Umukasima

I have some new companions and I spent all day with them. They never seem to know when enough is enough or take into account the fact that I'd like to have a little sanity left by the time I finish the semester.

Finally I said that enough was enough and I pulled Elizabeth away from her spider catching{again}to take a walk with me. It's worth noting that she was not happy when I pulled her away from her spiders. I think the spiders were happy though because as she was trying to get them into the jar,their legs were falling off. {I don't make up the news,I just report it.}

Elizabeth had such little regard for my injured foot that she was this far ahead of me for almost the whole walk. She's so sympathetic.

When we arrived back home, who should be pulling into our driveway but our favorite honorary family members!

We learned something new about Willie tonight. He apparently came from Planet Umukasima. When asked how he came to be with his current family here on Earth, his sister replied that he was a reject and since they didn't know what else to do with him, they sent him down here. I asked Willie if he thinks he'll ever go back there and after thinking about if for a minute, he replied that maybe he'll go back as a missionary. He's so sweet to think of his fellow Umukasimans like that. Willie also told me recently that I am his very favorite Sarah. That boy can do no wrong in my eyes.

The unfortunate spider incidence, continued

There have been debates recently over the accuracy of my spider story. Being the kind sister that I am, I asked Elizabeth if she would like to write her version of the story{preferably leaving out any dramatics}for me. This is what she scribbled on a piece of paper for me.

Spider Woman's Anonymous

A Call to Courage

*

by

Elizabeth

*

I went behind the shed. There were bugs there. Many of them. Not just bugs-no-ANIMALS. *scary music* Alright,they were spiders...but their centripetal roundness and long leggedness made them more ANIMALS than spiders which is why, oh wide-eyed reader, I put them in a jar. They were big. And they plunked. They kinda thudded when I shook the jar. It was so satisfying.*Shake shake! Plunk thud! *

Oh...then there was the sister. (Did I mention her?) She was reading her book of history while sitting on the green grass.

Meanwhile,a spider expired. (Truth be told, the other one poked a hole in his back and stuff was coming out.)

Liz: "Wow! Sarah,look! A spider dies!"

Sarah: "Lift the cover a little so I can see."

So. I lifted the cover. She said to. How was I supposed to know that the dead one would resurrect itself and *boing* out of the jar and towards Sarah's head?

{I still say she threw them at me.}

Weekend Review~Edition 9

Friday- I don't remember much of what happened except that it involved babysitting and Molly being back to her SO VERY LOUD self. I said the other week that she's at least 28 decibels higher than usual, but I feel the need to say that I have no idea what that really means or how scientifically possible that is. Don't look to me if you want any sort of accurate scientific facts. I mostly said it because it sounded cool.

Saturday- Katie come down for a few hours to be she could be my shopping buddy. It was a highly unsuccessful trip but we enjoyed ourselves anyway. It's always more comforting to be unsuccessful when you're with someone else.

Sunday- These gentlemen pulled themselves together quite nicely.

We had a rather unfortunate spider incident over the weekend.

Elizabeth was spending some time behind the shed and came across two spiders that looked like the spider above only 10x more disgusting but about the same size. She decided she wanted to keep them even though she does not like spiders at all, and always makes me kill them for her. It didn't make any sense to me. She somehow got them in glass jar and put a cover on top that was larger than the jar itself. For two days she checked on them as if she cared about them and seemed quite sad when one spider killed the other spider by poking a hole in it's back.(How she to the conclusion that that's how it died is beyond me. The whole situation is beyond me,actually.) She made such a fuss about it that I decided I wanted to see it for myself. This is where the story gets unfortunate. She brought them over to me with the jar tipped upside-down so the spiders were sitting on the cover. The jar was cloudy so I told her to lift it a very tiny bit so I could see them and give my unprofessional opinion. She decided the best course of action would be to completely lift the jar off instead of listening to my detailed directions. It was at this point that the dead spider choose to reincarnated itself. Elizabeth freaked out and throw both spiders as far away from her as she could{which wasn't very far}. And who was in her direct line of spider throwing fire? That would be me. Needless to say, it was a less than pleasant experience.

