A couple years ago I went to the dentist. I have a white filling in a molar and it was sensitive to temp. He said I probably needed the filling redone. This was two years ago. At the time, I was thinking about braces and was going to see if they could just pull that tooth because I need a tooth pulled for braces anyway. So then I didn't get braces, and I never got the filling fixed. Now, two years later.. and most recently in the last couple days.. the tooth has started hurting just all the time. In fact, this evening is the first evening that I have had lingering pain in the tooth even when I am not eating/drinking. *sigh* When the heck am I supposed to get this fixed? If I can't get in Wed, maybe I can get in on Dec 1. It SUCKS having a chronically sore tooth. I am never again doing a white filling. My other fillings, done when I was I think in early teens, have NEVER had a problem. This white one has always been slightly sensitive.

On a better note, we had quite a productive weekend. We went through clothes and old toys and stuff and donated it. We also went ahead and got rid of the downstairs couches. We can't take them with us when we move and, a great deal of the time, we sit on the floor anyway. This was the best weekend to get rid of them. We still have our upstairs couches though I have a strong urge to buy new couches. Must resist that urge. After going through all the toys, we realized we really don't have all that much and moving should be relatively easy. We are replacing our dishes and so won't need to wrap and pack like I had thought. But we have been wanting to replace them for a while, and well, why not now so we don't have to pack and unpack them?

We went to Costco on Saturday and, while they didn't have the moving boxes we went there for, they did have TOYS! They had an this erector set with motor and Trevor fell in love with it. You can build all these cool things and they will work with the little motor! Way cool. Rachael saw a HK boombox with CD player/radio/tape player. And there was also a cute Ponyville thing Ariel liked. We've got some xmas covered! I looked up everyone online and it was much cheaper at Costco. So Ray is going back this week to pick up the stuff.

Also-- the GPS Ray got me arrived in the mail on Thursday! So we did our first geocaching adventures with it this afternoon. We found all three caches we searched for and the kids had a blast. The GPS was extremely easy to use- very important for impatient me. If I can't figure it out within a couple minutes, I ditch it. But the GPS took us right to the cache everytime. I am hoping to get out tomorrow with Trevor and Ariel while Rachael is in Creative Kids to see if there are any caches around the school. Fun!

What else-- we stopped by Home Depot and picked up paint color chips. Trevor had a mini breakdown about going to Target to spend his allowance on Pokemon cards (he collects them obsessively right now) and, after thinking about it, I just took Trevor to Target to get some. I also had a good talk with him about arguing his point to me without whining or tantrumming. I'm a reasonable person. Trevor is most certainly allowed to argue with me, provided he is not whining or tantruming or being uncompromising. He correctly told me that I had promised him a trip to Target this weekend because we didn't have time to go during the week. Honestly, I didn't feel like taking the entire family into Target. So, after I inititially said no to him and he freaked on me, I thought about it and changed my mind. I dropped the girlies and Ray off and took Trevor out and we had a very productive conversation about WHY I changed my mind and how he could have changed my mind much more quickly in the future. Then we practiced how the conversation might go- as per Trevor's request. So yay for good parenting moments and for Trevor hopefully learning something out of it.

The homeschool group had discount tickets and so we were able to see them for 5 bucks a piece and 6 bucks to park. I decided not to send them to school this morning and we left around 9:30, made a Target run for gloves (which I couldn't find in the house and it was like 30 out this morning), ran by Ray's work for the printed directions and confirmation and then out to the Kennedy Center in DC! I thought it would be hard to find, but thankfully it was not.

We got there right around the time the cafe opened. Um. Sticker shock?! I thought, oh.. cafe.. coffee, small sandwiches, pastries. Like a Starbucks. No. The Kennedy Center has some gourmet cafe. Lunch cost me 60 effing dollars. Since it was lunch time and we were hungry.. well, I had no choice. EVERYTHING was expensive. There was no yogurt cups, or cheap food. The pasta plate (mac n cheese) they got came with salad and cost 12.95. Trevor's roast beef sandwich was 9.95. I said "fuck it" and got the smoked duck salad with cranberries and pistachios for 10.95 because it was only a buck more than the plain ole chicken ceasar salad. But, omg! I told them for that price they had to lick the plates clean! No pastries or coffee. This was more like a cafeteria, NOT a cafe. Sheesh. If I had known that, I NEVER would have eaten there. But what choice do you have at almost noon when the performance starts soon and the other places are blocks away? Regardless of the price, the food WAS worth it. It was really good. And it's not like a regularly consume smoked duck, so that was a nice treat! The mac n cheese was really rich and full of bacon. And the roast beef sandwich had watercress and some cream cheese herb spread that was really good.

The Native Pride Dancers are Native Americans in costume doing traditional dances and chants. They represented several different tribes and talked a little about their beliefs and what the dances they performed were about. Then they pulled some of the kids up on stage to perform with them, answered questions and then they came out and did one last dance. They were so amazing. Their costumes were gorgeous and the singing gave me goosebumps! It looks like a lot of fun to dance around like that. Trevor was really impressed with the 9 yr old boy (son of one of the dancers) who was dancing. All in all a GREAT show.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. And, you know what is soooo cool? The mom who organized the trip had two girls who were 3.5 (twins). They shared the exact same bday as Ariel! Isn't that crazy? She was really nice and her girls were so cute. Maybe I will drop an email to her and see if she wants to get our 3.5 yr olds together sometime. Ariel doesn't have many playdates.

