Catching Up . . .

Although I didn't actually see one myself, I heard snowflakes were spotted in the area today. Yes . . . snowflakes . . . in April. It's hard to believe two weeks ago I was having dinner on the boardwalk in Virginia Beach with Erin and today there were errant snowflake sightings in PA.

Speaking of Virginia, the rest of the Closeout Tour went great. I signed most of the closing documents Friday when I met with the realtor and the title agent had a daughter the same age as K who shares her flair for the dramatic . . . there's speculation they were separated at birth. I collected the last few odds and ends from the house and met Erin at Mahi Mah's for a mojito and dinner outside on the boardwalk then headed to Murphy's Irish Pub for a Harps. I love PA, but it was nice to be back in civilization, even if it was only for a few days. Saturday I helped Kristin out selling her awesome chocolate at the Herb Sale in Ghent then met the girls from work at Knuckleheads for some live music and Miller Lite. Sunday morning Rick utilized his amazing packing abilities and managed to fit all my stuff in the car while still leaving room for me, K and 2 suitcases. I am constantly amazed at the spacial aptitude of men. I collected K and we headed back to PA.

Monday and Tuesday were spent mostly getting K back on schedule . . . apparently 5 day weekends are not conducive to smooth Monday mornings. Wednesday was fairly uneventful which was a good thing since I had to take my WorkKeys Assessment test on Thursday at 9:30 . . . this is the three part 4 hour test I need to pass to even be considered for the only job I've applied for since January that I would probably actually enjoy. I got home in time to take K to her last soccer practice before games start. Practice only lasts an hour, but somehow she managed to stop a corner shot "between her leg and her girly parts" (ouch). If that wasn't enough to make her gun shy, about 10 minutes later, she got hit so hard that she actually had the imprint of the soccer ball on her stomach for over 2 hours. Needless to say, I had to bribe her with a double scoop of ice cream on the way home to get her anywhere near a ball for the last ten minutes of practice.

Friday is Movie Knight around here. Mom and Dad go to the AmVets and K and I commandeer the living room, scarf down pizza and popcorn and enjoy a good movie. It was our first movie night in awhile, so I though K would be excited, but she shot me the "Seriously?!?" look when I told her I rented "Dr. Doolittle, Million Dollar Mutts." Of course, once the animals started talking, I was Mother of the Year again.

Saturday was K's first soccer game of the season and we spent the afternoon working on her very first speech . .. Yes, apparently public speaking training starts in 1st grade. K selected Bears as her animal of choice so we spent most of the afternoon online finding out Koala Bears are not really bears and Black Bears are not always black. The rest of the afternoon was spent sorting through K's stash of stuffed animals for the perfect visual aids. Then it was time to head to our friends, the Kishbaugh's for dinner with their family and my brother, sister-in-law and niece. It just doesn't get any better then that.

After an early night, it was up bright and early Sunday morning for church and K's CCD class, lunch and fine tuning the Bear Speech . . . we also found a great Black Bear Word Search and Maze to copy and hand out to the kids . . . hey, a little extra never hurts! After about 12 run throughs of the 2-3 minute Bear Speech (which was somehow taking 5 minutes a run) I was ready for a drink. Instead, I settled for making sure K and I both had clothes for Monday since she had school and I had work. Yep, w-o-r-k. After more than three months of applying for everything from the temp agency to the copy shop, I finally found someone to hire me. Thursday is my last day of Census training and I've met so many interesting people in class. Next up, knocking on doors!