Road Trip...

Wow.
Girl2 and I have been on the road since Wednesday evening.
What an adventure.
Here is a list of our mishaps...

1. Missed Hwy 7 exit in Clinton

2. No Dairy Queens (too late, or shut down and boarded up)

3. Get lost in Memphis

• No Graceland - too lost
• No famous BBQ Salad - too lost
• No Beale Street - Memphis traffic (& street signs suck)
• No Cheesecake Place - local $10 a slice cheesecake spot
• Had to past cool dead house photo op - traffic crazy and we were lost

4. Buy GPS at Walmart outside Memphis. Messed up our tight travel budget - no room tonight. But also got a whole CASE of canned boiled peanuts!

5. Don't listen to "Richard" (AKA God of the Highway, TomTom, Dick, or GPS). Get turned around in Birmingham, and Atlanta.

6. Find a cheap room. And we mean cheap - and in this case, you get what you paid for.

7. Need gas. Find a station in rural GA - stop to potty and filler up. Help elderly lady who is "Messin her britches" (her husband yelled it - not me). Get distracted with all that excitement and forget to get the gas.

8. Run out of gas in GA. Never underestimate the importance of knowing exactly what County you are in, and the mile marker you are at - EVER for the rest of your life. And try not to pull over in the middle of a mile marker that defines a County, apparently this can be quite confusing to various law enforcement dispatchers. And all mile markers are not like they are in KS. Forget it, this will be a whole other blog entry.

9. Be absolutely floored by the educational opportunities that await your child in life. Wow. We are now accepting donations for Girl4. Very emotional journey.

10. Meet up with your Baby Brother, Uncle Matt who you haven't seen in 5+ years. Is it possible the Jolly Green Giant actually grows as a man?

11. Super bad news on the road, crying a lot today - extreme reasons.

11. Forget all the drama, hang out for a night of fun and walking in Savannah, GA. Go to the beach at night and collect shells. Stay up late talking in super fine - make you feel better - very expensive (for our budget) - Holiday Inn.

12. Wake up, say good-bye to Little Brother. Have fabulous breakfast, update blog, head to beach, go back to old Savannah for a Praline Hunt (another personal mission), and a sandwich lunch in the Old Brick Grave Yard (6 acre Civil War Cemetary transformed to City Park).

13. Hit the road for good old KC. I can't wait to hug my husband, Girl3, Girl4, & Toots. I can't wait for the loving distractions my little babies will bring me on Monday either. I am having bittersweet fun, and missing my lovely life.

NEW:

14. Have so much fun at the beach running low on time for "Savannah Time" - oh yeah, I did find the Savannah Candy Kitchen (thanks to "Richard" and the reality TV show Ruby). Left with 3 pounds of pralines. No fun lunch in the cemetary though. I promise Girl2 - we will find a DQ on the road.

15. Within miles of the running out of gas incident on the West bound side of the highway I come across some road debris. It's big, no time to swerve, and it appears I can straddle it. WRONG. Off the ramp, find a local:

