What a Difference a Week Makes

A week ago my day started off with a phone call from my mom asking me if I had seen "the news". Flashback to the morning of 9/11 and hearing that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon building and none of us knew whether or not my brother was in the building that morning or not. My niece, Summer, that same brother's oldest child is in her freshman year at VA Tech. Luckily she had already been able to phone home to let her parents know she was safe and in her dorm. A photo of her and 3 of her friends started showing up on websites almost immediately and the picture is on the cover of In Touch Weekly-she's back at school for the reopening today and she says she has no qualms whatsoever about returning, go Hokies, but her parents say she isn't the same kid they had a week and a day ago. That's Summer in orange and her best friend Kelsey to the left.

I went to Ft. Smith with Joe for 3 days this week while he had his monthly meetings. I hung out at the nature center, did some running and we went mountain biking together. I had time to check out the Ft. Smith History Museum, Miss Laura's Visitor Center ( a beautiful old home, formerly a house of ill repute back in the days of legalized gambling and river travel) and the National Historic Site twice. Good stuff.

When we returned Friday evening we picked up Mc's friend Lizzy and went to see David in Disney's High School Musical. He cracked us up. He comes out on stage in tight highwater pants and starts tripping around being a goof. Total typecasting. He was the school announcer so it was fun to watch others in the audience look over to his desk to see if he was coming out to make announcements or not. His friend Beatrice stole the show I think. She played Ms. Darbus-ask the kids-they'll know- and she was hilarious! Mc was shouting because "Troy" the lead male character was wearing a bball jersery with HER softball # on it. She's cheesy. She and a normally VERY quiet Elizabeth screamed thru most of the show and certainly each time David came out. In the end, as the mismatched characters are pairing off, David gets the sweet little dorky playwrite. His dad leans over to me and says, "David gets the Asian girl, makes David a happy boy." And we wonder where he gets the goofy from?? They wouldn't allow pictures of any kind (copyright deal) so sorry for that.

McKenna going for a high one

Not sure what she's looking at but it isn't the pitcher!

We've had other adventures, including a kayak trip Easter weekend that went afoul. We were supposed to do a night paddle but the weather was so wretched we had to wait it out until the next day. Luckily Joe had us in a "rent-a-RV" instead of a tent. McKenna thinks she wants to live in one.

Lots of softball. LOTS of softball but not enough practicing. Our team has a lot of improving to do if they even want to play at the same level as last year. I'd like to see them play more for fun but they're in between levels, too good for the for fun teams and not good enough for the really competitive ones. We'll see how the season progresses. McKenna is playing a very good game switching between catcher and first base and we're working on the batting.

School is good. Mc's play is this Thursday. She's worried about stage fright. I think she'll be fine. She did this picture for art class. We didn't find out until it was taken down and given back that it has been hanging at the Arts Center. Uh. okay, thanks for letting us know, right? She wanted to do just the hands but her teacher 'made' her add to it. That's her story anyway. I just noticed that her guy has 2 right hands. hmmm