The Gift

Ladies and Gentlemen, girls and boys welcome to the Disney Wonder cruise ship . . .

Ahh, yes. It is fact. We went on a cruise and it was all smiles, thus I'll record our fun :-). Starting way back from the beginning which was probably five years ago when I first started some gentle nudges towards this type of vacation. Our friends from college, Brad and Camille, were the first to tell me about the great "Disney cruise vacation" and that was awhile ago. This has been a l-o-n-g time coming. :-)

Before Christmas, Darren agreed to the vacation and I excitedly planned ways to give it to the kids. He adamantly said, "No, this one is for you. I am giving it to you." A few days before Christmas, the boys from this household spent quite a bit of time at Darren's office working on gifts.  This is what he came up with, isn't he sweet?

When I opened the voucher on Christmas morning, I exclaimed and oohed and ahhed, then started naming off familiar friends' names that I could take on the cruise as one of my four guests :-)  The kids looked at me in disbelief, then said, "What about us?"

Then I changed my mind and invited them to be my guests. :-) We excitedly talked of the cruise for the next month and a half. The kids had no cruise baseline whatsoever (I can't think of how a non-therapist would say what I am trying to say which is that my kids haven't ever considered or known anything about a cruise). One day, when we showed the girls  pictures from the internet of our boat and various activities, our daughter declared, "You are freaking my mind out".

The weekend before the cruise, we all headed to the salon to get our nails done (another awesome gift given the girls and me for Christmas included a mani/pedi at a local place). I've never done something like this with my girls and they were just pure joy to behold. From the first drop of water that hit their bare feet, they were wide-eyed and loving every second of pampering (watch out boys).

Our oldest emphatically declared she had chosen her career in life - to work in a nail salon. She thought this was simply the greatest occasion. Ironically, she didn't choose to have her fingernails painted because she has a tendency to pick at nails and be "bugged" by the polish after painting. I was impressed with her self control. That is, until she watched her little sister and me get our nails painted. She decided she would just have to paint her nails at home because our nails looked so very cool.

Cue the disaster button, for when we arrived home with beautifully painted toenails and fingernails, she disappeared for twenty minutes to begin her career of being a nail painter. Tearfully, she returned to my presence with two hands that looked, no joke here, like she belonged in a horror movie. She had chosen bright red fingernail polish and had made such a mess of her fingernails. Crying real tears, she said, "I can't ever be a good nail painter."

Bright red nail polish doesn't come off very easily so it took a few days of looking like she had been dipping her hands in blood before it all came off. Poor girl, having to refocus her career goals at such a young age . . .

The Loafer

Maybe I will get into a trend of writing about my siblings. Tonight I read some stories to my little girls about my sister Janie's life. She wrote the stories/experiences so she can't be mad about the interpretation :-).
 
Towards the end of Janie's section (her life story), she describes marriage, first job as a teacher and then having her first son. She described some of the changes going from teaching third graders to changing diapers and feeding babies. (Not to take away her thunder or anything, she just said it was difficult).
 
My little girl (8 yo) then asked sincerely, "Is Janie a loafer?"

Loaf·er

/ˈloʊfər/ Show Spelled [loh-fer] Show IPA

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Link To loafer

Collins

World English Dictionary

loafer  (ˈləʊfə)
— n
1.	a person who avoids work; idler
2.	a moccasin-like shoe for casual wear
[C19: perhaps from German Landläufer  vagabond] This took me by such surprise, I said, "What did you say?" Then, the question was repeated, "Is Janie a loafer? I've been reading about loafers in my book, so I'm just wondering." I couldn't keep reading for all of the little giggles escaping from my mouth. Janie is by far the most un-loafer-like person I know (ok - one of the most). You should see her weekly duties. Anyway, this definitely put a smile on my face. For some reason, memories of my grandpa Fuller saying blunt things of this nature popped in my head. Out of the mouths of babes -- now go out and do something! By the way, this would be an incredibly rude post if it were in any way, shape, or proximity true.

Pepto Wallet

My good friend saw my wallet one day and couldn't stop giving me flack about it.
I mean, there isn't really anything wrong with it:

It isn't sitting there partially open to show you its insides, it is sitting partially open because there are so many receipts, it can't snap shut. That was the first reason I was getting made fun of. Think Seinfeld: 


http://trendaddicts.com/2012/seans-style-alert-mens-wallets/

 

Another friend, from Brazil, calmly said that if I carried my wallet around like "that" in my purse (which can't zip shut either), I would be sure to get mugged.

After all of this heckling, I was told, "I can't even stand the color".

So there, I guess I will start up a "Buy Colette a New Wallet Fund" - would you like to add to my cause?

The Hot Shot

My older, wiser, brother Curt celebrated a big birthday last week. I have many great memories of him but this one stands out as an especially funny one.

You know how there are childhood memories that seem absolutely perfect, then look at the picture and see a few flaws in what you thought was perfection?

I thought I had the best bike in Clifton. It was really cool. It had a banana seat and everything.

My mom made that shirt
 

A kid can do anything on a bike. Wow - such great memories of riding up around the church or school and those trails, ahhh the trails by Weatherspoons. If I was really brave, I even dared ride my bike across the street from Weatherspoons and ride on more bike trails clear down to Whiteheads. But, Whiteheads had two dogs: Queenie and Bowser and I may or may not have been slightly scared of dogs. On the other side of my house, I wasn't afraid of Murdock's dog, Butch. And, Gailey's dog Maggie, was really slow so I wasn't afraid of her either.

Today's memory isn't about the town dogs though, it's about bikes. Once, I was outside of the school playing, as usual, when Curt came up to me and took my bike for a spin. He drove it like a boss down the Weatherspoon's Bike Trail. When he got to the grand finale, the sweet jump at the end -- he went over the jump like a hot shot and the front bike tire became loose from the frame and rolled down the street towards The Twin Lakes Mercantile leaving Curt and bike eating dirt.

It didn't really help matters that the Twin Lakes Baseball team was watching practicing on the field near the trails.

Curt is still older and wiser. I think he keeps his distance from pedal bikes though :-)

And, maybe for my next memory - I'll go through the rest of the town dogs.

My "Ten"Ager

I have a ten-ager, do you? He informed me of this just a few days ago :-). My ten-ager always keeps me on my toes by encouraging me to look at things from a different perspective. He makes me smile on a regular basis.

Tonight he prayed that "he might be able to use his brain again, even though he hasn't used it for two weeks." School starts tomorrow. I hope his brain kicks right into gear.

He is so good with little kids - wait, he is still one right?

See what I mean? Think outside the box :-)