• Bad News: Lost all the transmission fluid - knocked a hole in the pan.
• Good News: Could have been worse.
• Bad News: It's 3:30 on Saturday in rural GA. All the garages are closed - they all gotta get to the dirt track.
• Good News: The Dirt Track is just miles down the road from us, and men in GA are for the most part quite the Southern Gentlemen - especially when one of the Damsels in Distress looks like Girl2. First Gentlemen (so cute) has an Uncle with a Tow Service - help is on the way!
• Bad News: The transmission shop we are getting hooked up with is in a very bad part of town - we need to be miles away from there. Oh yes, First Gentleman has confirmed that both part stores in Macon, GA do not carry the oil pan we need. Part will have to come from Atlanta - looks like we may not get on the road until Tuesday!
• Good News: Sheriff Sargent pulls into station. Ask him for advice on where to stay in Macon. He is a K-9 Sargent - cute too! Girl2 is relaxing - these handsome Southern Men seem to intrigue her. Now I am simultaneously conducting Future Son-in-Law Interviews between these two gentlemen as we wait for the tow truck.
• Bad News: There are lots of "gansta wanabees" just south of Macon, GA. At least one actually pulls up around us (with the Sargent and Dog RIGHT THERE) and initiates a Stare Down with Sargent Josh.
• Good News: Bad Guy looses and cruises off in big junk car.
• Bad News: Sargent Josh says now they know where we both are (he and the other officer on duty and Girl2 and I). The Bad Guys can now run "amuck" in rural Twigg County for awhile.
• Good News: Sargent Josh is not going to leave us alone for a minute. And a friend & coworker of his pulls in - sees him and comes over to offer a look-see. Larry Johnson (AKA"Bud") is actually the guy who works in the County Shop and keeps the officer's cars rolling. Also works on most of the officer's private cars in his home shop - just down the road by the Dirt Track. Mr. Johnson (correction "Bud" - please) thinks he can weld that hole right up and get us on the road.
• Good News: 8:30pm and we are back on the road. Bud has taught me how to to check the fluid and Sargent Josh has given us his private cell number - we can call him if we run into any more trouble in GA!
• Bad News: We found out Monday after we got home that the road debris had ripped THROUGH a major brace on the rear frame of the car. It is a wonder (I prefer to think it was the hand of God) we made it home in one piece.
• Good News: My Man is the Manager of a Goodyear. Good Men at Goodyear (where do you think I met him?). They took care of it!
• Bad News: I am now banned from driving more than 60 miles from home. Daddy is taking Girl2 on her next college road trip - the leave 4/16/09!

Circle Time Fun

So, I'm a bit lazy with the blog lately. That's probably because I'm trying to squeeze in my on-line course work during nap and in the evening. I love the new ideas I'm getting exposure to - but my goodness, it is a time-drainer! So, lazy woman that I am, here is from today's Daily Report and some extra added in with pictures and a video (TADA!) from Circle this morning:

Circle was really fun today. We started off with "Here We Are Together", "The Days of the Week", and the "ABC Song". We went over all our Nursery Rhymes from our Theme Page too. Then we read Skippyjon Jones up & down and Skippyjon Jones shape up – for the opposites book we have our own “acting out” movements we do and for the shape book we talked about the colors of the shapes and we tried to find similar shapes in our Circle Room as we read. We read Barnyard Banter – which I videoed with my digital camera and hope to have as my first “video” on our blog.

I know, I know. She bumped her head and I did not offer too much comfort. I was trying to stay out of the shot AND kept the story going! She shook it off fine, that Sunshine is quite a Little Trooper.

I played the video back and they watched it (very giggly) on the little screen on the camera. Baby Cakes was on the floor on her tummy up to this point when we switched to the Bumbo.

Then I got out some activities: Building/Nesting Blocks & Counting Chips, Building/Nesting Blocks & Counting Fish, and the Feeling Bear Puzzle. We rotated around the items. Well, except for Little who was very content with her just a set of blocks – happy to count the blocks themselves and build towers with secret hiding places for smaller blocks (Maybe we have a little engineer in the making here?).

What you can't see in this picture is how smart this almost two-year old is. She has awesome organizational skills. This is a set of 10 boxes. She had been stacking them while hiding a smaller tower of two inside of one big cube, then upward with another tower of two inside one big cube. This was toward the end of Circle when she was cleaning up her blocks - don't interrupt her - she can do it herself!

Baby Cakes got into the activity action in Circle today too – Sweetie Pie shared with Baby Cakes and they played with blocks together!

One is never too young to enjoy a good Circle Time. Above is Sweetie Pie showing Baby Cakes the ropes, such a Good Friend.

And here is Sunshine in a Sunbeam (the Circle Room is FULL of sunbeams) showing me a "Sad Feeling Bear" she told me that the bear got a boo-boo on her knee. Then she showed me her Weekend Warrior boo-booed knee.

And here is Mr. Smiley. I know that few of his pictures show him smiling, but I promise he is a smiler! Here he is concentrating on the task of seeing just how many counting chips he can hold in his little 21-month-old hands.

I think the Circle Room was one of my best ideas ever for our day care. These kids LOVE Circle Time. I'll send up the two-minute warning that we need to do our morning clean-up so we can go to Circle and they just scurry around putting away all the toys. As soon as I get the gate open - they rush out like a herd of little ponies hollering "Circle Time, circle time!" and running to the Circle Room.