the Google Hangouts from work if she shoots a "Hi" from school. Like this:

Also, C12 got new glasses. Whooo. OK, I didn't need to buy those, I don't know that her prescription changed much, and I spent too much money on them, but she can see, and THAT's good.

Q10 was walking L3 and found this little white dog. Q10 dragged C12 outside to help her corral the dog, who we put on our porch. We created a little cozy area for the dog, and then overnight I didn't want him in our house (He was kind of gross. So cute in this picture, but he humped everything. I mean, everybody. Yuck.). So we put him on our back porch overnight and I do not know how, but he managed to escape over  a 3.5 ft wall. Q10 was quite worried about him, but I think he's OK. He's a little survivor.