thelittlezoo.com

We’re basically packed and we’re planning to get on the road in the morning by about 7 a.m. I usually end up staying up packing until 2 or 3 in the morning and then I’m miserable in the morning when I try to get up. I’m going to try going to bed now (1 a.m.) and get up earlier. I’ve got sandwiches to throw together, breakfast sandwiches on english muffins, and lunch sandwich fixings to make fresh ones on regular bread on the road.

Our itinerary for the trip:

Thursday - drive all day. Fun. Wish us luck. Thank goodness for portable DVD players and educational fun videos and learning games!

Friday - no plans, just hanging out at the house, hoping some friends will come over as promised.

Sabbath - Church, potluck lunch afterward, at the house, with as many friends as will come over. Games Saturday night.

Sunday - Disneyland!!!! Can’t wait to see you, Jimmy! And anyone else who is planning to meet up with us! If you’re my Facebook friend, my cell phone number is posted on my info page. If I don’t answer, change the last 4 digits to 1946 and you’ll get Charlie. He wears his phone on his hip so he always hears it.

Monday - no plans. Just hanging out at the house, and maybe doing some laundry. Depending on how Thursday’s drive went, we may leave Monday evening and get partway home and stay over somewhere.

Tuesday - head back north and back to the grind.

See you in a week!

The girls and I were headed into town this afternoon to get their hair trimmed (thanks, Sue!), and I had a quick appointment to get my semi-annual lab results. Of course we had Adventurers after that, too. We were listening to the Kids’ Worship mix I’ve got on my iPod, and both girls were singing along, as usual, when Hannah said “Mommy, Mommy!” I asked what, and she said, very excitedly “I looooooove Jesus, and I want to pray to Him!” That made me smile and I said ok, go ahead.

“Dear Jesus, I love you SOOOOOOOOOO much! Amen!”

And that brought tears to my eyes.

I’m on the social committee for church and we planned an Under The Sea Banquet for last night.  My friend Stephanie (who happens to be the head of the committee) and I planned the decorations, and another lady planned the food.  Stephanie and I enlisted our husbands to help us put up the decorations, naturally.

I did some looking online and found a few photos of other Under the Sea parties, or proms, even, for ideas on how to decorate. One photo I saw had a few pieces of coral reef made out of animal twisty balloons.  I’m a little familiar with those and how they work, so I was sure I could recreate it!

Long story short, we spent all day decorating yesterday, and that was after we had already set up the tables and the entry way on Wednesday night after Adventurers!

A brief run-down of the decorations:

Click the photo to be taken to an album of all the other photos! They look really blue, but it’s just the photos, and I didn’t do any editing. I’m too busy getting ready for our trip and everything I have to get done before we go! You can tell the pictures aren’t true-color because the gravel on the tables was a bright teal green, and in the pictures you can’t tell that, at ALL! And, as always, click on the little thumbnail photos to see the larger versions. *edit - I couldn’t stand the colors being “off” and have corrected a few of them with a quick color correction, no other editing at this point*

In the typical drama of not getting her own way, Sarah flopped down on the kitchen floor with her arms folded on her knees and her head laid down, crying, this morning when I put her juice in the Clifford cup instead of the Tinkerbell cup.  Oh horrors!

Hannah came in to talk to her and try to make her feel better.

“Hannah, don’t talk to me.  I’m just crying over here.  I want my Tinkerbell cup, and I.am.crying.”

Yesterday I needed to go to WalMart and pick up a couple prescriptions, but I didn’t feel like taking the girls and going by myself.  So I waited until after dinner when all four of us could go, and could get a few other necessities.  Boy, am I glad I did!

We did our shopping, arriving back at the car around 8:00 p.m. or so.  Charlie loaded everything in the back, and I took the cart over to the place for carts while he started buckling the girls in.  Get back over to the car to find out that it won’t start!  And this is the newest car, the 2003 Saturn VUE.  I’d almost expect it of Charlie’s ‘96 Ford, but not the VUE!  It just clicked when he turned the key.  He got out and checked the battery and discovered that although the battery still had power, the cable going into the terminal in the back just pulled right out of the battery.  It was almost as if it had just crumbled apart inside.

He went back into WalMart and bought a new battery, but when he came outside he figured out that the few tools in the car wouldn’t work to put the new one in, so I called AAA while he went back in to WalMart again to wash his hands.  The service truck came out within a half hour or so, and had the tools to get the new battery in for us.  They don’t usually do that type of service on the road, but it was easier for him to do that than to have to move the girls’ carseats, hook up the car, tow it home (a mile and a half is all, but still), unhook the car, get the carseats moved again…  what an ordeal that would have been!

While we waited for the tow truck, we talked about how glad we were that it happened there, with both of us in the car, at a place we could quickly get a new battery and get someone out to help put it in.  Can you imagine if it had happened half way to Loma Linda, in a couple of weeks?  Things like that on a long trip seem a lot worse!  Or if it had happened when I was at Curves in the morning when he was home getting ready for work?

Sometimes we’re blessed enough to have something that could be pretty bad, in the wrong situation, happen at a time that makes it really not that bad after all.