I guess things are back to "normal", for a couple of weeks at least. AJ is off touring until 6/30, and Alli started summer school today. Alli's school runs for four weeks, from 8:00 to 12:00. Her morning bus picks her up at 6:15, and her afternoon bus drops her at daycare at 1:40. That pretty much takes care of her day! She has horse therapy today too. Hopefully it goes better today than it has been going. This is her third week, and last week she didn't even get on the horse. The first week, they were running late, and she waited 15-20 minutes to get on the horse, and was very frustrated before she started. It was a short ride. The volunteers did not recognize her request to stop (waving bye-bye) and she finally had had enough and ended up kicking the horse. They got her off very quickly then, as the horse was ready to bolt. Last week, they made her wait almost 30 minutes, and she didn't even get on the horse. Ralph and the therapist had a long phone conversation that night, and they are each going to try to do something different (Ralph will come late instead of being there early) so maybe it will work better. Ralph also mentioned the possibility of him becoming a volunteer so he can help them with her. We shall see!


AJ is off to the wild wild west! Of course, things didn't go as planned for his "switch" from Washington DC trip to the Southwestern States trip. The paperwork I had from the teacher said they would be back around 11:15 or so Saturday night. But, if you read farther, it also said the plane was landing in Sacramento at 10:30. Needless to say, the 11:15 was probably a typo. I resigned myself to staying up until 1:00 to go pick him up, and then checked the plane schedule on-line. There was a two hour delay. AJ called at midnight, and they had landed, and were waiting on luggage. They got to the school at 2:55 a.m. (That would be 5:55 a.m for those travelers that were on Eastern time, and they had only gotten about 4 hours sleep the night before too, after taking a walking tour at 11:00 p.m.) AJ was exhausted. I took him home, and of course, he wanted to talk about his trip, so he didn't get to bed until 3:45 - and I made him go to bed then! He needed some of his clothes that he took on his trip for the SW tour, so I did a load of laundry, and waited for the washing machine to finish up before I went to bed, about 4:15. (If I had known he would be coming in so late, I would have just bought more clothes!) As I walked down the hall to go to bed, I heard Allison talking to herself. She was up! I don't think I caught more than a 15 minute cat nap after that. Now AJ and Mom were both exhausted!


I was up at 5:15 with Alli, and got AJ up at 7:00, and off to meet the scouts at 7:45. The scouts left town at 9:15, so for better or for worse, he is off! The first leg of the trip is a straight drive to Yosemite, so he has a good 6 hours to catch up on sleep, and I asked the leaders if they could let him sleep early at the first stop rather than "make" him go on the evening hike around the Yosemite Valley. I think he will perk up, but wanted to give the leaders a heads up that he was tired. He was so tired he was over-emotional. Talk about stressed out! He had a good time in Washington DC, but not in New York. He is not a city boy! Too many people!


I think I caught up on my sleep last night. I tried to go to bed when I put Alli down (8:15) but that didn't work out. Alli didn't go right to sleep, Ralph decided to go to bed then too, and other things kept waking me up, so I just got up completely until the house quieted down and I could go to sleep undisturbed! (Why did Ralph decide to go to bed then too? If I could have just had 5 minutes of quiet, and the knowledge that someone else was watching Alli, I could have been asleep! But no......I needed company! Granted, he was woken up frequently during the night too, but he went to bed at 10:00 on Saturday, and slept in until 7:40, and took a nap on Sunday. I know - enough whining!)


I did finish a doily this weekend, while trying to stay awake! It is about 18 inches across. I will go down to the fair today and pick up the doily I entered, so I will see if I took a ribbon or anything. I don't think I did, but...you never know! I did not make it down to the fair to check out the competition. It would have been nice, but I kept weighing the cost factor along with the time factor. It is $5.00 to park at the fair and $7.00 to get in. Was it worth $12.00 just to dash in and see the entries? Did I want to drive down to Anderson after work in the heat? I didn't, so I will have to wait until this evening to see anything.