A Lot Going On

Obviously I haven’t been posting as often as I normally do. There’s a couple of good reasons for that. One, I’ve been gone about every three weeks this summer and I’m leaving again in three weeks for the ACFW Conference in Dallas.

Two, we’re moving. We bought a spec house (a house a builder builds without a buyer) last month and should be closing on it just around the time of the conference. It’s about 30 minutes east of where we currently are, out in the boonies a bit (so far out it’s not on Mapquest and Google Earth still shows it as cotton fields), but it’s a good move for us. But it also requires us to get our current house ready to go on the market. And since “Calvin” has gone through a black Sharpie period in his art, I have to do A LOT of painting. Like nearly every wall in the house. Not to mention cleaning baseboards, light fixtures (how do all those bugs get in there?), and switch plates. So, obviously, I’m having a ton of fun. Feel free to come on over and join me.

This last weekend I was back in California for my cousin’s wedding. It was a fun wedding. They got married on the beach at the Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego by a Navy chaplain who had a family friend for years. The reception was in the officers’ club.

The fun thing about being around my family is that I no longer feel like an Amazon. I’m actually one of the shorter people. I’m the oldest grandchild of nine, and one of only two girls. All my cousins and brothers are over six feet tall.

We drove down from Orange County with my parents and grandparents. I joked with my dad that he’d better not wreck because with four generations of Crosswhites (my maiden name) in the car, he’d take out a big chunk of the family tree.

We arrived at Coronado three hours before the wedding and since we couldn’t just wander around the naval base that long, we headed to some of the tourist spots and walked along the beachfront. Which was interesting considering I was dressed up for the wedding, in heels, walking around while most people were in shorts or bathing suits. And, I still managed to get sunburned. Not hard to do. I can burn under a light bulb.

I rarely go any place that I need to dress up enough to wear nylons, but I did wear them to the wedding. While we were standing outside an ice cream shop, my little Calvin squatted down in front of me. Then he starts poking my leg and rubbing it, and then looked up at me and poked my leg again. Then he pulled up his pant legs and looked at his legs. Ah! I finally figured it out. The sun was shining on my nylons, giving my legs a weird iridescent look which he’d never seen before, and he couldn’t figure out what was happening. Since it’s summer and I’m in shorts most of the time, he sees my legs a lot. Just not looking all shiny like that.

Considering my kids spent several hours in a car then had to sit through the ceremony and the dinner after, they were pretty well behaved. But Calvin had had his limit by about nine. He went over to my grandpa and told him, “GGpa (short for great-grandpa), it’s time to go. C’mon.” Then he goes over and grabs my mom’s big tote bag and carries it to her, spilling out half the stuff on the way and shoving it back in. “Grandma, let’s go.”

And we did.

In case you’re interested, the entry Mike and I wrote channeling Kanner Lake reporter Leslie Brymes will be up at Scenes and Beans Friday. And maybe I’ll have something more interesting to talk about later. Or you all could suggest ideas (except for Peter and Mike).