Do you hear that music?

This rates up there pretty close to the skirt story in my embarrassing moments....

So, I got into DC on Thursday night, which means to fly cross country, I had to be at the PDX airport at about 4am for a 6am departure. I was worried about oversleeping so I think I left my house at 2:30am and got to the airport by 3am. Fun times waiting out in the dark for 15 minutes for the next economy bus to come by.

I get through security, and start looking around. It is time for Spring Break travel and there was some very crazy outfits or lack of clothes at the airport on 3am. I seriously saw a girl wearing what I think was a swimsuit coverup as a DRESS. It covered very very little. I also saw bikini tops, shorts, flip flops. Its Portland, it was no warmer than 50degrees the other day, let alone at 3am. So, the flight to DC was not so relaxing. It included a woman sitting in the middle seat who "spilled over" into my seat so that I was pushed towards the aisle. Thank Goodness for an aisle seat! I would of gone completely postal if I was at the window. I'm somewhat claustrophobic.
In addition to the lady in the middle, the seat in front of me was filled with 2 small children, a mom who is not really engaged in parenting, and a grandma sitting across the aisle from her. The child, who I think was 2-3 years old did a whole lot of screaming, jumping, and yelling back and forth between grandma and mom. I put on my noise canceling headphones not to get some sleep persay, but just to cut some of the noise.
So, when I finally got to DC, I really had not slept much on the plane ( which is my usual plan). I got to my room and was excited that I had some time to take a quick nap. I laid down on the bed, and then... I heard some low music, but very clearly, I could hear an ABBA song, then an Air Supply song, and then some other song I recognized.
I was so mad, I thought, "Is the stupid hotel now pumping music into people's rooms?". I opened my room door to see if I could hear music in the hallway. Then, I called down to the front desk to see if they played music in the hallways or in the lobby and did they recently play an "ABBA" song? The lady insisted this is not the case. She suggested that someone come up to check it out.
In the meantime, I unplugged the alarm clock and still kept hearing the low music near the vent, so I was sure a neighboring room was playing music! AAAGH!
I called the desk again to tell them that I really wanted a room change, I couldn't get the music to stop. Then, the room service arrived and I insisted the person come to the vent to see if he could hear the "music". Unfortunately, during this time, the music was not playing so he did not hear the music. I assured him that I was hearing music and that I've heard atleast 5 songs.
Next, the engineer was sent up to my room. Luckily, he did actually hear the music coming near the vent. However, he was really unsure how the music could come through the vent. Then, he said he heard the music near the vent, but coming out of my bag. I openened the bag to find that my headphones were still plugged into my IPOD and it was now blaring a Celine Dion song. So, I was hearing music, it just wasn't from some mysterious vent explanation.
I said, this is so embarrassing, I'm sorry. I'm sure you'll have a good laugh over this. I'm not losing my mind, I'm just crazy.

You mean Mom is famous!

I don't know if I can explain this to do it justice, but it was so funny, I had to attempt it.

Last week during dinner we were having a conversation and I think the conversation turned to what I do at work. The kids are very interested in how I work with kids or where I work with kids etc. So, the conversation continued, I tried to explain that I'm not a teacher, and how I do therapy with kids... And then, Ryan made some comment about how I knew people in different parts of the state, possibly related to some recent presentations in the Southern part of Oregon, and all of a sudden Grace exclaimed, "Do you mean that Mom is FAMOUS?!". I was already busting up, so Ryan did answer and explain that its important to do good work because people get to know you, and Grace was saying "Wow". I'm sure she's thinking its Famous like on the Hannah Montana scale. I'm letting is slide, it may buy me some good behavior.

Today, on the phone she asked if I was able to meet with the President. I'm hoping she was joking. I am in DC for the weekend for a national meeting, which did include lobbying on Friday. I think that may be from me explainig what lobbying is.... again, her expectations are pretty high!

The Power of Prayer

Of course its a good thing that our kids believe in the power of prayer. However, we may have to rein it in. Lately, we've seen the following examples...

(1) We are going camping for 2 nights over Spring Break. Before you get excited that I've gone back to my roots- let me clarify that we're borrowing our neighbor's hardtop camper that has a heater, electricity and shelter! Its going to be great. Especially if there is a possibility of rain. The kids are excited. So excited in fact, that Grant has been praying on a regular basis for the following:
"please bless that we can eat good food while we go camping"
"please bless that we can eat a lot of marshmellows when we go camping"

For some reason, my kids will do almost anything for marshmellows. I'm not sure what that is about, but I've taken full use of that fact and they only get marshmellows when we go camping or we're at the beach. So, the magic continues.

(2) Then, Grant's teacher at church let us know he offered the following prayer last week:
He said "Please help us to stay close to our parents at the zoo, bless our dinner to be good today, and asked if all the kids in the class could spend the night at his house during spring break!"

Obviously, the kid believes in miracles. I have no explanation for his obsession with sleep overs.

And, for the record, we've never lost him at the zoo. I have no idea where that comes from either, we haven't been to the zoo since last Fall.

Obviously,we'd dropped off the Earth

I'm not exactly sure what has happened in detail since my last post, but I have some ideas. To catch up, here are some details:

1. The kids have been cast in the local High School play, "Suessical". Originally, they were to sing 1-2 songs and be a group of cute little who kids. Sounds great right? That has DRASTICALLY morphed into a much more intense committment. I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, its just not what we originally tried out for, so we've had to make some major adjustments. The kids have practice for about 5 hours per week, which includes vocal singing ( of a lot more than 2 songs) and a day of dancing. They have now been cast in most of the scenes of the play. This is all good, its just an adjustment. There are about 10-12 "little kids" in the play and the director and the HS kids have liked them so much they are being asked to be much more involved.

Grace is now in the jungle scene, she is a jungle animal now. I think she is not a "who" but that is not completely clear. She will also be in the circus scene, but we're not there yet either.

Grant.... lots to say here. The tryouts were supposed to be for school age kids, I brought him along to the tryouts with a half hearted belief that he'd be able to try out. OF COURSE they wanted him to try out, which consisted of getting up in front of an audience and telling about himself as then to sing the ABCs. He of course did fabulously. So, thats how we got here. He has remained a Who- but he is also now cast in the soldier scene and a bunch of other stuff. Considering the intensity, he really is doing pretty well.
During one of the first days of the dancing, I had to counsel the HS kids assigned to work with Grant to not allow him to hug and kiss everyone! I had to pull him off the stage at one point because I looked up to see him grabbing the high school girl next to him around the legs to ask for a hug! He didnt' even know her! This is a nightmare for a Speech Pathologist, I mean HELLO I teach kids about social boundaries and expectations!
So, from that point on, I told them to help me enforce this, and that he can only do High 5's. That has gone well from now for the most part.

Its all a good experienc right? I keep telling myself this. The play runs the last weekend of April and the first weekend in May. We aren't even to the horrid week ( there are other words I'm learning from others)- which is the week prior to the play.

Hmm, I'm thinking of what else.
Its starting to be Spring, and we've ordered a greenhouse, which hasn't arrived, and now its getting warmer. I'm wondering if we should't just plop the seeds in the ground. We're trying to grow a few more things this year and figure out how to maximize our sun exposure.

Ryan has started to make his ( and our) own yogurt. Suprisingly, its really easy, and I have Kira to thank for that. So now, that is the norm in our house. I don't eat milk products, but the 3 of them seem to like it OK with the addition of jam or fruit?

I have some other things, but they'd be better in a separate post...