March 9

I just returned from a mini-vacation in Montana visiting one of my dearest friends, G. She, her sister E., and I have all been best friends for almost 34 years. It is amazing to me to watch Amy play with her playdate buddy, realizing that I was that size when I met G. and E.

My shared birthday with Amy is fast approaching and I had more of a pang of "egad! mortality!" than I have ever experienced before. I will be turning 38, which is easy to round up to 40. While I know this is still quite young, it is certainly not 20. I am grateful with each year I get older because I so do want to get old, healthily and vibrantly old. Realizing that Carl and I have been together for longer than some of our team members have been alive is also rather staggering. We just passed 18 years of being together.

I had a wonderful time in Montana. I got to scoop horse manure, ride a horse (at a slow walk in a ring), go snowshoeing, play several rounds of Bananagrams (I lost every game), and watch many episodes of a fun tv show.  It was lovely to see Amy's joy at my return. Sarah was more in a whiney, grumpy mode so it felt harder to be snuggly with that. I also feel a tiny bit overwhelmed about getting back into the swing of things.

Carl took the girls to the art museum while I was gone and they had a wonderful time. He also took them sledding and built large snow-people with them.

My flight this morning was at 6am so I have been up for a very long time already. I slept a bit on the planes, but I am feeling quite tired. 

Carl and I figured out that Sarah has by now learned close to 185 words since we started the reading program at the end of January. Wow! That is a lot of words.

I hope you are having easy Mondays. I think this may be my shortest update ever!