Further August Adventures

Well, it's hard to believe that it's been a week since I last blogged... Things have been going very well, and we've been very busy, so I haven't had time to update much.  In the future I won't be blogging quite as regularly, but it's nice to have the time to do it right now.  We've had the gift of 10 days together before school starts, but tomorrow is Astrid's last day of summer vacation, so it's time for an update!

I don't really know the order that a lot of this stuff happened in, it's honestly all a blur in my head.  The number one thing we've all been complaining about is the weather.  It has been SO HOT.  Astrid isn't used to the heat or the air conditioning.  The first few days she was here, she kept asking me to turn the air conditioning down (or is it up? I am not sure) as she was way too cold.  I changed the temperature a bit, but I wasn't willing to die of heat stroke, so she developed a system of running in and out of the house to either warm up or cool off.  As the week has gone by, however, she's started acclimating to the air conditioning very nicely, and I think she appreciates it, especially when she's been out running!

I really wanted to take her to DC, but as I said in my last blog, it poured rain Monday night, so we weren't able to go.  We went on Tuesday and my friend Emily asked if she could join us, so we picked her up on the way.  Unfortunately, the rain the night before only served to make it even more miserably hot. So we didn't get the full tour in.  Still, we got to see some good stuff.  We started out at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and then walked the tidal basin over to the FDR Memorial, which is my favorite.  Then we drove over to the Lincoln Memorial and parked, walking to the Korean War Veteran's Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Vietnam War Memorial ("The Wall").  Astrid's favorite movie is Forrest Gump, and she REALLY wanted to see the reflecting pool where Jenny and Forrest were reunited after he returned from Vietnam, so it was really special to take her there to see that.  Afterwards, we drove up to the Capitol Building, but unfortunately the street where I always park was blocked off so we couldn't stop for pictures.  We will get those another time, as well as pictures of the Washington Monument, WWII Memorial, and the White House, but it was still in the 90's when we were up there at 9pm and we were all exhausted from the heat.

Astrid with Dr. King

Astrid with Eleanor Roosevelt

Our little family at the FDR Memorial Fountains

The Reflecting Pool ("Foooorrrrrrreeeeessssst!!!!")

Our little crew with Abe Lincoln

Astrid checking out the women's memorial at The Wall

Astrid and Mr. Durso looking over her schedule

Wednesday morning we had an appointment with Mr. Durso, the head of the upper school at Fredericksburg Academy, where Astrid will go, to get her registered for school.  She got to meet with a number of her teachers and sign up for her classes.  I'm not sure of everything she is going to take, but the standards of English, US history or government or both, AP biology, theater, and Algebra are in there.  She found out she could start cross country that afternoon, so we re-arranged our schedule for the evening and that allowed her to do that.

We also managed to squeeze in two games of bowling between the meeting at FA and her practice, so it was a very busy day.  I am not usually that good a bowler, but we had fun and I won!  Then we stopped off so Astrid could meet my mom before going home to get ready for her practice.



After bowling and Nana time, we went back to FA.  We were given the wrong start time and location for practice, so I went to drop her off at 4pm, as we had been told, but there was no one to be seen.  As we were driving around looking for people, I spied one guy clutching a water bottle and said, "He looks like he could be a runner.  Let's see!"  Well, this was my first time embarrassing the heck out of this particular teenager, and the more embarrassed she got the more hilarious I found it.  I pulled up to this guy very slowly and stopped as he went to cross the street.  I rolled down the window and smiled at him and he was kind of looking at me funny, so I asked him if he knew where the cross country practice was.  He said it was on the field, and I asked what time, and he said 4:30, not 4:00 as we had been told!  So I said, "Well, I have Astrid here, she is new to the team and I have things to do, so i'm going to leave her with you."  I could hear from the backseat, "No, oh no!"  Haha... So he was kind of looking at me and looking for Astrid who he couldn't see, and I was like, "Hey, what's your name?"  He said it was Chris, so I said, "Oh, hi Chris, nice to meet you.  This is Astrid! She's new here, she's from Denmark" and I heard all kinds of noise from the backseat.  I was like "GET OUT OF THE CAR" and she was like "NO!" and poor Chris was like "What on earth is going on?!" So I finally said, "I have things to do!  GO!"  haha  She got out of the car, put the evil eye on me, and off she and Chris went to practice.  It was HILARIOUS...  I don't think she will ever forgive me for that.

Astrid at cross-country practice

She has enjoyed cross country so far and made a few acquaintances, which is good since school hasn't started.  We got her phone set up so she is able to text friends and she has enjoyed that.  She even said that while she was running, a few kids on the soccer field were yelling "Go Astrid!"  So that's nice that she's in such a supportive environment where everyone knows her name!

After her Wednesday practice, unbeknownst to me, my friends were throwing me a surprise birthday party, so we went with my friend Amber to Red Lobster, only to find a bunch of my friends there waiting for us!  It was such a nice surprise and happily we were able to have a nice meal and Astrid could meet a few of the important people in my life!

