"It smells like sunshine"

When I woke up this morning I had three of four text messages. One was from Amy Huff asking for two teens who would be willing to provide childcare for Mrs. K's funeral. She sent it around 10am and I woke up at 11 so I figured both spots were already filled. I thought I'd check to make sure and she said I was the first to reply. I checked with Maria and my mom and we could both do it. We got ready and were at the church 45 minutes later. Only three kids ended up coming, and one already had a babysitter with him. Maria, Avery Huff, and I watched Jonas and Mattie Pickeroll. We played dinosaurs and Sorry and had a puppet show and colored on the chalkboard. Mattie liked to put the toys away and always pushed in her chair.

Jonas liked to take the lead in everything and explain to us the rules.

Noah said "that's silly" about everything and loved making animal noises.



I hung out at home for a little while, then decided to go to my grandparents' to lay out. When I got there it started thundering. I listened to it a few times before going in the house. I decided to visit with them rather than just going home. We sat in the family room and watched a cooking show. It was an Italian woman making three different salads. One spice she described as "It smells like sunshine." My grandpa and I did not understand this comparison, but I like to think it would be a spice I would enjoy. I liked hearing my grandma's stories and thoughts about each of the ingredients the woman used. I remember in fifth grade we had a discussion about a book we read where the grandparents told their grandchildren stories from their childhood. No one had had this happen before, besides me. My teacher had also experienced this. Unlike the rest, we lived with our grandparents. It felt good to know I wasn't different from everyone, and I wasn't alone. Besides watching the cooking show, my grandparents and I also watched it down pour. It reminded me of the rain forest in Costa Rica. Rain storms were common and would just come very suddenly, pour, then the sun continued to shine. I ended up laying out for a few minutes when the sun did come back out.

Before going to my dad's for the night I ran one mile on the treadmill. Then I got ready to go to Maria's dance recital. We left for it right when I got to my dad's house. The recital was dance from around the world. It was so cool seeing all of the different costumes, hearing the different music, and seeing all the different ages perform. The littlest girls were so cute, and the older ones so intense.

Maria's dances weren't until Act II, but it was worth the wait. It was so cool to finally see her perform on stage in full costume after only seeing her get ready and come home from practice for the past months.

She is so talented and from her movement and expressions I can tell she enjoys it so much.

 My dad and I got a cheese bread thing from Little Ceazers for dinner, then I hung out with Steph. We sat on her porch swing and watched the cars go by. We talked a lot about the soccer team next year. Steph and Alex are going to help out as much as they can this summer, and I am very happy to hear that! I missed playing with them so much this year. We also talked about what we had been doing the past few days, our plans for the weekend, and the famous, currently ongoing, strawberry festival of Cville.

I have spent the rest of the night blogging, texting, facebooking, and listening to pandora (on the Big Yellow Taxi radio station). But for the past few minutes I've gotten to listen to something even better. It is storming again. I can hear the thunder and the sheets of rain hitting the roof. I can also see lightening flashing through my window lighting up my sky like my camera's flash lit up Steph's porch just a few hours ago.

[also I just added the photos to the post from June 8]