Last Vegas Pics & What I Want to Remember From Yesterday

A few last shots from my sabbatical in Las Vegas (is that an oxymoron?)...

There was a fabulous mall on the lower levels of our hotel. On one of the rainy days I walked and walked the mall area, window shopping. Those lovely ceilings'll throw you off. You know it's rainy outside, or perhaps it's dark out there, but it's perpetual daytime, springtime inside...kind of feels like the Twilight Zone. But in a pretty way. I sat by those railings for an hour or so one day and just drew...sketched the railings themselves.

The hotel had such a peaceful pool garden. I never swam, but on the sunny day, it was heavenly to sit on one of its many benches or chairs and read. Lots of very private and quiet spots, and obviously more statuary.

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Yesterday was one of our long Tuesdays - super-full of homeschooling work.

We've had a bit of sadness pass through these past several days, and so there was a little heaviness as the day got started. As the day wore on, moods lifted, and the children worked really hard on their assignments. The baby took two naps. And I'm learning more and more the peace that comes from really staying in touch with God throughout the day.

I cannot always get a photo of special moments, and my journal-writing has been non-existent since Las Vegas - such a whirlwind since then! But I can freeze-frame a few memories here...

Like Baby's delicious white curls up in my face while she sits in my lap...and her delightful facial expressions...big eyed surprise, eyebrows as high as they go, wrinkled forehead...and the shrill thing she does that is byebye!

Like LC in my lap. She is 7, but has always been very tall for her age. Right now she's the size of a 9 year old. Yesterday, she got in my lap to do her timed reading for school, and she is just.so.sweet. She plays with my hair and it nearly puts me to sleep sometimes. She read this:

Tell me, O Octopus, I begs
Is those things arms, or is they legs?
I marvel at thee, Octopus;
If I were thou, I'd call me Us.

 Ogden Nash

And it's just wonderful to experience my LC reading, getting better at reading, and really working so hard in school. She is a very young 2nd grader and is doing so beautifully in her first year at school.

Like having the privilege of being AH's mom and teacher - yesterday we had a side lesson in character about working hard to understand the meaning of what we read, then putting it down accurately in writing. It was a great talk and I am happy to get to do this with her, for her. She, too, is in a whole new world academically, and is doing wonderfully.

Like holding EG late last night, before bed, like a little baby because the sad got to her, too...stroking her hair, because I always like that myself and thought she would, too...and her remembering she didn't finish some laundry started and me gladly telling her to forget about it.

Reading Chester to CA during the schoolday and hugging her a bit extra, even though she didn't want me to. And how she's suddenly able to pronunce "r!" I mean...all my kids have different processing speeds as far as learning is concerned. Hers is lightning fast. By far my youngest to have gotten "r's" right...and she's done this on her own. (From Monday: When we go to Costco, I let CA show the workers our card upon entering the store. Toward the end of the shopping trip, I couldn't find the card. I mumbled out loud about it to CA, who said, It's by the tv's, at the place where we came in. I was happily shocked to find it right there, on the box of a flat-screen tv. She'd laid it down there, and remembered exactly where - thanks be!)

MK, who has never liked to speak her emotions, but over time has been willing to write them...she composed a little note to the family, telling us we are such a blessing to her, and that she loves us very much...also, watching her misspell half of her new spelling words, then get them all right five minutes later. More of that processing speed thing. Way fast. I love their uniqueness.

Thank you, God, for all these mercies, for being very needed.
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One last photo, just for fun, for the memories! This night we'd gotten to try a crazy-cool Peruvian-Bolivian Sushi fusion restaurant...

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the sketch - and no, I very rarely sketch...but it was fun to do...really I've only done it on trips when there was a lot of downtime (which means a couple of times in the past few years)...I took a picture of it with my phone and texted it to BeBe, who was watching my girls. They are always drawing, so I thought it would be fun to show them that mom drew something, too!