She was freezing due to the air conditioning, so she asked the manager for a blanket, but he didn't have one.  Andy got her a coat.  When her meal arrived, Astrid said, "I've never seen this much food before in my life!"  Welcome to America, kid.  Haha  We had a lovely dinner and then came home, where Astrid went to bed and Andy and I watched the finale of Great British Bake Off...  A perfect evening!

I took no pictures on Thursday, so I honestly have no idea what we did.  We probably stayed home most of the day as we were quite tired from all of Wednesday's activities.

Friday, we had a game night to go to in the evening.  Leah was out of the house in the afternoon, and I had offered to make my friend Tommy a birthday cake, so after Leah left to go swimming with her friend Carlie, I decided to teach Astrid the fine art of cake decorating.  She said it looks much easier on TV, but she did a very good job piping a little border around the cake.  Since Tommy is in charge of the game group I go to, we decided to make a board game themed cake, and what better board game is there for a birthday cake than CandyLand?  Leah and I had gone out in the morning to buy lots of candies, and then Astrid and I did the decorating.

Now it turns out I am really not good at making a path shape through the frosting.  I tried to sketch one out with a knife, but it was the saddest little path you ever did see.  Astrid took one look at it and burst out laughing, so I told her to make the path, and of course it was perfect on her first try.  She told me that from now on whenever she feels sad, she will think of my path and it will make her laugh.  Thanks.  For nothing. :)

Anyway, the cake went together really nicely and then I took her to track practice and finished decorating it without her. But really I couldn't have made the perfect path without her direct intervention.

And I really love how the cake looked and that all 3 of us played a different part in its creation.  Game night was fun, we only stayed for one game because both girls were tired from their busy days.  We played a game that was kind of like a group Battleship game, I think it was called Captain Sonar.  We won the first game, lost the second game, and it was great.  Tommy absolutely loved his cake and was totally blown away by it.  Astrid made sure that everyone knew she made the path.  She also tried to get her revenge for the Chris episode by leaving me alone with one of Tom and Amy's friends, but people are pretty fluidly in and out of game night, so she wasn't terribly successful.  But we had a great evening.

Saturday, I was kind of tired, as I am still pretty sick from this summer cold or whatever I've been battling.  So I gave the girls some options of things we could do, as I had planned to take them to a Bob Sima concert.  If you were following our adventures last year, right after Urara arrived, I turned 40 and had Bob Sima come to the house to do a house concert as my birthday party.  He has been a guest at the UU we attend several times and I love his music and his spirit.  But Saturday I was kind of thinking maybe we should just relax.  I told the girls, we could go to the concert or just have a family movie night, but Astrid surprised me and said she'd like to go to the concert!  So we had family movie afternoon and made a pizza and started watching Forrest Gump, which I wasn't sure how Leah would like it, but she actually liked it a lot!  (It was Astrid's turn to choose the movie--I'm up next.)  Leah said she shed one sad little tear when Bubba died. LOL  Anyway, we only got about halfway through it, and then stopped it because Astrid wanted to go for a run, so we drove over to Pratt Park and she did an hour of running.  Then we went home, she grabbed a superfast shower while I put together spinach dip and veggies for the potluck, and off we went to my friends Bill and Lynda's house for the concert.  Bill and Lynda own a lovely property on the western edge of Stafford County, and they hold concerts there every summer.  Last year, we got  to see Gaye Adegbalola, formerly of Saffire the Uppity Blues Women, who was totally amazing.

The Bob Sima show was very lightly attended, there were only about 15 of us there, but there was a lovely potluck (I told Astrid before we went that I guaranteed there'd be quinoa served, and sure enough there was! ha!), and because it was such a small venue, Bob decided to play unplugged in a smaller section of the yard.  He was fabulous as ever, and even sent some positive vibrations down to the people at the Donald Trump rally, which was happening in town that night--yes, The Donald was in The Burg.  He played for about an hour and a half, and then took a break, during which we all went inside to escape the mosquitos.  He decided to play indoors for the second half of the set, and it was just as nice inside as it was outside.  Afterwards, I went up to say hello and he remembered me from my party and gave me a big hug and I introduced him to Astrid and Leah, and he was so nice and spent quite a while talking with us.  I was so glad we wound up going, plus Astrid got to meet a few ladies from the UU which was pretty awesome!

Sunday morning, we got up and went over to the UU for church.  The topic was on the US healthcare system, so I suppose now Astrid knows quite a bit about that.  But everywhere she went, people said, "Oh!  You must be Astrid!" and introduced themselves to her.  She's been very open and good about introducing herself and talking to everyone who has said hello to her, and I told her that's good because otherwise people will quickly lose interest, but if she keeps talking and is open and friendly, it will develop into something deeper on down the line.  I hope she enjoyed the service, I had been willing to skip it, but she said she would like to go and I'm glad we did.  I felt like I had walked in with a celebrity the way people were excited to meet her! :)