Anyway, then we came home, played Trouble and checked on our geocache. Lots of people had left little trinkets in it so we traded out some stuff and put more in there. I can't wait for our GPS to arrive (my birthday present) so I can geocache during the day with the kids.

What a great day yesterday! Not only was it glorious and not to hot and sunny... we joined some friends and went geocaching and FOUND SOME!!!! It so totally rocked! We have tried to find about 5 geocaches, but have only been sucessful once. Our friends are geocaching nuts so they have found lots. So, after meeting at Starbucks and finding a geocache near the shopping center, we headed out to Runnymede park and spent the next like five hours walking around. Yes, even the kids. We walked over three mile and found like 4 geocaches and missed out on two. I think the only reason we didn't find those two was all the rain we had completely flooded a great many places. Though the water had receded, we're pretty sure it washed away a couple caches. We also found out Ray's Iphone makes a superb GPS, just as good as the GPS they had, though it drained Ray's iphone battery pretty quickly.

One of the caches we found was full of cute stuff the kids got to take, so Rachael got a neat coin, Ariel picked out a sparkly blue bouncy ball and Trevor got a pumpkin bookmark. Rachael and Evelyn, who is 7, got along famously and they spent the whole time hand in hand, skipping along. It was adorable. Then Jonathon and Trevor are both completely obsessed with Pokemon trading cards. So they talked trading cards for like the next 5 hours. It was cute. Ariel rode in the backpack I borrowed from them and ended up falling asleep for while, but she also walked about half the time, too.

The only sore point of the day for us was when we were looking for one of the missing caches. Ray had gone over to a dead log and was kicking it over. Trevor was peeing in the woods nearby, Ariel and I were standing nearby. All of a sudden, Ray says "OUCH!" and starts slapping his neck. I thought he ran into a spider web and got bit. Then he starts slapping his neck again, yelling "Ouch! Run!" I wasn't near Ariel, so I turned and ducked out of the woods. Ray ran by Ariel and scooped her up and ran like hell. Then he set her down at the trail and stopped for a minute. Then I saw what was attacking him. Wasps! He stopped for like 2 seconds and started yelling again and took off down the trail. The wasps chased him. He stopped again, then started running again. Finally he was able to come back, after ripping off his shirt and throwing it down. They were all over his shirt. We looked at the dead log and there were wasps swarming it. Ray must have kicked their nest. Crazy because there were NONE around before he turned that log over. Ouch. They didn't attack Ariel or me. It was our adventure of the day.

It was so late by the time we got back that we decided just to grab dinner together and so ate at a wing place and headed home. All in all, a good weekend. We have some pictures, and so I hope to get those up later.. probably in the next couple days on the other blog.

Friday night my fil came into town for business stuff on Monday. So Saturday, after a bit of a slow start, we headed out for the Montgomery county agricultural fair. I am such a sucker for ag fairs. I could spend all day looking at sheep, cows, chickens a rabbits. Regrettably, we did not make it to the chickens, but we did see the draft horse rescue horses. Oh my, what gorgeous horses. I love draft horses. We spent a good deal of time there, ate such fair delights as fried oreos and funnel cake and lemonade that SAYS fresh squeezed, but I really think is a mix with some lemons squeezed in it. The kids rode on all the kiddie rides and played games and won two fish. Rachael and Ariel got to ride the neighs.. Ariel got the fiesty pony that wanted to like gallop around the ring and wouldn't stop when it was time for the ride to stop. He was cute. A fun day was had by all.

This morning we went out to Algonkian park and went geocaching since ray's dad has a good handheld GPS. We only found one of the three caches. But it was a nice walk.. a long walk. We should have thought of all the walking they did yesterday before we walked like a mile into the woods. heh. I totally felt like we were in the middle of nowhere, but, as there is no such thing in northern virginia, we came across a park in the middle of the woods. Looking across the park, there is huge houses on 3 acre lots, almost obscured from view. Go figure. So the "sick of walking" girlies played at the park for a while and the boys went in search of the last cache. They didn't find it and we carried girlies the like 3/4 mile back. heh. Then we ate a snack and played some more at the BIG Algonkian park. Hit Costco for more coffee, which I am tempted to make now, and ate an early dinner at Buffalo Wing factory.

Then, poor Ariel. We came home, beat and just bummed around. I read the kids some books. Then Marcos stopped by and Trevor went outside. The girls went out, too. I was searching for mostquito srpay when I heard this scream from out front. Ariel had accidentally closed Ray's huge heavy truck doors on her fingers. OMG. Poor baby girl! Ugh. They swelled up huge and looked nasty and she was screaming and crying. Thankfully, I don't think they are broken. Not having insurance will keep you from rushing to the hospital. We put ice on them and I felt them all over. They are nasty swollen, but don't feel broken. And she can bent them. She is sleeping now, she was exhausted anyway. I felt bad for Ray's dad, too, who had been outside with them and he apologized for not being right there. But, it would have happened had I been there, too. We can't always been assisting our kids. They open the car doors and get things from the car all the time. So he shouldn't feel guilty. Ray should be home in a moment with some motrin to help with the swelling. I guess we will have to wake her up. I hate to have her nap and wake at 10pm.

Tomorrow we start out "school schedule". I'm trying to help them get into a new routine where they wake, get dressed, eat breakfast, brush teeth and empty the dishwasher BEFORE doing anything else. Then we'll like take a morning walk or something to get into the routine of getting out some energy before heading to school. It will also get me into the 6:30am get a move on routine, since I have been working out in the morning, but sometimes getting up at 7am and not always showering right afterwards. So we'll see how that works out. heh.