Easter Visit

We had a great time this weekend with my brother Brian and his family. They tried out their new perks that come from his wife working for Northwest out of the Detroit airport. They can fly free on standby, and there's a direct flight from Detroit to Charlottesville, so they decided to come visit.

They were supposed to get in at 11:00 pm on Friday night, but since there were some weather and mechanical issues, the flight left late. I thought it was going to arrive at midnight, so I left around 11:00 and went grocery shopping before getting to the airport. After about 10 minutes, a security guard came over and asked if I was waiting for the Detroit flight, because it wasn't going to arrive for another hour and a half. I guess the plane sat on the tarmac for a solid hour after they were supposed to have left, and since I hadn't brought my cell phone, I had no idea.

That's when I was grateful for a small airport and a DVD player. I pulled into short-term parking, which was free since it was after midnight, and got out the DVD player I had grabbed just in case. Ryan had gotten out "The Sound of Music" to use in class, so that was what I brought. It's amazing how a good movie can make the time go by really fast, even at 1:00 in the morning sitting in the airport parking lot. It's also amazing how much Nazi stuff there is in the movie that I completely missed when I was a kid. It's kind of like watching "Grease" again as an adult and finally understanding why my mom didn't really like me watching it. It all went completely over my head.

We had a great time with them. The kids loved playing with their cousins, the weather was beautiful, and Brian helped Ryan fix our garage door opener. Hooray! He also watched our kids so we could go to dinner with friends. We had a great dinner today, and plenty of candy to go around. They flew home on the 4:00 flight this afternoon, so it was a quick visit, but very much appreciated.

Never a Slave to Fashion...or Common Sense

She wore her pants like this the entire day. Actually, they weren't even her pants--they were Mason's. It definitely didn't help that she paired Mason's backwards pants with red polka-dot underwear (that, at least, was hers).

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Here are a few photos from today. They made a great team.

What Matters Most

For the last couple of Family Home Evenings, Ryan came up with the idea of sharing our memory books with our kids. Ryan pulled out his things last week, which included lots of saved artwork, his journals, and other things. The kids loved it.

Tonight was my night. I remember editing my memory things sometime during college and putting what I wanted in a book. That then got edited out and the important things got stuffed in plastic page protectors. So my 12 years of school from first grade to graduation were reduced to all of the awards I had received--I guess I didn't figure my art had any lasting value because it obviously didn't make the cut.

It was interesting going through it with my kids, because I realize that unless there is a ribbon, trophy, or a shiny certificate to acknowledge the accomplishment it doesn't count. The fact that I rocked the ACT? Nothing compared to getting 2nd place in high jump during my 6th-grade field day. The fact was that field day was only the 6th graders, and there were only 30 of us total. Not a lot of competition. But it came with a ribbon, and was therefor much more glamorous than the test that funded my entire college education.

They took turns holding my ribbons, which included ones for going to girls camp, and a solid number of fourth and fifth place ones that were probably in events comprised of four and five people. I compare much more to the guy on "Meet the Fockers" whose parents had his shrine to mediocrity, but because I have colored ribbons my kids thought I was pretty amazing. Maybe I should buy a trophy for myself (think along the lines of Michael Scott's "Worlds Greatest Boss" statue on the opening of The Office), because if I had a trophy that said "World's Greatest Mom", I think my kids would buy into it 100%. Just because it's on a trophy.

Car Cleaning

Every day Katie goes to preschool, she can bring a show-and-tell. She puts a lot of thought into what she's going to bring, and has recently adding the innovation of finding unique ways of disguising the chosen object.

For all of her preparation, though, she's weak on the follow-through. Twice in this last week she has left her show and tell at home, which is not realized until we're already at preschool. At this point, there's no way I'm going back home to get it and bring it back, no matter how much she pleads.

Here's where it has come in handy that although I'm trying to do a better job at keeping my car clean, I haven't gone too overboard with it. The result was that on Monday, I found a stray Pokemon card that satisfied her, and then today (although I didn't think I had a chance of finding anything), I excavated under the seats where Mason and Katie sit and found a spider ring that they must have gotten for Halloween. I also noticed a quarter under there that I'll leave for some other future emergency.

So although I would love to have an immaculate car, it is handy to have those stray half-eaten bags of goldfish, loose change in the cushions, and almost-empty bags of baby wipes tucked into little hiding places that can be retrieved when needed.

Are You My Friend?

Last week, I got two emails from friends, well actually from Facebook, saying that I had two friends who had joined Facebook and I would need to join too to see their page. I have gotten these before and always ignored them, but I wanted to check in on one of them so I went ahead and signed up.

Along the way as you sign up, you give them your email access and Facebook goes through all the names in your address book to see who else might already be in Facebook. Then I got the list of all the people I might know, and was asked to choose which ones were my friends.

Facebook is really into the "friends" thing. I looked down the list and clicked the people that I knew pretty well and continued on. I didn't realize that Facebook then sends all of those people emails to confirm if we really are friends or not. I've been feeling like I'm back in 5 th grade when you pass notes that say "Are you my friend? Check "yes" or "no"."

I guess I wasn't very careful when I chose who my friends were, because I clicked on someone I don't actually know. She emailed me asking, "Do I know you?" I had to email her back and tell her we're not actually friends and that I just made a mistake. Maybe I should have asked if she wanted to be my friend.

I never actually meant to do anything on Facebook except have an account so that I could see my friends webpage. But I logged in to see what was on my page, and it has this long list of who my "friends" have recently become "friends" with. Are they doing that to taunt me because I don't have any new friends?

Either way, I guess I'll keep it. The funny thing is that somehow it makes me feel more exposed than this blog where anyone can check in--as opposed to Facebook where I have to approve you as a "friend". But in the end, you've got to have friends, and according to Facebook I'm up to about 17 of those.