vacation part 1

we left thursday for our family (minus molly) vacation. it's more of a colby vacation and allen and i are along for the ride. we left molly with mimi because she's not quite old enough to be fun on these little adventures yet. nap time is a bummer when you're trying to cram as much as you can into one afternoon.
we got a cameron park season pass back in the spring from the waco zoo. this card allows us free access to the waco zoo, dallas zoo, dallas aquarium, among others around the state of texas, and half price at the san antonio zoo and texas state aquarium in corpus. we thought we'd get our money's worth from the pass and take advantage of the free and half price admission to a few of these places--especially with colby's current infatuation with marine animals.
so i planned, well semi-plan but more make it up as we go along, a trip to dallas followed by a trip to corpus; yes, two completely different directions, but we're trying to get it all in while sans molly.

we headed out late thursday morning, and after a brief stop in waco to leave molly with mimi, we were on our way to the metroplex. our plan was to stay with pollard (a good friend of allen's) thursday and friday night. when we got close we gave him a call and he gave us directions to brads house where we would be playing some odd game that i had never seen and probably never will see again. this game involved hours (3 to be exact, before we shut it down for lack of time) of conquering planets and fighting space pirates and trying to build space stations and whatnot. now, i enjoy games, but like word games and embarrasing humor games. spaceships and galaxies far far away? not so much. it actually ended up being pretty fun and colby sat quietly (mostly) on the floor and played until we were done. allen went on to the rangers game with pollard and colby and i found the nearest movie theatre and saw WALL-E.

friday we went to the fort worth zoo. not part of our season pass thingy but i think its common knowledge that the fort worth zoo makes the dallas zoo look like a pet store, and since we were about the same distance from both, we opted for the better. very cool zoo. the "shark tank", which didn't actually have a shark at all, and the penguin exhibit were pathetic, but other than that, it's a great place and i would go back. i kept having to tell colby to stop correcting people....

random person A: "hey, look at the cow!"
colby: "excuse me, thats a longhorn."

random person B: "is that a shark?"
colby: "its a spotted wobbegong."

me both times: "colby, shhh!"

for the record, he was right, but i don't want him to be that kid. he's too smart for his own good sometimes....

saturday we headed to the dallas aquarium. the list i received with my cameron park pass lists "dallas aquarium" as part of the deal. if you google dallas aquarium you will pull up many links to the Dallas World Aquarium which is not the aquarium the card gets you in to. i did not know this. i googled, i got directions, and that was that. we got up. we got ready. we put the address into our GPS and we drove 30 minutes to the dallas world aquarium. we paid $5 to park and walked the 2 blocks to the entrance where we waited in line for our turn to get in for free.......then i was given the bad news rather rudely from the window attendant...
rude aquarium lady: "we don't honor other passes."
me: "my list said this was good fo--" (thats me being interrupted)
rude aquarium lady: "this is for the dallas zoo and the dallas aquarium. this is the dallas WORLD aquarium. we don't accept this here."
then i see that its $20 per person to get in, and i thought, well we can't be that far from the right place. let's go there for free. i apologized to my son and my husband for taking us to the wrong place and they were very forgiving and not too upset about the $5 we had just stuffed into the parking meter.
then we went to the dallas aquarium. i love our GPS system. not sure what we would have done without that thing to tell us where the heck we were and where we needed to go.
however, the aquarium at fairpark (the right place) was $4 and probably not even worth that. my house is bigger, and there may be more fish in the tank at my dr's office than there were at this place. they advertised the piranah feeding at 2:30, giving them a chance for redemption. sadly, to the disappointment of the tens of people somewhat eagerly crowded around the tank, there were approximately 4 small dead fish thrown in and half-heartedly eaten by the obviously over-fed piranahs. one lady standing close by suggested they starve them a little bit so we could at least see a good fight. at the risk of PETA coming after me, i concur.
fortunately we were on the fairgrounds where any type of museum you would ever want to go to is located, so we paid our money to get into the natural history museum/science place/childrens museum; 1 price includes all. we spent the rest of the day there, taking a break between buildings for lunch, and topping the afternoon off letting colby get soaked to the bone in an outdoor fountain outside the aquarium (not the world aquarium). pretty fun, but we ended up saving a whopping $11 with our card. we tried to talk colby into the dallas zoo, but he told us he had already been to the zoo. who were we to argue? it's his vacation.
we stayed saturday night in rowlett with some friends of my family from about 18 years ago, and had dinner with them in addition to a handfull of people that my family used to "run around with" back in the day. it was great to reminisce and catch up.
on our way home today we listened to a sermon on allens ipod. he can't stand the weirdness of not being in chuch on sunday, so that was the compromise. my days all run together and i never know if i'm coming or going, so it doesnt bother me as much.
the pastor was talking about peter, and colby was listening along as much as his almost 4-year-old brain would let him...
colby: "is he talking about peter pan?"
me: "no, not peter pan. a different peter."
colby: "i know! he's talking about peter that turns into spiderman."
me: "no, not peter parker; peter the disciple."
colby: "peter pan was a disciple."
me: "no he wasn't."
allen: "peter pan was a flying boy."
me: "the disciples were the guys that followed Jesus around."
colby: "oh, ok."
so now we're home and we leave tomorrow morning for the second half of our trip.
we're going to the texas state aquarium and the backyardigans live tour in corpus, and will probably hit the beach for a couple of hours in there somewhere too.
i'll blog about the rest of our vacation (and post some pictures) when we get back!

