Sunday, August 31, 2008

Catching up before taking off...

E just came up to compliment me on this photo, and I realized it sums up our travel experiences of late.

I haven't been posting for several reasons. First of all, our summer was deathly quiet and boring until about 2 weeks ago. For some crazy reason, we decided we could travel about 2000 miles in the space of 2 weeks...first, to Cincinnati and back, then to Camp Michigania and back. What were we thinking?

I'm going to blame it on my sister...she "took" our usual Fourth of July time at our folks', stretching it into a two week visit so that we could get no time in before (bad weather) or after (folks off sailing for a month).

Then perhaps I'll blame Camp Michigania. That's easy. Well, really it's our fault, for not deciding to go until after their annual lottery (in January...who's thinking of summer vacation in January?! Not us...) We were put on the wait list for Week 10 and Week 11 (the last two weeks of camp).

We got in for both weeks...but couldn't take Week 10, as we'd already planned our trip to Cincinnati, to see friends in from California we'd hadn't seen in 3 years. We were #9 on the wait list for Week 10, we'd never dream we'd get in. Being that we were #1 on the wait list for Week 11, we had a sinking feeling we'd be called up for it, and we were.

Add in the complication of getting Ben to my folks after camp (for my jaunt to Phoenix later this week), and a bout of flu (yes, while at camp) for three of us (Ben, Egor, and me, not all at once, thank God), that left us stumbling into town late yesterday, tired, sick, not ready to unpack and repack and shop and cook for my week ahead.

Look at that countdown clock! Whoo-hoo. I'm hoping to share more pictures soon, but probably not before I take off on Wednesday. Phoenix, here I come!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Guess what his favorite new word is?


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Originally uploaded by CreativeExile
Ben, say bottle.
Bot-tle.
Ben, say orange juice.
Orng-jus.
Ben, say supercalifragilisticexpialdocious...
No.
Ben, can you say yes?
No.

The boy is spent.

Busy preparing for CE. Went to look for new luggage today...my rolling carry-on is so small, and the next size up in our luggage collection is HUGE (will weigh 50+ lbs with paper supplies stuffed in there upon my return...), so I need something medium-sized but I want something cUtE, KWIM? God, luggage is ugly these days.

Maybe I'll borrow Tess's cupcake suitcase...