O.K. Life is getting back to "normal"

At least my normal.

The girls and I loaded up the van and headed to sunny Florida last Friday. Most of you know I'm not much of a "road trip" girl. Long stretches in an automobile is a lot like water torture to me. But alas, this easy trip was staring me in the face. I figured if Sophie could endure 6 hours strapped in her car seat, I could endure 6 hours driving. Sarah? oh, she's no big deal in a car seat. Sophie, well, it's sort of like watching a butterfly in a tornado when she's on a road trip.

Anywho...
We headed out about 8am. Sarah has to wear "NASA pants" on any trip. In the toddler world they are known as pull-ups, but I needed to call them something more grown up for my growing, potty-trained girl. So I told her "I've heard of an astronaut that wore pants like this when she drove from TX to FL to, um, visit a friend. So if they are smart for astronauts...." Hence, "NASA pants".
Can you tell I get a bit focused when I'm going from point A to point B?
As we approached the FL state line I had fond memories of getting orange juice at the welcome center, so I actually made a stop. Sure enough! Fresh orange juice for all. Yummy.
Then, it occurred to me that another friend lived a couple hours from where I was headed, so why not call her and invite her too???? And do you know? Laura, Hannah Grace and Joel all got to come to sunny FL and visit too! Now that's what I call multi-tasking at it's best!

Saturday we headed for the Emerald coast. Ah, the beautiful beaches, the clear, perfect water....and Sophie. God bless her. Oh no, she wasn't scared. Are you kidding? That would have made it easy. No, just ran right out into the water. Kept walking. Fell. Got up. Kept walking.
"Who's yelling 'stop' at me?" she thinks....
uhh, Mommy.
"la da di di di da" thinks Sophie.
A mouth full of salt water. "Where's Mommy?" thinks Sophie. "oh good. there she is running towards me." sighs Sophie. "Press on" thinks Sophie.
(Mommy checks for Sarah, who is gleefully playing with Sandra and her kids. No worries, that kid sticks to the mommy-types like glue....)
"Crap, where's Sophie?" thinks Mommy
Ok, there she is popping back up out of the water.
Sophie keeps walking.
I keep thinking at some point the child will figure out that the water is getting deeper and the waves getting stronger. No, not Sophie. I finally grab her and bring her back to shore so I can rest.
Well, as Sandra can now attest to, Sophie is either full motion, asleep, or ready to eat.
We decide to have a snack. Because at least food will keep Sophie out of the water. When the cheese and crackers aren't coming her way fast enough she decides just to eat the sand. Yeah, gross. Of course I tried to stop her. I cleaned her tongue off 3 times. Finally, I gave in and just let her eat it. I had to rest before she took on the tide again.
After being out there for what felt like 6 hours...but I think it was more like 2 hours, we called it a day. Sarah, Piper, and Allie had a blast. I'm sure Sophie did too, but I'd rather run a marathon than watch Sophie at the beach again for at least a year.

Thank goodness Sandra is carefree. She totally understood that I needed...even WANTED...to be close to the house for the rest of the weekend. Sophie and I need Sophie to have her naptime.

But the big girls didn't mind. They just enjoyed doing nothing and everything together! And getting to meet Sandra was great!

Oh, I probably didn't mention that I had never *really* met Sandra before this weekend. She and I met online with one of our adoption groups while we were waiting to adopt Sarah and Allie. About 9 of us have been in close touch since the group started back in March '04. I've now met 3 of them in real life. And so the miracle of the red thread continues. God has blessed us with even more great friends!