Afterwards, we went home for lunch and then went down to the river.  I told Astrid we'd be going to play in a waterfall, which it technically is, but a very small one.  We had fun building a dam with Leah and climbing the rocks, there was a snake swimming around that freaked us out a bit, and eventually we went home for a while before driving out to Locust Grove for a quick visit with Dipthi, our former welcome student.  I had gotten some mail for her and wanted to drop it off.  On the way, we stopped at Sonic for fancy drinks, and Astrid asked why we Americans have so many choices in milkshakes!  She finally settled on Strawberry Cheesecake.  We had a nice ride out to "the country" and I showed her some of the Civil War battlefields in the area.  It was so nice to see Dipthi again and she is very happy with her delightful host family so that was good!  We all got big hugs and Dipthi's big smile to greet us, which made me so happy.  When we got home, we made tacos for dinner and finished Forrest Gump.  I haven't seen it in at least 5 years, and I was crying so hard by the end...  Leah said, "What's so bad?  I only felt sad about poor Bubba."  Astrid made her give me a hug. LOL

Today Leah demanded a lazy day.  She said she was tired and wanted to relax, so she spent most of the day in bed on my iPad, which is very unusual for her.  Usually she wants to go, go, go!  At church on Sunday, I had volunteered to bake some brownies for the community supper our church helps put on once a month, so we baked brownies, and my neighbor had offered us his fresh basil he had growing in abundance, so I went over to his yard to pick some and made some fresh pesto sauce.  After lunch, I asked Astrid if she'd like to play some cards, and she said she would, so I taught her the fine game of SkipBo, one of my favorites and one Penny and I played ad nauseum, and we ate brownies, as Leah demanded I make a third pan of brownies for us!

Astrid picked up on SkipBo very quickly, perhaps too quickly, she beat me 2 games to 1.  She said it was a lot of fun and she enjoyed it.  Given that Penny loved it so much as well, I'm envisioning a day down the line when I'm 80 years old and all my former students come back to see me and we have international Skip Bo tournaments.  Peace Through Cards is what I'll call it. :)

Afterwards we all cleaned the house, and then Astrid and Leah were hanging out upstairs for a while, but then Leah came down upset and said that Astrid had kicked her out of her room, and then Astrid came down upset and said Leah said some stuff that made her unhappy.  As it was close to dinner time, I dished up dinner, and we had a little family meeting.  I was very proud that both girls expressed their opinions clearly, we were able to talk about hurt feelings and misunderstandings, and come to some agreements about how we were going to move forward.  I was thinking the whole time, "Look at me, I'm parenting!"  Haha I was feeling very proud of myself, and Astrid said afterwards that she was very comfortable with the way that I handled the situation.  We have been together for 10 days, so it was bound to happen that we were going to start squabbling.  Normal sibling fighting, I'm very hands off, but this situation went a little deeper, and I'm glad I was able to intervene to both girls' satisfaction.  Afterwards, Astrid taught me the Danish card game Stress.  AUGH!  SO HARD!  I can't wait till we play it for real--we didn't really have time so we just played a quick game, but I have a feeling I'm going to get very good at it.

After dinner, Astrid wanted to go for a run, and she asked Leah to go with her, so Leah agreed to do one lap with her.  Astrid asked Leah to be her water girl and bring her a drink every time she went around the block and Leah drew Astrid a motivational drawing her with sidewalk chalk!

And yes, that is my 7 year old's handwriting.  I can't get over how good it is.

After the running, Leah threw a little party in her bedroom and Astrid read to us from a book of Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales she gave Leah as a present.  She read us "Big Claus and Little Claus" and I don't recommend it.  Ha!  HCA did not write happy endings.  I wouldn't exactly call this one a cautionary tale, but it was really quite a story, I must say!  Leah was enthralled and wanted another story, but it was late so Astrid promised her another one tomorrow night.  If you're going to listen to Danish fairy tales, the best way is to listen to them with a Danish accent.

Some of the things Astrid has tried and enjoyed this week include grape Kool Aid (I explained to her the expression of "She drank the Kool Aid" and we had a debate over whether or not the people at Jonestown wanted to actually drink the Kool Aid or knew what was happening), beef jerky, Knorr spinach dip,  brownies, spaghetti squash, Sonic, and Red Lobster.  She also learned Leah's Treasure Pony board game and we've started an extensive list of movies that she has to watch (tops are Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Princess Bride, and Napoleon Dynamite).  The cats are even starting to come around.  Dodo stuck her tail in Astrid's face today as a sign of affection.  I think.  We've even survived our first family disagreements and come out on top.

So that's where things stand as of Monday, August 22.  Tomorrow we will go down to the FA (again) to get Astrid's computer set up for the school year, and then head to Kings Dominion for the day.  Then on Wednesday, Astrid starts school!  YIKES!  It's a new system for me this year--I've signed her up to take the bus in the mornings which will save me about 30 minutes of driving every day.  I hope it goes well.  If not, there's a girl around the corner from us who goes to FA and is a senior, I've suggested to Astrid that she gets friendly with her and try to sweet talk her into giving her a ride.  I'm so glad we've had these ten days to get to be together and get to know each other before school started, but at the same time it didn't last so long that we all hate each other.  Haha :)  I am loving our little family life and how we are jelling together.