Step in Time! Step in Time!

This weekend my friend Mo and I took the Luals to see Mary Poppins at the Byrd Theatre. All proceeds went to Child Savers, which assists children in the Richmond area with handling traumatic events in their lives.

Waiting outside the Byrd before the show, there were people doing face painting. Deng went first, and he got a star. Nyabol, Anger, Achan, Duk and Awut were also painted.

We took up almost the whole row! And that was WITHOUT Mom, Dad, Yay, Nyaring, Thiep, Adeng and Muloh. Shwew. The kids had a great time jumping up and down, eating popcorn, singing and making a LOT of noise with the kazoos that were handed out.

The kids with "Queen Mo" (AKA "Driver") after the show.

While we were waiting for Mom to get back from work at Chic-Fil-A, we took advantage of the chalk in the grab bags they handed out at the movie.

Ayak traced Deng. He thought that was really funny.

The girls really got into all the pictures being taken ... I guess you could say they really LET THEIR HAIR DOWN.

I can't really put my finger on WHY this is my favorite chalk drawing, but something about it just speaks to me. :-) This was from the twins ... a "disagreement" began when Achan's "I love you Anne" strayed into Anger's "We love you Anne." Hard for me to pick a side on that argument!

The grab bags also contained temporary tattoos of Mary Poppins. Nyabol swore to me that she was going to try to keep this on until school on Monday!

After Mom left, we cleaned the WHOLE HOUSE - bathrooms, kitchen, bedrooms, clothes, carpet - EVERYTHING! Then we shared 4 Tombstone pizzas and I ("Princess Anne") headed back to my house around 9. What a fun day!

Sophie visits the States!

Sophie came on October 10th and stayed for a whole WEEK! We had the best time. We did LOTS of girlie stuff (movies, chocolate, mani/pedis, etc.), we toured Richmond, we shopped 'til we dropped, and we even squeezed in a visit to North Carolina to stay with Christie and Matt.

Christie and Matt entrusted the munchkins to us for the day on Saturday while they went to see Virginia Tech play.

Kyla loved Sophie! They were best of buds all weekend.

Sophie took this picture of Lauren on the swings. I love it! She is smiling because she is kicking me in the butt on the upswing. I'm not sure why, but kids LOVE to kick me in the butt.

And finally... introducing... the BUG BITE FROM HELL! Sophie is used to being eaten alive by bugs wherever she travels (last year she left the US with 16 mosquito bites ... on her trip to Venezuela this year she had more than 100!), but this bite perplexed us all. As you can see, it's a good 2 inches in diameter. It doesn't radiate, which I think is a good thing, but it sure looks uncomfortable! We think it was a spider. It sorta creeped me out, but Sophie took it in stride!

Ingleside Wine Tour

My friend Padma and her lovely, scruffy pup Audrey spent the weekend at my house. We had a great time! On Saturday we met at my friend Susan's house and headed over to Once Upon a Vine, a wine and beer store in her neighborhood. "Bob" from Once Upon a Time organizes wine tours in Virginia every once in a while. Susan and Ben had a great time on the last one, so Padma and I joined her for this ... the Bus / Boat / Ingleside Winery tour!

The weather was PHENOMENAL - just beautiful. We got a little sunburn, but by the time we realized it, we were under the influence of a very pleasant wine buzz, so who cares?

This could be considered "the before picture" ... on the boat UP the Rappahannock River to Ingleside Winery.

This is a short video of the boat on the way DOWN the river ... We are making fun of ourselves because we'd had a very "Who's on First?"-esque conversation in the shop at the winery while looking at a map. I was trying to explain to Padma where we were by saying "Don't you see the words 'To Richmond??'" ... and, of course, there were TWO places on the map that say To Richmond. One was up the river, and one was down the river from Ingleside Winery, indicated in purple writing in the center of the map. While we were having this discussion (argument), Susan kept asking "Where is the winery?" We didn't answer her because we were so intent on getting our point across to each other. Finally Susan screams "BUT WHERE IS THE WINERY???"

The entire shop watched (and heard!) our entire conversation, and we were pretty much the laughing stock of the tour for the rest of the day. Not unusual for me, though.

And finally, singing Beatles songs on the bus on the way back! It was a lovely day.

Introducing ... THE CROUP SISTERS

They don't look sick, do they? Well don't be deceived! These poor little girls have a virus that until recently, I'd only heard about in movies! The Croup. You remember, Debra Winger wakes Jeff Daniels in the middle of the night because Melanie is sick in Terms of Endearment. The cough sounds just like in the movies, too. Gravelly, I guess, is the only word I can come up with for it. Apparently because it manifests in the voicebox or something. It's awful.


All I know is these little girls gave their parents QUITE a scare and QUITE a few sleepless nights last week!

On Saturday I went down to help out (OK, OK... more like HANG OUT!). We took Kyla and Lauren to the North Carolina State Zoo in Asheville. It's quite a place! There is PLENTY of space for the animals, and quite a few animals to see.

Kyla's a pretty good sport... I don't know if I'd like it so much if my sister was slapping Dora the Explorer stickers all over my face. Although it IS all about the bling.

Here's a picture (with a bad shadow!) of Christie and Lauren in "Africa."