Flying Away and Back to the Nest

This week, I took my baby back to her birthplace, and left her there.  It was a bit sentimental to think that 18 years ago, she was born while we were living on campus at school, and now, she is returning a full fledged college student ready to try life on her own.
We had a great trip.  We stopped by the St. George Temple to do baptisms for the dead on the way there.  It was very sweet to be in the temple with Maddie.  Then we stayed with my parents in law for a night or two.  Then we were off to the dorms.  We moved all of her stuff into the apartment, then started making lists of things we wanted to add, and things that she forgot at home!  We had a good time cooking for ourselves, watching Netflix, and lots of shopping.  Maddie was a little timid with the shopping, she said, "Mom, this is really strange, you hate shopping.  I am not quite sure what to do."  But in the end, I felt comfortable leaving her there.  She was prepared to try things on her own.  I will miss her, but I know that it is where she is supposed to be.  The joy of watching her become independent is dwarfing my sadness that she is gone.

Magical Moments

Since I have a season pass to Magic Mountain, I was able to bring a friend for free during August.  So on Thursday, I took my best friend to Magic Mountain.  Jeff and I went on a date, no kids.  We had a great time.  We tried all the different soda flavors and went on several roller coaster rides.  Jeff was excited because he was finally able to go on Superman.  He has tried many times to go on that ride, but was thwarted by various events, the line was obscenely long, the ride was closed down, or no one would go with him.  This time, all three occured to some degree, the line was over an hour long, the ride broke down while we were in line, adding another 15 minutes to our wait time, and I would not go on the ride with him!  But I was willing to wait in line with him, and he really enjoyed the ride.  In addition, we went on Colossus for the last time.  It is a huge wooden roller coaster and they closed it this weekend.  It wasn't our favorite ride, and for the past few years, they ran the cars backwards most of the time, so I hadn't been on it for many years.  But after we went on it for the last time, we thought it was a pretty good ride, it had several great drops and was a very long ride.  I am glad we went on it for the last time.

No More White

This week, I painted the last white wall in my house.  That's right, there aren't any white walls left in my house.  It doesn't really seem like it because the trim, the doors and the ceilings are still white.  I didn't even really notice until Maddie pointed it out.  Then I had to run around the house and check, but it is true, it was the last white wall in the house.
Where was it?  The kids/guest/general bathroom of course. It really needed to be a different color since the whiteness of the wall and the ceiling made it look big and empty.  It is basically the same color as the hallway.  I haven't decided yet if I am going to paint under the chair rail.  I might paint it blue.  But after painting it, I decided to move the beach wall into the bathroom.  The pictures look right at home on that wall, and the shells will make lovely decorations.  I don't even miss the display in the living room.  The whole move was a good thing and has improved both rooms in my house.

Since we were working on the bathroom, we decided to remove the toilet for a day or two, then put it back on.......okay, not really.  That was not part of the remodel, Gabe flushed a handful of paper towels down, and it was the only way to get them out.  It was great fun (tongue in cheek) to explain to the Japanese student that the toilet was missing, and she would have to use our bathroom for the day.

Welcome from Japan

For the past two weeks, we have been hosting a foreign exchange student from Japan.  Her name is Hitomi.  So we have been doing all sorts of activities with the Japanese group, playing games, going swimming, and trying new foods.  We even took her to TP someone's house. 

She is a little camera shy, somewhat surprising, so I don't have a very good picture of her.  The whole things is really filling up our last days of summer with a plethora of activities.