hello and goodbye....

Not much time to sit in the comfy chair this fine morning. I have already been to the pool, yay me! Makes me wonder why I ever give myself such a hard time about getting out the door to go. I never regret it. The kids all went to school again, the younger ones have been going day after day because of state testing, and because they are going to miss the entire week next week. We are leaving tomorrow....

Paul bought me a GPS for the minivan. It reassures me a tiny bit, that I won't get lost if he takes a nap while we are traveling and I am at the wheel. I am not an electronics expert. Nope. Not me. If it has too many features, I am afraid of it. Jonathan can figure things out quicker than I can. He likes to change the vehicles and the voice modes on Emily's GPS. So he is very excited that we now have one. Yeah, I know that one can use their Smartphone as a GPS. But guess what? Paul and I have regular old fashioned phones. He has an iPod and we have Nooks...but no Smartphones.

Anyway. I am mostly packed. Sonja K. showed me all the clothes she was packing, and I felt bad for her. She doesn't have very many. She is the fifth of five girls in a row, and one would think she would have plenty of hand-me-downs...but...different shapes, different tastes, styles change...so Sonja needs a few things for the trip. Suzanne found out I was picking Sonja up early from school, so she asked if she could please come too...and since I haven't taken her anywhere to get her hair fixed yet, I said I would. Emily is picking Kathryn and Evelyn up early today, just because. Because she has no work, and likes to do fun things with her sisters.

I was thinking this morning that if I were to talk to each of my children for a half hour, it would take 8 hours. Some evenings I feel like there is like a line-up of kids waiting to tell me something. (and they wonder why I don't always remember things). There are kids who are naturally more chatty and open, then a few that I have to seek out to talk to. One of the reasons I like to take different kids with me when I go out and about, is to have that special time with them. Having just Suze and Sonja today sounds fun.