On a far more pleasant not, our ultra cool SBIL{step brother-in-law}celebrated his 21st birthday on Friday. {Look at that! It's a wedding picture I haven't put up already!}

Even if Wesley wasn't our only SBIL, he'd still be our favorite.

ps. Trying to find an spider picture on google was very disturbing.

This is the way our school bus rolls

With three science classes under our respective belts, Elizabeth and I have established a morning routine that looks somewhat like this:

Not pictured but very much a part of the routine is the alarm clock going off at a very unholy hour accompanied by moans and groans coming from various parts of the room.

By approximatively 6:59 every Tuesday and Thursday morning, our ever-faithful car Harvey pulls out of the driveway with me as the driver and Elizabeth as the cute-but-completely-useless-when-it-comes-to-knowing-how-to-use-the-radio passenger.

We've formulated a list of necessities which are here modeled by the cute sister.

#1. snacks~ For obvious reasons this is the most necessary necessity. Should a hypothetical situation in which the driver gets lost for almost two hours on the way home ever occur, it's nice to know we'd survive the experience. {Please don't ask how I know what that feels like to get lost without food. I have no desire to discuss that fact that I get lost every two or three months. }

#2. books on tape~ We bring these for two reasons. First, we're trying to be educational and learn things during the drive. Second, Harvey's radio hasn't been the same since Andrew spent quite a bit of time with him a few years ago so we can't always depend on listening to our favorite stations. {Come to think of it, not much about Harvey has been the same since Andrew drove him.}

#3. coffee and water~ We'd rather not have to deal with dehydration{particularly in the hypothetical getting lost situation}.

#4. pencils/pens/highlighters~ We heard all the cool college kids use pens and pencils so we try to fit in.

When asked how she likes driving to school with me, Elizabeth answered that it's fine when we don't get lost{it's only happened once so she really doesn't have anything to complain about}, and that it's very windy having the windows open the whole time because the air conditioner doesn't work. {See #2 above for a possible explanation.} What she doesn't say is that I give her gum whenever she asks {gee,what surprise} and let her put her feet on the dashboard while she texts her peeps. In reality, she very much enjoys our trips together.

Pictures from an event that happened two months ago

After 2 1/2 months of waiting and waiting, I've finally received pictures of the Civil War Ball. I tried to limit the number of pictures I put up so certain people* wouldn't make comments about there being an unusual amount of ball pictures, but I couldn't help it. Just be thankful I didn't put the other 441 pictures up. I promise to keep my comments brief to make up for it.

* Yes, Christopher, that would be you. :)

Here we have the orchestrator of the ball, the lovely Amanda.

The young man on the right is the Brandon who danced with me five times and monopolized my dance card. I was never lacking for an enthusiastic partner. It's worth noting that after finding out at the dance practice that I would be attending as a Northern lady{naturally}, he decided to come dressed as Abraham Lincoln instead of Robert E. Lee as previously planned.

Can that really be Aaron having fun at the ball he was totally against attending? I said it before but it's worth repeating...I told him he would have fun! {It can be so satisfying to say that.}

I intend to find out all the important details regarding this gentleman that Elizabeth was so clearly enjoying. If it's Noah, I fully approve.

IT'S MELENA! MY NEW BEST FRIEND WHO TALKS IN CAPITALS AND EXCLAMATION POINTS!

Willie was never lacking for a lady to dance with.

The other Brandon obviously was enjoying himself.

I have no idea who this gentleman is but I was greatly impressed by his wardrobe selection.

Because every ball needs a little sass.

The lighthouse

On Saturday we made our yearly visit to the lighthouse for a picnic.

Thanks to Earl, it was much windier than usual and we spent most of our meal chasing the paper napkins, but other then that, it was wonderful. We always put our blanket right at the top of the hill so we can see the ocean all around us. The only downside was that Daniel and Erika weren't with us.