but: the conjunction

i'm putting colby to bed night before last and he wants to hold my hand while he falls asleep.
very sweet, yes, but i had just put a topcoat on my nails and they were still a little tacky.
i didn't say anything, i figured i could just touch up later if i needed to. but he noticed that, fingers spread don't touch anything stiffness of my hand....

colby: "are your nails still wet, mommy?"

me: "yes, love. a little bit. just be careful."

colby: "but not your toenails?"

me: "no. my toenails are dry. i didn't paint them."

colby: "not the bottom but(t)."

me: "what?"

colby: "i said but, but it wasn't the bottom."

me: "i know. you said but the conjunction."

colby: "cunjkin?"

me: "conjunction. if you say but and it's not the bottom, it's a conjunction, and thats ok. like if i say 'i love chocolate milk, but i love you more,' thats a conjunction."

colby: "but if i say the bottom but(t), then i get in trouble."

me: "usually, yes."

colby: "and two things can happen if you get in trouble."

me: "what two things?"

colby: "time out, or you get swallowed by a whale. that's what happened to Jonah. he got swallowed by a whale because he didn't follow directions."

well, that about sums it up. out of the mouths of babes.

i've attached some recent pictures for your viewing pleasure.

i'll post our sea world trip sometime this week. haven't downloaded those yet.

baking brownies. they got to lick the beaters.

molly was beyond excited about the whole experience...

all decked out for our 80's-themed party.

yes, shelly is fully aware that you can see thru her sweater.

it's intentional (tsk tsk). ;-)

why can't i dress like this all the time???

speeding for Jesus

last saturday (yes it's taken me that long to get on here and blog about it) we had a one-day ladies retreat about love. it was actually a Retreat in a Box hosted by Beth Moore. i was one of the two ladies putting the event together and answering questions as the event approached. i had one lady ask "is beth moore actually coming to speak?!" and i said, "not for $15 a person she's not!" it was a fair question. the fliers posted around the church said Loving Well with Beth Moore...or something to that affect. so i guess i can see how someone might hopefully think that she might, for less than $1000 come here from Houston and speak on love....
i digress.

i was on my way home from an awesome day. the Lord really spoke to my heart about how to love others, not judging them, forgiveness, etc. and i was just in a really great place mentally, spiritually and emotionally at the days end.
so i'm on my way home and i'm in my car with the music off (how did i let that happen???) just thinking back over the day and what all i learned and heard and how great it was when i realize i'm doing about 55mph in a 35! have you ever been so completely focused on something other than driving when in fact thats exactly where your focus should be? i mean, the driving portion of my brain might as well not have even been in the car with me at that moment.
i do have somewhat of a heavy foot (you have a 5 to 10mph cushion, right dad?), but this particular road is one you absolutely do not want to speed on; especially in the spot where i realized i was truckin along a tad to briskly.
so i hit the breaks to take it down to a comfortable if not downright cautious 38ish.
then i start thinking, what if i had been pulled over? the police officer always asks "ma'am, where are you going in such a hurry?" or something like that. what would i say? "sorry officer. i was talking to God and driving 20 miles over the speed limit (which is actually only 10 miles over because you have that cushion i mentioned earlier). i'm not really in any hurry. i'm just not paying attention to what i'm doing." or i could just cut right to the chase and say, "sir, i was speeding for Jesus."
this is the thought process that ensued...

thought A: that would be perfect because then i could witness to him!

thought B: i could totally mention Jesus anytime i might possibly get pulled over and witness to all the police officers!

thought C: they might not want to hear it so then they'd stop pulling me over for fear of being witnessed to.....

thought of all thoughts for the day: i could drive as fast as i want because i would be 'that crazy frans lady that witnesses to you if you pull her over!' either that or i'll single handedly lead all the williamson county police officers to Christ! why have i never thought of this before?!?

