Jeremiah's at Last

Every week on our way home from church, our journey takes us past a little place called "Jeremiah's Italian Ice."  It's right on a corner close to the road and inevitably the light is always red so that we are sitting there for a minute or two...which is plenty of time for Calleigh to look over and see all the people eating ice cream and the like.  The concoctions are quite impressive looking and it didn't take long for Calleigh to start telling us every time we went by that she wanted to stop there.  It's gotten to where we hope that the light will be green so we can speed by but it rarely happens.  For obvious reasons we don't stop at the time but this past Sabbath we promised we would go back.  So we did on Sunday evening.  They have a unique product called "Gelati" which layers Italian ice and soft serve ice cream.  Might I add that it's delicious!!  I shared a peach one with Calleigh and Duncan got coconut.  Needless to say, we decided that it's a place we need to bring visitors.  And yes, Calleigh loved it and so did Aubree.  I do realize this doesn't solve her asking to go there now that she's tasted the sinful delights!!

Yesterday we had a fun morning when Yolanda and Emma came over for a visit.  Yolanda is a great person to talk to because she has two older daughters (ages 5 & 8) so she's been around the block a few times when it comes to girls.  Later in the day Megan brought over some treats for us and I helped her with her taxes.  Her big news is that she just bought a new house in Apopka.  Obviously with David getting married in June, Megan is soon to be without a roommate so she decided to buy her own place.  Exciting!

This morning the girls and I went up to My Gym in Lake Mary.  This is the place we went to last month for a birthday party.  We apparently received a free session so they called us last week to set it up.  I figured the point was to try to get us to join but it turned out to be very low key.  The session was for kids from 2 1/2 - 3 1/4.  I had to keep Aubree in the Bjorn the whole time but she had a splendid time watching all the bigger kids play.    There were 8 boys and 2 girls including Calleigh.  To start with, they had all the kids sit in a circle and say they're name and what was on their toothbrush.  Then the teacher said something about "what do we need while we're exercising?" with the answer being "water."  One of the boys said something about a potty and then Calleigh declares quite loudly for the whole group to hear, "Well, I don't go poo poo and pee pee on the potty because I'm scary."  Thank you for the announcement Calleigh.  After that, the teacher takes them through a bunch of little exercises, they had free play, and then they did some maneuvers on some parallel bars, etc.  Calleigh was more of a watcher with some of exercise moves but she did participate in the exercises on the equipment.  All in all, the freebie was worth it but it's a little too far and a little too expensive for us to join up.

Last night as I was "tucking" Calleigh into her crib, we had another one of our heaven conversations.  For some reason, heaven seems to be one of her favorite topics.  I think maybe because we talked about it a lot having to do with Mimi's death.  Last night she had two very important questions.  The first was, "Will they have samples in heaven?"  She's very much into samples at Publix and Walmart, mainly because they're things she doesn't get at home (pudding, Key Lime pie, Kool Aid) so apparently it would be a really big deal if there were samples there.  Secondly, she wants to know when we're going there.  I tell her that we're waiting for Jesus to come back and get us.  Last night she says "What is Jesus waiting for?"  Well, that's the big question, isn't it?  I told her he was waiting for everyone to get ready to go.  So she says "For everyone to pack?"  Maybe I'll wait and let Papa explain this all to her next week!

Speaking of next week, on Monday we're flying up to Boston until the following Sunday.  Duncan has a conference up there and naturally we decided to join him.  The great news is that Aunt Sherrie and Uncle Kevin happen to be coming down here that same week so they'll stay here at our place and take care of the dogs.  That saves them from the kennel and us some money.

Another trip that we have coming up is my brother's graduation from Andrews on May 2.  The tickets were quite costly and since it was just from a Friday - Sunday, I had decided to just take Aubree and leave Calleigh with Duncan.  Once we booked the Boston trip, I knew everyone would be seeing Calleigh the week before so it should be okay to leave her behind from that standpoint.  As the days and weeks have ticked by, I started to panic and it came to a head Friday night.  I started freaking about being away from Calleigh for that long and I was imagining her little face as Aubree and I left on Friday morning for the airport without her. I checked the airfares on Saturday night and the tickets had gone up quite a bit so I decided to stick it out.  Then Sunday night they dropped (although still more than I originally paid) and I went ahead and did it.  So now the little bugger is coming and I get to start thinking about the joys of travelling with both of them on a plane without Duncan and having to lug their car seats around and put them in the rental car (we'll fly to Chicago and drive from there) and all that.  Fortunately Aunt Wanda and Aunt Shirley are coming with me so that will certainly help.

I finally saw a little glimmer of hope in Aubree today with the whole crawling and pulling herself up thing.  I'll let the pictures help do the explaining.

                   Such promise and then.....

                  Splat.  She's down.