Last Friday Before Vacation

1. Yes, I really have been watching the Olympics during most of my waking hours. I'm not really much of a sports fan, but every two years I turn into some sort of fanatic. My family is very tolerant, even though both children keep asking me, "Why do you love volleyball so much?" I have no good explanation: I never played, I never saw my brother play when he was in High School because I was away at college, the only games I ever watch are in the Olympic broadcast because the USA is stupid and doesn't have a professional league like Russia and Turkey and Italy and China and.... But I watch every minute of every Indoor Volleyball in the broadcast (and get upset when NBC preempts it for things like Handball or Floor Hockey or when they only show portions of the matches; you can actually watch the whole game on the website, but it's only available without the color commentary and that's half the fun) and a lot of the Beach Volleyball as well. And all my fun will be over tomorrow.

But then I get to start packing for vacation, so it's not like I'll be bored.

2. Various photos from the past 3 weeks:

Alex with his new orange bird, a reward for getting a tooth pulled by the dentist.

We went to the shore 2 weeks back and the reason these photos are good is that my mother took them. The waves were so high and strong, we left early due to exhaustion, but the kids had fun in spite of being knocked down regularly.

Proud owner of the whole collection (minus the Mighty Eagle, which is priced ridiculously high). To his annoyance, I moved them around for the benefit of the picture; he always puts them in the correct order: Red Bird, Blue Bird, Yellow Bird, Black Bird, White Bird, Big Brother, Green (Boomerang) Bird, and Orange (Balloon) Bird.

I haven't touched it in two weeks, but made good progress until them. And, yes, I had to do a lot of frogging on the edges of the tail because my counting was off.

Great Miranda pictures, taken by my mother.

I think Miranda was dressing up for my birthday on the 27th of July: a fancy dress and rain boots. Yes, she is adorable.

3. On Thursday, we fly from Philadelphia to San Diego, via Houston, which breaks up the trip in a nice, half-way point for the children to get off the plane and run around for a bit. We will spend 12 days in California celebrating the wedding of a dear cousin and enjoying the company of my family. The children are very excited and I am trying not to be anxious about packing perfectly. Trying, but not being very successful. Instead, I've been catching up on correspondence and noticing all kinds of household chores that suddenly seem terribly important: defrosting the freezer, cleaning out my closet, trimming the trees and shrubs in the backyard.... I haven't actually done any of these things, mind you, but I'm cataloguing them in my head, instead of planning what to pack. Or I just go back to watching the Olympics.

4. Marshall and I are going to see The Dark Knight Rises at the IMAX Theatre at The Franklin Institute on Sunday night. One of our favorite babysitters is about to go back to college but she was able to squeeze us in before she goes.

5. I hope to see a whole bunch more movies while I'm in San Diego on vacation so I'll do a movie update then.

6. I mowed both lawns this week. Because July was so dry here, and we don't water the grass (or the weeds), I was able to put it off until the backyard returned to its natural jungle state. Although with all the rain forecasted for this weekend, I may have to mow again before we leave so as not to return to even worse conditions.

7. Surely I've done more in the last 2 weeks but celebrate my thirty something birthday and watch the Olympics? I can't remember. And, anyway, I have more volleyball to watch.

Here's Jen.