Mama On The Move

 Yes, that's Emily, sleeping through a car wash. This was after a few days of early rising, cancelled flights, stress about cancelled flights, and arguing with her brother who was really stressed about said cancelled flights. Never saw anyone do that before.

 Apparently, Emily went traveling in the Tardis. She woke up with random Dr Who meme's written all over her appendages.  Don't Blink  Bad Wolf "I See You" Hashmarks  It's Bigger On The Inside And if you don't watch Dr Who..........how long have you been a Communist?

Before she left for Hawaii I took Emily to the local community college to take a college placement test so she can take a couple of classes in the fall for dual enrollment credit. She had to take the Compass Exam which is done on the computer. It's given on a walk-in basis, no appointment needed. It was in a huge room of computer stations and there were lots of other people walking in to take it as well. After getting her checked in, I waited in the lobby. They tell you the test should take an average of two hours so I was prepared with a book - "The Wednesday Wars" which Emily told me I had to read and she was right, it's a great book! After a while though, I started getting tired of sitting and started people watching. I noticed two different people come out of the test who had gone in after Emily. I became concerned that she was really struggling with the test. Maybe we did this too soon. Maybe she wasn't ready for a college test. I went to the window o...

Ben and Emily made it safely to Hawaii!  The trip has taken on a different vibe for them after the hassle of getting there three days later than planned.  Instead of having a weekend to rest after the flight and adjust to the five-hour time difference, they went directly from the airport to training camp and hit the ground running.  Not a great way to have to start an intense two weeks of mission training. Emily has already texted me telling me she's dog tired and having trouble keeping her eyes open.  But not Ben.  Ben never admits to any sort of human frailties that the rest of the populace deals with.  When he was a kid, he would adamantly deny that he fell asleep in the car, even when I produced a picture of him with his head back and his mouth wide open with a little river of drool running out. I thought he'd grow out of that as he got older, but apparently not as he and Emily had this conversation today: Ben:  I don't know why I'm this tire...

Nineteen years ago today, we were blessed with Ben.  Notice how I still have that shell-shocked look. ¸.•*¨*•♫♪  Happy Birthday to you!  ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸ ¸.•*¨*•♫♪  Happy Birthday to you!  ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸ ¸.•*¨*•♫♪  Happy Birthday dear Be-e-e-en!  ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸ ¸.•*¨*•♫♪ Happy  Birthday to you!  ♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥

And as always, we look for the humor in the bad situations. There was one amusing moment at the airport after we had dropped Ben and Emily off and they were going through the scanners to get on the airplane. Emily was wearing cargo pants with extra snaps and zippers because she's cool like that. Unfortunately, all the extra metal on her britches set off the metal detectors and she was pulled aside for a pat down. The female agent looked at Emily and said, "Where's your mommy?"  (Which I think is a little odd to ask a teen who will be sixteen next month.  She's not a toddler and we didn't say mommy even when she was a toddler.  We say mama  - hence the name of the blog.) Emily responded, "She's at home." "Where's your daddy?" "He's at home, too." "Are you traveling alone?" "No, I'm traveling with him," Emily pointed over at Ben. At which point the female pat-down artist looked ...

Yesterday will rank up there in the top of the yucky day list.  Not that I actually keep a list, mind you.  I don't like to hang on to the bad stuff.  This is just a hypothetical bad list. Ben and Emily have been working all year towards flying to Hawaii for the summer to work with Child Evangelism Fellowship.  They have worked for CEF every summer and this is (probably) their last chance to do so.  They were able to raise enough money to cover all the fees and a portion of their plane tickets.  CEF is similar to a mission trip in that the participants have to pay to go.  Even though I say they "worked" for CEF, it's not work for pay.  They paid for their plane tickets out of their own savings accounts and then received enough in donations to cover about a third of that cost.   The extra benefit for them, of course, is that they also get to see all of their Hawaii friends and Ben gets to see his girlfriend, Noelle.  So it'...