yes, this is how my sick mind works.

i'll let you know how it turns out. :)

and for the record, i have never been pulled over for speeding; only running stop signs. there are so many of those things though! they can't mean it all the time!

more peeing woes

colby will be starting school in the fall, 2 days a week. we're easing into it.
so today i got the bright idea to have him "practice" resting. let me back up...
this child stopped taking naps at 18 months (kick me in the head, please), and though i maintained rest time for about 6 months after that, once molly came along it was no longer a battle worth fighting so he's been an 8am to 8pm (roughly; lately that gap has been a little wider) kid since 2 years old.
that brings us to present. molly takes a nap. colby doesnt.
i figured when he starts school he will have some kind of down time in the afternoon, so i thought maybe i should get him used to that so its not completely foreign to him when hes presented with it in 4 weeks (yikes!!).
so today after i put molly down for her nap at 1:30, i sat colby down and told him we were going to start a new thing, but that he wouldn't like it. i went into the whole "practicing for school" and "big boys need rest" blah blah blah. i even sent him in with a juice box and fruit chews (i am not opposed to a good bribe every now and then) and a stack of just checked out library books that we hadn't even opened yet.
i made it out without any tears (from either of us), and had been sitting on the couch doing my Bible study for about 10 minutes, when i hear his door open.
"mommy, i need to tell you some stuff!!" (yelling from his doorway)
"colby, don't yell! you'll wake up your sister!" (whispered very forcefully)
so i went to see what he had to tell me, which wasn't anything other than the bright idea that i could do my Bible study in his room and we could have rest time together. i explained that if he wanted me to be a nice mommy i needed to have rest time by myself, thank you very much.
so i left his door open and returned to my Bible study--coincidentally enough, about patience. good timing, Lord.
not 3 minutes later he comes running past me saying he was going to go use my bathroom. i guess his was not sufficient at that moment. too close to his room i suppose.
"that's fine. but come right back."
he returns quickly, "mommy i peed!"
"thats great, colby, but you don't need to announce it. put your underwear and shorts back on."
"but you need to come see."
"no i don't. i've seen it before. put your underwear and shorts back on."
"but we have to dump it."
"what?" (oh, no. he didn't.)

explanation...molly has been somewhat interested in the toilet (yes, other than drinking the water out of it) so i took colby's potty training toilet down from the closet yesterday so it can be available to her should she decide she wants to use it.

"did you pee in the little toilet?"
he nods, as if thats a completely normal thing to do.
"uugh. colby." (patience, yes Lord...and beth moore...i hear you)
i go into the bathroom and there it is, a tot sized toilet full of pee.
"colby don't do this again."
that's when it happened. i felt the wetness under my foot. it's probably just leftover from the kids' baths last night, i thought to myself. then i saw a few smallish puddles on the floor around said toilet and had the bright idea to swipe my fingers through it just to make sure, although at this point i was pretty sure that bath water wouldn't still be on the floor almost 24 hours later.
i was right, or wrong, depending on which sentence you're going off of. it was pee. i smelled it. i had it on my fingers...and my foot.
"colby, did you pee on the floor?"
"well, i didn't push my penis in so it sprayed everywhere."
(c'mon mom, do you even have to ask? i mean, duh.)
i'm still not sure how he got that much on the floor and that much in the bucket.
so, i dumped the pee out, washed the bucket, and cleaned up the floor; and sent him back to his room.
i needed to finish that patience stuff.
another day, another puddle.

charlottes web and Jesus

i don't know about you, but here at our house we watch movies in phases. colby picks one movie, it has its 15 minutes of fame, if you will, and then another movie has its chance in the spotlight. these "phases" are usually 5 to 7 days long. lately we haven't really been watching anything in particular. we came off the toy story glory days and hit a ditch of movielessness.

then came charlottes web. my mom took colby and molly on one of their many many trips to the big big store (also known as wal-mart) and this is what colby picked for his "treat". according to grammie he'd been eyeing it for awhile so she finally bought it for him. i guess consistency has its perks, this one in the form of a very old and poorly animated movie.

thats right. i just knocked one of the classics. but have you watched it recently?

i must add that at one time i too enjoyed charlottes web.

i was actually looking forward to sitting down with colby and talking him through the life and times of wilbur the pig.

my thoughts quickly changed from "this will be great!" to "seriously?"

have you ever had one of those moments where you experience something that, as a kid, was super fun or bigger than life as it were, then you experience that same thing as an adult and ask yourself what you were thinking?

thats kind of where i was as i sat on my couch with my three year old singing "chin-up, chin-up" along with debbie reynolds in the form of a singing spider.

