Finally, a new blog entry

I apologize for not having written earlier. As many of you know, I was out in the Mid West visiting "uncle Mike" who was hanging around between long deployments to Europe. I had a great time visiting Indiana again, even though I didn't do anything particularly unique or exciting. When you have two small children at home, it's almost impossible to do something as simple as going out to the movies. (I saw The Bourne Ultimatum in Indiana, which I thought was quite good.)

I didn't ruin my diet while I was away, but I didn't lose any additional weight either. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was the "big ole brownie" at Texas Roadhouse, or the fried catfish I had with my Cracker Barrel breakfast. I guess there's no point in pointing fingers. The bottom line is that it's okay to cheat a little on your diet from time to time. And that's a good thing, because a lifestyle change that doesn't allow for the occasional (occasional) rich and chocolaty dessert is a change I do not want to make.

Now that I'm back in California I'm trying to come up with fun, outdoor activities to do with the girls. My plan for today was to bring Amelia to a local pumpkin patch for some fun. She was extremely excited about going, but when we got there we found that the hours posted on the farm's website were wrong. The pumpkin patch had just closed before we arrived.

We couldn't have been the only people who were confused. A number of other cars with children pulled into the same locked driveway as we prepared to leave.

Amelia did not take this turn of events very well, so I decided that we would go to a local park with a small vineyard instead. Amelia had a lot of fun running back and forth along the length of the park. Diana just had a great time walking. She started off in one direction and would not stop until she was physically re-directed by mommy.

On the way home, Amelia noticed how dark it had become. She followed this observation with another one of her classic and terribly funny lines: "I'm not bad, I just feel tired." Sometimes it's very difficult not to burst out laughing around that girl. Leaving gymnastics class Amelia reflected, "You have to listen to me," when I asked her for the third or fourth time to put on her shoes and get ready to go. At dinner, while she was refusing to eat her Parmesan, multi-colored noodles, she asked to get down from the table. I told her that I expected her to eat a small amount of dinner before she got down to which she replied factually, "I want to get down - you have to listen to me!"

I probably should have explained to her that little girls don't get to say such things to their mommies, but she was so cute I gave her a hug instead.

Lisa