It's been a long time since I've acutally published something in this blog. I have started writing some things and saved them as drafts, but never got back to finish them up and publish.

Life has been kind of busy lately, I guess. My 3 year old has a very packed schedule these days....some might argue it's too packed for a 3 year old...though in reality, she hasn't picked up any new activities. The ones she's been in are just scheduled a little differently so it feels like there's more. How can one small child make me feel like I'm running in 10 different directions?

My brother and future sister-in-law's wedding shower was the first weekend of April, so Alison and I spent the weekend with my parents so we could attend. It was a bit of a challenge to keep a slightly hyper, slightly overtired 3 year old from tearing the room apart, but we managed and nothing got broken. :) Really, she wasn't that bad, and could have, in fact, been a lot worse. It had just been a long day, complicated by changing the clocks and being up early for church, where she had been pretty well behaved.....we've been practicing being in church so she can go to the wedding without being a disruption.

Somehow, Easter snuck up on me this year, even though I was well aware of when it was and that it was coming up. I raced around the whole week before trying to get this, that, and the other thing done before we headed back to my parents' for the weekend. Somehow, I managed to get everything done, and we even got to see the Easter Bunny, just before he had to go back to Bunnyland. We got a pretty good picture, too, even though you can see the guy's face through the mesh mouth.....just don't look too closely. :) I did some frantic shopping and came up with something new to wear, since I thought I deserved a new outfit, only to arrive at my parents' to find my mom had bought the same skirt! I don't know exactly what that says about her taste....or mine....but at least it was just her second choice outfit and not what she had really planned to wear to church.

So now we're settling in to our new schedule for the rest of the spring. The Saturday swimming classes were all full, so Alison is going on Tuesday mornings instead. By the time I get used to that, the class will be done. It did solve a problem for us though, because the last class of the session, and the one where they get to go down the water slide, would have been the same day as my brother's wedding if she was going on Saturdays so she now she won't have to miss it. However, the wedding is going to cause another conflict for her. It turns out that there is another dance recital at the end of this session.....and it will either be the night before the wedding or the afternoon after it. But it will all be all right because her teacher is going to have a special dress rehearsal that week, just for her. :)

A recent look at our calendar showed me that the soaring price of gas is going to put us in the poorhouse by the time we finish all our travel obligations this summer. I think we might be home for two, or maybe three, weekends between the Mother's Day and the middle of July. The killer is going to be our trip to Maine. I am really not looking forward to that trip.

The weather has finally started turning nice. We've had quite a few days with above average temperatures lately, which is nice for now, but I dread what that could mean for the summer. So we've been trying to have Alison outside as much as we can. We moved the flowebed to another place in the yard, so we've got a bare spot where we're attempting to grow grass and she's been "helping" keep the area watered. Gonna have to keep an eye on her because she can turn on the spigot by herself now. Kevin was going to take her for a trike ride around the block on Friday, and she made it as far as two houses away before she jumped off her trike and into their sprinkler. She was soaked, but thrilled. It also brought to my attention the fact I've got to work on a summer wardrobe for her. She can still get in to her shorts from last year, but I think she just a little too young for the Daisy Duke look.

And that's some of the view from here.