A certain little sister of mine was much more interested in watching the surfers than she was in eating her supper. To be specific, it wasn't the act of surfing she was most interested in, as the surfers themselves. I don't think she realized they were probably five times older than her.

After we ate, we went down the street to the other beach and walked on the rocks along the water while the sun set.

Every time we go somewhere with rocks, Mom and Elizabeth pick up big armfuls and bring them home. Big or small, they love rocks and since they usually never do anything with them, we now have little rock piles around the house and yard. It's kind of interesting. The rest of us have learned to be patient during their rock-picking spells.

My favorite part was seeing the sunset change and make the water blue, pink,gold and redish. It was so pretty.

I can't end this without saying the lighthouse is also special because it's the first place Erika went with us when she and Daniel started dating. Let's have a collective "aaaawwwww" over the sweetness of it.

Earl will not dampen our staycation

Other than bringing a lot of rain, Hurricane Earl was very anticlimactic. A weather man called him "a wimp" but I wouldn't go that far. Our fine governor decided to call a State of Emergency before one drop of rain had even fallen from the sky. I so wish he'd stop doing that. He's always calling a State of Emergency before the rain or snow start and nothing ever happens. One of these days we're going to end up in a boy who cried wolf situation.{By the way,I didn't vote for our governor.} At any rate, the sun is now shining and you'd never know anything happened.

In the spirit of wisdom, we took a few precautions just in case Earl was rambunctious. Mom mentioned something about securing the canopy over the picnic table, so Elizabeth proceeded to tie bright pink yarn around bricks and hang them from the poles of the canopy. I told her I doubted the yarn could withstand 2 mph winds let alone 80+ mph but they're still hanging there. Then again, there wasn't any wind to speak of either.

***

We are on a

STAYCATION

for the weekend.

We had planned on going camping but that didn't work out so instead, we're going to pack most of our summer traditions into a three-day staycation. {We didn't cancel the camping because of Earl although goodness knows that had we gone camping, it would have been a terrible,terrible storm.} We're going hiking and to the lighthouse for a picnic tonight, and the committee is still deciding what we'll do the rest of the time. Miniature golf is high on the list of possibilities. I'm hoping Earl does not decide to make another appearance. {If he was a real person, he probably would just out of spite because I was making comments about my governor's decisions. I think this whole hurricane thing is too much for me. It's a good thing I'm going on a vacation of sorts. }

Three People of the Week

Person 1

In the course of the last two weeks, Molly has become a VERY LOUD person. She's always been loud, but now she's at least 28 decibels higher than usual. I went over yesterday to babysit and most of the conversations between Carol and Molly went as follows:

Carol: Molly, you are being much too loud. I need you to sit down properly while you're eating.

Molly: OK MOM! MOM, can I have SOME MORE CHEESE? I am SO HUNGRY! MOM, LOOK AT ZACK! He has MORE CHEESE THAN ME!

Carol: Molly. Please be quiet for a while. There's something we have that's called intuition and it helps tell us whether we should do something or not. If your intuition is telling you not to do something, you probably shouldn't do. Your intuition should be telling you to quiet down.

Molly: OK, BUT CAN I HAVE MORE CHEESE NOW? ZACHARY, DO YOU WANT TO PLAY BICYCLE UNDER THE TABLE?

Carol: Molly, you're not listening to your intuition. You're not allowed to play any games while we're eating supper.

Molly: BUT I DON'T HAVE AN INTUITION!!!!!!!!!!

Carol and Brian were blessed with a handful when Molly was born.

Person 2

The crazy girl from the city came to visit Elizabeth on Tuesday. New York City, that is. Rachel just put herself on a bus outside her West Street apartment and ended up on our doorstep. I didn't get to see her as I was working, but rumor has it that it was a crazy time with lots of enthusiasm. Look at the girl. How could their visit not be crazy?

Person 3

James has returned to us from his basic training in Georgia. Except for a burnt hand and an injured foot, he's doing fine. Forget about family and friends, he was most enthusiastic about being reunited with Dunkin' Donuts.