at any rate, that has been the movie of choice for the last week or so.

moving along to the point of my story....we were on our way home from church the other day and colby says to me...

colby: "mommy, did charlotte die so wilbur could live?" (hmm, not exactly...)

me: "well, colby, charlotte worked really hard so that wilbur wouldn't be killed, and that probably just made her really tired. but everyone dies (back to that again), so she would have died eventually anyway." (oh, my goodness is that the right answer?)

colby: "but wilbur got to live cause of all the things charlotte did for him."

me: "yes, thats right. she saved him."

colby: "Jesus died so we could live."

me: "wow, you totally just connected Jesus to charlottes web." (is charlottes web a spiritual metaphor? have i seriously missed this for 20-something years??)

colby: "did Jesus die so wilbur could live?"

me: "no buddy, that was charlotte. kind of. remember we already covered that? Jesus died for people."

colby: "did charlotte die so Jesus could live?" (oh no)

me: "no. charlotte didn't really die for anyone. she just loved wilbur very much."

colby: "so who died for Jesus?" (how to end this conversation....)

me: "no one died for Jesus. Jesus died for us, and He loves all of us very much.

colby: "yeah. thats great."

me: "yes it is." (whew!)

so now we're gathering spiritual conotations from random animated movies. fantastic.

well, God is in everything. i guess that includes charlottes web.

colbys prayer

i don't post more than once a day, but i had to share this conversation i had with colby at bedtime. we always end our day by me asking colby what he's thankful for and then we incorporate that into our bedtime prayer. so this is how it went tonight....

me: "colby, what are you thankful for today?"
colby: "i'm thankful for you, and me, and daddy, and molly, and all the people in the town."
me: "ok, very good. anything else?"
colby: "i'm thankful for the food. and our mouths. and our noses. and our eyeballs. and our hair."
me: "what about daddy? he doesn't have any hair."
colby: "no he doesn't. i'm thankful for his bald head. and then he had a mohawk. now it's gone and he has hair on his face."
me: "yes, thats right."
colby: "i'm thankful for brutus and bliss." (my parents dogs)
me: "ok, thats good."
colby: "are brutus and bliss gonna die?"
me: "well, they will die someday, but not anytime soon probably."
colby: "but they're old."
me: "they are old, but they'll probably live lots more days." (that sentence doesnt make any sense, but give me a break; he's 3)
colby: "like maybe 2 more days?"
me: "well, probably more than that."
colby: "mimi's old." (mimi is allens mom)
me: "well, yes. mimi is kind of old." (i truly didn't know what to say...sorry mimi)
colby: "is mimi gonna die?"
me: "someday mimi will die, but hopefully she'll live a long long time."
colby: "i love mimi very much. lets pray that mimi lives a lot of more days."

so we did.
the end.

they have guns

well, i just spent 2 hours at a travel clinic in cedar park getting the low-down on africa.
for those of you that don't know, i (along with my dad and friend zach) will be going to ghana in september to work with the seatons. i had my hep a, hep b, and tetanus shots about a week and a half ago, and i must share with you that outside of childbirth the post shot pain of the tetanus vaccine is some of the worst i can remember experiencing. seriously. good thing i only need it every 10 years.....
anyway, so after leaving bible study (at my own house) early to drop the kids off at my moms, i head up to the church to meet dad so he and i can go get our yellow fever and typhoid shots. we couldnt get them with our other shots because for some reason our dr's office doesnt offer those.
don't ask, i don't know why.
our appt was at 11:30, so we got there about 11:20 because if i'm not a little early i feel like i'm late. if you're early you're on time, if you're on time you're late, and if you're late don't bother coming. i've heard that somewhere before. i digress.
we filled out the 3 pages of ridiculous and redundant paper work. and then we are called back (together, thankfully) by sandy. bright, cheerful, happy sandy.
if anyone could talk me out of going to ghana, it would be sandy. i thought we would walk in get shots and walk out. wrong. we sat with sandy, and heard a colorful dissertation on the perils of ghana.
"i wouldn't go if my life depended on it. they have guns. and children? you're going to be working with kids? kids spit on you. you might get polio. did you know there are 3 kinds of mosquitoes? 2 day biters and a night biter. mosquitoes like flowery smells and bright colored clothes, so you need to smell bad and dress drab."
i must admit, it was good information, but doom and gloom. at least she could have given us candy or a sticker or something before single-handedly wiping out any warm fuzzies we may have built up thus far. not much of a moral booster that sandy. they have guns in ghana.
i will give her this much-she gives good shots. i didnt feel either one of them.
so i guess thats the silver lining. that and the chik-fil-a sandwich i had on the way home.