woke up early and gave anne & pete one last call.
we knew that they would be on the plane around
1:00 paris time so emily (who slept with me last
night), rolled over and asked if we could call.
they will fly straight to michigan, go through
customs there and then on to minneapolis.

today will fly by, of that i am certain.
the girls are so excited that their mom & dad
come home that they both think they should
stay home today! nice try.

i’ve got some clients to meet back at my house
today, then i’m going to pick amanda up at school
and take her right to gymnastics at 4.

finally got a costume that amanda will wear.
she put it on right away when we got home from
the store and she ran to show her friend maija.
amanda asked last night if there was halloween
vacation. funny.

well, once again i had a great time here with the
girls. no one got sick, no one got hurt, nobody
honked at mom (anne will get that!).
gary had a great time hunting. every year he
says it was their best year yet and this one
was no exception.

i’m ready to have my life back tho’, this is
tough work. so to all you mom’s out there,
i salute you! whether you work outside the home
or not, it makes no difference, it’s a tough
job and these kids just want to be loved and
recognized. i can’t remember who made mention
of this but i remember someone saying…
“everyone wears an invisible sign that says
‘make me feel special’”
i’ll be heading home tonight after the big reunion!

here’s another fun site…click here
hairstyle makeover is fun!

have a great halloween eve!

alright, here we are on our 2nd monday together.
this time has just whipped by.
emily was already up when i got up this morning.
i said, “see what happens when you go to bed on time?”

she was fast at work on “club penguin” trying to win
enough $ to get buy a halloween costume for her penguin!

josette brought the girls home around 4.
they each had a tie blanket! they worked on those
while they were there, they went to see ratatouille
and a trip to target. they did so much while
they were there!

talked to anne & pete this morning. paris already
turned their clocks back so it’s only 6 hours ahead
now but anne would like to turn the clocks ahead about
a day so that she can come home. she’s getting pretty
homesick and is getting a bit bored with the history.

oh, we went and picked out pumpkins yesterday, that
was fun. we still don’t have a replacement costume
for amanda but we’ll get that sorted out.

not much more to report from here.
oh, but notable is the fact that i got both girls
in bed at 9 last night! that was HUGE!!!

anne, i love you. make the most of your last day/night!

here’s some of the fun the passed several days…

peter’s pink princesses picked a peck of picked over pumpkins!

i slept in until almost 9. felt good.
the house is pretty quiet. the girls slept
at nana’s last night.

i decided that my neighbor’s party would
have to do without me this year. i elected
to spend the evening with my mom, just the
2 of us…haven’t done that in years.
we watched wedding crashers & failure to launch.
i opened a bottle of chianti and we just
kicked back. it was really nice.
no anne, that doesn’t mean that she’s moving
to my house!

talked to anne & pete yesterday. anne’s
ready to come home. not because she misses us~
she thinks paris is dumb. old, dirty buildings
and bad food. she was hungry and needed caffeine
in a country without mountain dew, she settled
for a diet coke and some quiche lorraine…
not quite perkins. poor dear.
pete said he could spend a year there and i know
for a fact that i could live on coffee, bread & wine
as long as i could charge my camera battery every
couple of days!
they come home tuesday night so…hang in there anne!

dropped the girls off last night at nana’s.
liz and josette were cleaning out the garage.
actually throwing stuff!! i couldn’t
believe my eyes! the siding people have a dumpster
there so they are taking full advantage of that
and they need to! they keep everything!

the house is a beautiful yellow now (some kind of
cement siding…it’s really nice!). carole had me
talk to the guys (all spanish speaking) so i translated
for her that they were doing a nice job and that
the color was lovely. nana was impressed with me.
yea, i got skills!

later today liz will drop the girls off here and
we will go and get some pumpkins and try to find
a replacement costume for amanda.

i’m going to head over to my house now and see
my cats. i miss them and they miss me.
gary comes home today so that’s nice.
the guys usually hit the road early, stop along
the way and have lunch and catch some of the
vikings game and he usually comes through the
door around 4 or 5.

nicki broke her ankle at karate yesterday.
her very first injury in 4 years. she’s a black
belt and never had an injury…pretty good girl!
waiting for the radiologists final report on the
condition but she is laying low..in a 1/2 cast.
more tomorrow.
before i go…here is a fun thing…
click here to play a silly game.

i shall start with the fact that their wireless
connection is not working for my powerbook so i’m
on anne’s computer.

it’s about 7am, no one is up, it’s dark and i
slept like a queen! emily tried to pull out all
the old tricks to come and sleep with me but i
stood my ground. why? oh, i don’t know. looking
back i figure what could it hurt, right? i mean,
really, i’m “not the mom” as amanda once said to me,
i’m the aunt. i’m supposed to break rules, right?
um, as i recall, last night anne showed me all the
notes, rules, schedules and so on but the main
thing she said was just to be sure that i kept
the girls alive while they were gone! got it!

we were all up a little late last night but it was
our first night together and the girls were a tad
sad about mom & dad going on a big plane far away
so my heart melted a little bit and…well…
i caved. once things settled down and pete and
emily quit texting one another back and forth
we got settled in our jammies, read a little
“junie b. jones” and i called for lights out.

just the ben came in my room and said..”sugar peed
my bed, right by my pillow!” OMG sugar had been
locked in there some how and decided that she would
make certain that didn’t happen again (sugar is
one of their cats)! so we did some bed stripping
and then we all turned in.

oh, but it doesn’t end there. i saw emily out of
the corner of my eye and she turned and ran back
down the hallway…she layed something on the end
of the bed…it was the note that her mom taped
to the head of the bed reminding her that she &
her dad loved her and to be a good girl etc…
i picked it up, noticed it was wet and i walked into
her room and said “what’s up? why did you bring
this in to me and why is it wet?”
emily replied, “it’s from my tears.”
she went on to say “it’s not the same.”
ben came in and gave her a big hug and told that
he understood and that seemed to calm her down.
i told her that she should be glad that sugar
didn’t pee on her bed!

okay, side bar…
frost this morning. ben thought it had snowed!

i have a meeting with a couple today that is getting
married this december. they are still in the
selection process.

anne & pete, i pray your flight was uneventful!

i found a halloween photo from last year…
my sister dressed up as our mom..nice sweater!