Funny thing happened on my way back to Texas....

It seems like everytime I make a post, it is this long drawn out thing that I have to go back a few days or a week to get the whole story.  Well, this post is no different! :)

I was at Angie's house from September 21st until October 1st.  During that time, Angie and I got a lot accomplished (with the help of Gideon and Scott & a few of her ward friends - who happen to both know Greg & Allison Bair - one cuz she use to live in my current ward & the other cuz Greg & her hubby went to law school together - how weird is that?).  Jeff has been a trouper, but started missing me & asked me when I think everything would be wrapped up so I could come home - Thursday afternoon.  I decided that I would leave Thursday noonish and drive back down to Circleville - run over to St. George to go shopping for Bunko gifts - then head home and be home by Sunday night.....
Angie & I got up early on Thursday and hit the ground running!  She had gotten a new vacuum cleaner, a Dyson, and boy did that speed things up! It did the blinds, the baseboards, and the carpet!  We were so productive that I just knew at noon that we only had 30 min or so left....so 2 hours later, I left.  It was a nice visit.  I got to know Andrew and JT.  JT was introduced to "Scooby Doo" and I don't think Angie & Scott's life will be the same!  hahaha!  I even got JT asking for a "Coke" instead of some "Pop"!  I tried to school him in the finer Texas things! :)  Now I just need to teach him "Gig 'em" and that t.u. stinks!  Oh by the way..."dumb" is a bad word in their household, so if you are trying to open a smoke detector (that apparently has no battery and can't be opened) - don't say that it is "dumb" - JT picked up on that word right away!  Scott trying to distract him asked what they should call the fruit smoothie he made..."Yummy Tummy?"  JT just looked at him and with a straight face said, "No, I think we should call it 'Dumb'."  Oops!

On my way out of town, I called Aaron & Rebecca to tell the goodbye and that I was glad that I could go to Daniel's 4th Birthday dinner the night before.  Aaron told me that Rebecca was on her way to IKEA to look at some bedding for the room.  I have never been to IKEA and heard it was cool.  I thought, "Oh, what is one more hour..." Ummmm....have you ever been to IKEA?  It is huge!  And we know how decisive Rebecca is from my previous posts...So we ended up shutting IKEA down!  I wouldn't let her settle on just anything.  Nothing seemed to fit her room or the colors she wanted.  I spent the night at their house and we went internet window shopping.  I felt that I now had a stake in Rebecca and Aaron's room and I was going to help her find her bedding and she wasn't going to settle for anything!  So after 5 hours of mall shopping for this "perfect" bed set, with all 4 kids - thank you UEA, Rebecca settled for a "champagne" bed set.  She calls it "mmm...brown", but it is "champagne".  Now for the paint color and some Euro pillows.  Funny thing happened on the way to get all of that....we were at Kohl's for the Euro pillows and there it was....the perfect bed set, in Full size.  Thanks to the iphone we were able to look up Kohl's online and see that they had the King set online.  We bought a single decorative pillow and we were off to Home Depot to color match.  Saturday morning painted the walls - silver (or light gray, depending on how creative you want to be with the name) while listening to conference on the radio...how cool is that?  You can listen to conference on the radio in UT?!?!?!  After the painting, Aaron wanted to drive up a canyon on the way to Logan to look at the cool foliage.  Everyone but Rebecca, Matthew, and I fell asleep so they missed the cool color changes in the leaves that had already fallen off the trees, but we got to listen to conference again on the radio and take a drive! Fascinating!  I left Sunday morning after my work there had been done.  I enjoyed the quick visit again.  I got to watch Sarah take one of her first "strolls". (more than one step)  She definately doesn't want a sippy cup if she sees any Sonic drinks anywhere around.  She signs "more" and then gets upset if you don't give her a sip - I mean she did sign "more" so she should automatically get her reward! :)  Matthew and I had fun playing with my car and driving to Sonic to get drinks.  I think I had about 2 a day!  (That is another good thing about Angie moving out of North Salt Lake - the closest Sonic was in Layton!  How can anyone live in those conditions?)  Matthew loved talking on the phone to me over my bluetooth and having me put it in reverse so he could be on camera.  Our last Sonic run, I got Sarah her own Route 44 Sprite, that way whoever could actually drink their own drink in peace, although I think she would just look at hers and then yours and would beg some drink anyway, I mean, what if you were holding out?

