Eventful Week

Well, wow, this has been an eventful few days. Because so much has happened, I’ve decided to divide the story up into segments. Pictures will come later when I’m not on 28.8 dialup in the middle of nowhere.

Graduation
Last Thursday morning I drove up to Dallas. My brother was graduating (yay! He’s headed to UNT in a few months) and my grandmother was in town until Monday. She’d never met Ari. I made it with plenty of time for me, Ashley, my cousin Kelsy, my mom, my dad, and my grandmother to make it to the graduation.

It was a good ceremony. One of the speakers told a ridiculous story about a kid who “made up” a new major: criminal psychology. I guess he didn’t realize how idiotic he sounded to be so high up in the world of education and not know that “criminal psychology” is actually a field.

We were going to go out to eat but graduation didn’t end until about 9:30 or so, so we just went home and my dad made shish kabobs. I have no idea how to spell that word. Thank you, Spell Check.

We’re Still Alive
Because we didn’t get to go out to eat after graduation, we left on Friday night to eat at AW Shucks, an outside seafood restaurant in downtown Dallas. My mom, dad, and grandmother piled into my mother’s Lincoln, and me, Ashley, James, and Ariana were going to follow in the Matrix I was borrowing from a friend.

As we were driving down the highway, I was in the lane to the right of the far most left lane. I needed to merge right, so I checked behind me. No one was there, so I began to merge. At the same time, a teenage boy was in the lane to the right of the one I was trying to merge into, and he was trying to merge left. He was behind me, but apparently hadn’t seen me. I veered to avoid him, but overcorrected and ended up in the far left lane. At this point something must have happened to the alignment because, try as I might to keep the wheel straight, it kept swerving right to left like a piece of luggage too big for it’s wheels about to tip over. Ariana was screaming and everyone else was quiet. I kept saying, “I can’t make it straight! I can’t make it straight!” I also yelled for my brother, who was in the backseat, to watch out for Ariana. After not hitting anyone going back and forth through several lanes of traffic a few times, we finally crashed into the median. It may have saved our lives, because it straightened out the wheels enough for me to drive us to the side of the road. I leapt out of the car and ran to the back seat. I was shaking but Ari was fine and giggled when she saw me. The left back wheel was twisted underneath the car. Though I was stoic for a few minutes, I eventually broke down sobbing. The car was barely drivable at a few miles an hour, so my brother drove it cautiously back to our house and switched it for his car, then met us at the restaurant.

AW Shucks
This place was really cool. It was across from The Granada downtown and served the spiciest, best seafood EVER. My dad and I shared a plate of crab legs, shrimp, and sausage. I got hot peppers in my eye. My sister screamed at me to wash it out before I burned off my cornea, and my mother offered to call an ambulance. I rinsed it out with ice water and was fine. The food was fantastic, and I really enjoyed the whole evening.

Weekend
Saturday and Sunday we basically just hung out with my grandmother all weekend. I bought some cloth diapers on Saturday (Ariana is getting so big!) and enjoyed a lecture from my grandmother about how cloth diapers are not only bad for babies, but inconvenient and more expensive (yeah, try that one on for size). I’m trying out a couple of new types of diapers and so far, I am a HUGE fan of Thirstie’s All in Ones. I might just get all of that type next time I buy.

The Butlers
On Monday my grandmother went back to Lubbock and I went to figure out how much it was going to cost to fix the car. I was planning on getting back to Houston by Wednesday so that I wouldn’t miss Toby’s obedience class. That wasn’t in the stars. It’s gonna cost several thousand dollars to fix, so I parked it in my father’s driveway and my mother in law drove me and Ariana to her house, where we planned to stay for the next few days since we had spent so long with my side of the family.

Sewing
We had SOOOO MUCH FUN at the Butlers! Linda took me shopping for fabric and patterns and over the course of the four days I was there, we sewed three dresses for Ariana. I say we. She sewed two, I sewed one. It was so much fun, and the dress I sewed for Ari is really adorable. I’m quite proud of myself and plan on doing more of this in the future. J I’ll put up pictures of it later. The dress Linda sewed for her was a cute blue and white polka dotted vintage 50s looking dress with a bit of a modern twist – it’s very cute. I can’t wait for a Sunday we’ll actually be going to church. ;)

Teeth
Ariana started to cut teeth while we were at the Butlers! I noticed that her chewing on my hand started to be a little sharper than usual, and when I looked, sure enough, there was a small white peak inching through the gums. Now you can definitely see the beginnings of a tooth, it seems to have finally poked through Saturday.

Oklahoma
On Friday afternoon, Ariana, my parents, and I all headed up to Oklahoma to visit my grandparents, who love to see her. We’ve had a really good time so far. My grandfather has always been a fun loving guy, and that hasn’t changed even though he now slips between dementia and lucidity. He confuses my father for his (my grandfather’s) brother sometimes, and once thought Justin was Mexican because he speaks Spanish. But in his periods of clarity (which are often) he says some extremely hilarious things reminiscent of his sense of humor.

For instance, just today, my parents and he were talking about how they plan to move to northern Dallas because that’s where all of their friends are. My grandfather was wondering what they would do with their current house. “Well,” my dad said, “we’d probably sell it. What would you do with it?” With all the seriousness in the world, he looked at them and said, “Well, I’d start a whorehouse.”

So it has been quite a busy week for us. Justin had to stand in for my class on Wednesday and take notes for me, but it looks like I’ll actually be back by next Wednesday to finish out. He is currently driving up to Dallas in a van he borrowed from a friend so he can take me down to Houston tomorrow. He’ll meet me in the morning and we’ll be on our way! Though it has been exciting and fun, I am really looking forward to going home.