Ready for the Beach!

Well, in just a little over a week, we will hit the sandy shores of North Myrtle Beach.  I am unspeakably excited.  We have plans for some days and no plans for other days.  I bought Leah a floaty thing for the pool and some sand toys.  I hope she winds up loving the beach as much as her father and I do.  I am really looking forward to building a sandcastle with her and putting her in her new bathing suit, and I’m praying she doesn’t eat sand. :-D

We have still been busy around here. Choir practiced started right back up the week after our big Hollywood concert.  I wasn’t able to sing a whole lot on account of the fact that I was still not feeling well.  We are singing a bunch of patriotic songs, and I am really excited about it.  Although I’m not so sure “Give My Regards to Broadway” is all that patriotic, but what the hell!  I think it’ll be a great show.  If you have nothing else to do on July 3rd, come on out to Colonial Forge HS in Stafford and hear us sing!

I have been SO sick, even Michael agreed that this was a bad one.  I usually do get sick every summer, but my gosh, this one will not let go!  My present opinion on the matter was that I had a cold AND allergies.  The cold part seems to be gone—no more sore throat or headache, but my nose is still running like crazy.  I think I’m up to a ridiculous 6 or 7 boxes of tissues used.  Fortunately my nose is healing.  I invented my own “fix my nose” remedy a few years ago that helps when your nose gets all chapped and yucky from all that blowing.  It is to use a combination of Neosporin and Blistex and rub it on there.  It works wonders.  My nose is still crusty, but not half as bad as it was.  I am also now devoted to Zicam tablets.  I was sick for over a week and finally in desperation, since I did not want to drive up and see the doctor, I started taking Zicam, and within 24 hours, I was feeling tons better.  I think today I’m going to get some Claritin at the grocery store and see how that does me.  If it works, I’ll know I’ve developed allergies.  I knew I was sick when I only went out like 2 days last week! haha

Sunday I went and got gas for our grill.  I had not been able to grill since Leah’s birthday party.  I made the best barbeque chicken on Sunday for dinner and then last night I grilled up some kebabs that I had gotten at Wegman’s.  YUM!  Everything is so good grilled, and I tend to make healthier meals when I grill, which is an added bonus.  I seem to focus more on all the food groups and making a balanced choice.  In fact, since dropping my WW subscription yet again, I feel like I’ve been obsessing about food a whole lot less and hopefully this will help for when I do get back on the horse.  My neighbor and I started walking again this week, but with the heat, I know I won’t be walking outside a whole lot more.  I am such a wimp about being hot, but I can’t stand sweating and all that crap.  I’d much rather be comfortable, so I may take up mall walking for the summer.  We’ll see.

We were matched with an AFS student from Thailand earlier this week.  Our paperwork was submitted to the AFS’ers in Thailand to approve us and for her and her parents to decide if she wants to live with us for the coming school year.  We had considered a short term summer exchange, but having talked to the AFS volunteer and thinking about where our match might come from, we decided to accept any student they threw our way.  This girl sounds like a perfect match—she volunteers in an orphanage and LOVES babies, is self-motivated, her family sounds very similar to ours, and she is extremely determined to get things done.  We were told we might hear something yesterday, but we didn’t so maybe today we will get some good news, and I’ll be able to post more.  I’ve been very impressed with AFS so far.  I never had dealings with them as an adult; obviously my parents took charge when we hosted when I was in high school.  They have already contacted the school here, done our background checks, scheduled our family interview, matched us, and call to check on us regularly.  It’s pretty awesome.  I’m already thinking about what wonderful parts of the United States we can show this girl while she is here and I’ll be interested to see what she would like to do while she is here.  Her letter and paperwork were full of sweet little grammar things that I would no doubt make when writing or speaking in a foreign language.  In one picture, she wrote “I like being outdoors but there should not be wild animals.”  That really tickled me!

For anyone who didn’t read the 80 Plates blog, I have been in touch with my dad’s cousin lately.  She emailed me via Ancestry.com and has been working diligently to learn more about the Cherepon side of the family.  Through her, I was able to find out my great-grandparents’ names (Michael and Helen), the ships they sailed on to come to the US (he came first and sent for her later), and that they listed themselves as Hungarian, not Russian!!!  They also listed themselves in some way shape or form as Austrian and in one case Slovakian.  So I guess we are a mélange of Eastern European happiness.  Lucas was pleased, since he is Hungarian, that his wife is too.  Sunday afternoon, we called our great-aunt and did a little interview with her over the phone.  She would tell us things in one or two sentences, not a lot of details, but I had a blast hearing from her and hope to go visit her in June.  I mainly wanted to know what she remembered of my grandfather, and she said he was ‘all boy, very rough and tumble”.  It was pretty cool to hear the couple memories of him she did share.  I also hooked up with the cousin’s two daughters on Facebook and am now in contact with family I didn’t even know I had!!!  Man is that ever cool!  I am totally loving this.

I have been able to chat with Lesley a little bit this week via Facebook, which has made me SO happy!  It’s been a while since we’ve been able to connect there, so it’s been nice to sit and chit chat.  I’m determined to get her to watch Billy the Exterminator. :-D  She watched it a bit while we chatted last week, but didn’t turn it on this week.  She’ll be won over.  I know. haha

Melissa and Emily both started book club this month, which was pretty cool.  Melissa’s been wanting to join for a long time and Emily only recently expressed an interest, and I happened to be at the end of the waiting list and two people dropped out, so in they came.  We had a great discussion and meal on Monday—we discussed Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum (see previous post for my review) and our dinner theme was Axis versus Allies.  I know who won the war, but I’m not sure who won the culinary battle—I think we had a lot more Axis foods though, so it might have won by default :-)  My potato salad and Linzertorte went over like a house on fire.

Well, even though I am back on Facebook, I am determined not to let the blog die.  So check back occasionally and leave me a comment that doesn’t end in a string of periods.  I love getting ‘em!