So Sunday I was in Circleville.  Monday morning, Susan & I woke up, got the kids to school and then headed out to St. George for a "Girls Day".  We went to Krumpits, where I unfortunately bought a lot of stuff!  Then had to wait cuz my credit card got flagged by Citibank as "unusual" activity - how embarrassing!  We did lunch, went here, went there...pretty soon it was 9 pm!  Driving to Circleville, at night, in the fall - not recommended - there are deer everywhere.  Susan was driving, Jeff's new car, so slow with the high beams on - we saw some many deer in the ditches - it was really freakin' me out!  Luckily we got home safe!  Tuesday, I was able to go help out at the school's "reading store".  The PTA puts this together every month.  The students get reading medallions for the amount of time they read each month.  At the end of the month, the PTA opens the store and the kids get to shop.  They have 6 tables set up ranging from 10 pts to 120 pts.  The prizes on each table are according to price.  So the table with 10 pts might have a lot of cheap candy.  Prizes on the 40 pt table (that is the one I was at) had prizes like lipgloss, pom poms, stop watch, big monster truck.  The 80 pt and the 120 pt table had the big prizes, lava lamps, necklaces, footballs, etc.  They started this program last year and have seen a jump in the amount of reading the students do.  They get a max of 40 pts each month, so they got to drool over the 80 & 120 tables this month - if they save their pts they can shop there next month or the month after.  The little kids wanted to spend all their pts.  Some of the older ones saved them so they could get the bigger prizes.  Each one of my nieces came up and gave me a big hug.  It was fun to see them in school.  Kari bought lipgloss (I actually told her it was nail polish...oops!), Kate got some eyeshadow, and Emily got a cute pair of sunglasses.  Later that night while Susan went to YW and Gary was at a cattle auction, the girls and I had a pajama party girl's night - I did the girls' nails and makeup and then Emily did my nails while the Kate & Kari did my makeup.  Poor Jason, he just sat watched a movie.  Although I think he was relieved that I wasn't going to do his nails and makeup!  :)  It was a lot of fun!  Luckily Susan is "easy" - all I had to do for her was make a connection from her laptop to TV so they could enjoy instant Netflix.  No cleaning, no moving furniture, no painting.... although I think she has some plans brewing in that head of hers....  When it is her turn for a project though it will be a bit harder - Home Depot isn't 10 min away roundtrip, it is more like 1 1/2 hours away!  We had better make sure we have everything in one stop!

Wednesday morning I headed out back to Texas.  I made it to Santa Rosa where Jeff got me a very nice room!  It even had free internet! :)  I crashed (in bed, not in the car)!  I think I drove for 11 hours.  Thursday's drive was hard, but only 8 hours since I pushed myself the day before.  The past 3 weeks caught up with me then.  All I could think of was getting home to see Jeff!  I gased up in Tucumcari and didn't have to stop once for gas.  I think I took maybe 2 potty breaks, and decided that if I didn't eat or drink, the potty breaks wouldn't be needed....so I skipped lunch and sped home!  Now we did go eat Mongolian when I came home...I was starving!

It is good to be back.  Weird and surreal almost.  Jeff has kept the house in good order.  He put the swimming mats away - summer is over.  All his laundry is done, no dishes in the sink, bed made....he is awesome!  Of course I get home, unload the car and BLAM! the house is a wreck!  Bed isnt made - I am still in my PJs even though it is almost noon.  Nice to be lazy (for at least one day.)  On a weird side note - when I left Circleville Wednesday morning it was about 36 degrees, when I arrived in Rowlett Thursday afternoon it was 86 degrees and humid!  I had to change out of my jeans into capris!