Hello! Goodbye!

In nearly a month since my last stop here, I have worked 22 out of 25 days. I am tired, but school season is OVER, HALLELUJAH.

I drove my long-term rental car for over a month. I never really loved it, though it had a few pleasing qualities (very peppy, very smooth ride, USB port to plug in my phone). Now I have my CR-V back, and I'm glad. Though I just remembered that my registration sticker came in the mail while I had my rental, which means I've been driving around with expired tags since Tuesday night. Let's go ahead and put a reminder in my phone to fix that tomorrow.

I stepped on a Lego in the dark in Nico's room last night and cut a chunk out of my foot. I am both embarrassed and outraged by this injury. It hurt to walk on it all day. I keep bright-siding myself and thinking, well, at least I didn't cut it before last weekend, but still. LEGO INJURY.

Last weekend we went down to Mammoth Cave National Park. MB and the boys and I went down on Friday night, and Laura Danger met us there Saturday morning. On Saturday we went on a two hour cave tour, had lunch, and then hiked 2 1/2 miles. It was tiring but awesome to be outdoors with some of my favorite people. On Sunday, LD and I went on the wild cave crawl and it was fantastic. We were in the cave 9 a.m. to almost 3 p.m., and they claimed we covered about six miles down there. There wasn't as much crawling as I expected, but there was more climbing and more funky obstacle / bouldering type stuff. I got stuck like a cork in one spot, due to my huge boobs. If I'd had any traction for my feet or handholds to grab, I could've made it through, and I never got scared because I could feel that they would compress enough for me to fit if I could just get myself moving, but I wasn't going anywhere until I got a little assistance. Toward the end of the tour there was a another spot as tight as that but with more wiggle room. One of the guides was sure I could make it, so I screwed up my courage and tried it. I'm so glad I did, because just having the room to wiggle-crawl my arms and legs let me shimmy through it. I hadn't been caving since high school and Laura Danger had never been, so it was a good adventure for us. Something about it was so focusing and freeing - there was no sense of time, no sense of direction, no sense of depth. I didn't think about work or my to-do list or even much about what my kids were up to...I just focused on the next obstacle and appreciated the wonder of what we were seeing and was just in the moment for a whole day of moments. It was really refreshing.

It turned out the kids were feeding kangaroos at Kentucky Down Under while I was caving, and MB actually took a few pictures. The children were reportedly VERY EXCITED, especially Nico, which is fantastic. This is a child who usually refuses to feed the giraffes at the zoo that we visit once or more every month, so feeding newly-met kangaroos is pretty huge.

Last week on Tuesday my best friend since we were five years old, the bibliophile, had a baby. I got to meet him on Saturday and then have lunch with them on Monday. He is perfect and smells delicious and I love him immensely already. I find myself wishing I could squeeze in one more visit to see him before we leave for a week away. I'm not sure I'll be able to and it's making me feel a bit bereft.

I am taking my Navigator scouts (and their parents) on a one-night camping trip tomorrow. A lot of the kids have never camped before and we are all stoked. With work eating my life lately, I haven't had a chance to make a single to-do list or pack a single bag, so tomorrow will be a bit of a mad scramble. But it's a one-night trip in a city park campground, so I'm not too worried about it.

On Sunday we leave to drive to Chicago, where we'll stay one night and a morning before driving on to St Paul. I am attending a conference Tuesday through Friday that I'm really excited about, and MB and the boys are coming along to make a vacation of it. After the conference we will probably spend the weekend in Chicago and then come back home.

Yesterday was Nico's last day of kindergarten and Elliott's last day of his first year of preschool. It went by so fast! I couldn't attend any of Nico's last day things, and I was okay with it until I saw his friend's moms posting photos of them with their wonderful teacher yesterday evening and realized I didn't get a single picture of her with Nico this year. She has been truly wonderful and I will be pretty crushed if Elliott doesn't get to be in her class in a few years.