Good Morning World

In the effort to stay ahead of my children, I’m getting up even earlier to make use of quiet mornings and allow myself time to blog and look through news articles, make lists and get myself out of the way.

I am still a little groggy so posts about how my fingers feel funny because I slept on top of my hand may be forthcoming. I hope that I can be a little less mundane than that, but I’m not promising anything.

I am looking forward to our trip to Florida. We are leaving after church on Sunday and heading south to Lakeland where Grandma and Granddaddy will be waiting for three little boys to show up and wreak havoc on their lives. I think this will be a more challenging trip than it’s ever been because of the third voice in the back of the van, but hopefully the rising maturity of the other two will also be a factor and things won’t be too difficult. I am also curious as to how things will go once there. Ivan has a propensity to get into things and Aron wants to be held, while Owen is a barrage of questions, creative assessments and requests of time. Here at home I often feel like I’m bouncing around the house from one child to the next filling requests, administering discipline and changing diapers. I know with Grandma and Granddaddy there it will be a lot more fun to be a part of all of that and I expect to see Mema (Kris’ grandma) holding Aron a lot. Kris will be with us most of the time too, so the kids will actually be outnumbered for a change. Shoot…maybe I’ll just let them go without me. 🙂

Our week in Lakeland will end a little early as we all head up to the annual Kelso reunion in north Florida. Our weekend there always includes plenty of activity. Our group will be a little smaller this year as one branch of the family is unable to join us, but a tidy little group can be more intimate so I’m looking forward to it.

From there we are planning a jaunt to New Orleans. Kris and I had talked about returning to New Orleans early last year. Before we knew of Aron’s coming we had talked about visiting there in September to help boost the economy and take in a Titan’s game at the Super Dome. That trip was not to be, but as the weeks wore on I happened upon the blogs of some of Kris’ high school friends and pointed out to him that one of them lives in New Orleans. So…new incentive draws us that way and we will be visiting New Orleans. We have both visited in the past but never together. As both of us had jobs requiring travel in the past it’s always fun to show each other the sights we appreciated on our own, and compare our differing impressions of places we’ve been. I think this time it will be a new place to both of us. With children along you don’t frequent the same attractions and you look at a city so differently in terms of getting around and discerning family friendly locations.

Thats all…I’m done…no one climbed on my lap, no one cried, no one asked me to wipe them, no one spilled anything, no one said “watch this”, no one hit anyone, I did this one all by myself.