MY GIRL ROCKS!

Seriously, she rocks, and in a very literal way! This little story begins with my quest to find Kira some new sandals (in addition to the white leather Stride Rite ones she's been wearing every summer since she first started walking). A bunch of kids in my classes wear these awesome hybrid sandals by Keen, so I set out to find some for my girl. I ended up ordering them online from REI (so I could use my 20% off Anniversary Sale coupon!) I'm cheap and didn't want to pay the S&H, so I arranged to pick 'em up at the store. Besides, I love an excuse to go to the big store downtown.

The sandals came in last week, so we decided to have dinner in the Pearl Friday night (YUM--Pastini), then stopped by REI to pick up K's perfectly pink new shoes. On our way out, an employee was opening the climbing wall, and another little girl was getting set to have a turn. Kira wanted to watch, and before the other girl even started her climb, Kira was all over it. She wanted her turn too. Now, this other little girl was even younger than Kira (shh...not quite five...the minimum age required to climb). Well, if she could do it, of course Kira could too! And do it she did. She was amazing. No fear to speak of. She giggled the whole way up, all the way to the top of the 30 foot "rock" where she proudly rang the bell. She giggled all the way down too! It was AWESOME. She was so brave. Adam and I were so proud of her. (Heck, to tell you the truth, I don't know if I could do it. I'm not in any hurry to find out--that harness cinched up around my rear end--well, I'm certain it wouldn't be pleasant for anyone.)

This little adventure was probably the best $3 we've ever spent. I think there will be many references to this experience in the future. "You're nervous about _______? Why, you climbed a two story rock wall, Honey. You can do anything!" Yep, my little girl seriously ROCKS. (And you know I'll be scrapbooking this with some sort of cheesy title to this effect!)

As for the rest of my weekend, it was a blur. Our second annual Donuts for Dads "event" was yesterday at my school. I think it went pretty great, mostly due to the fact that I had oodles of help from some fabuous moms, and also because it was well attended. Kids. Dads. Donuts. There were even tools involved. A formula for fun, I say!

Afterward, I took advantage of Adam's willingness to hang out at home with K and spent all afternoon shopping. I got to go to Target, gloriously alone to spend my birthday money!) I even made a trip to A Joy Forever out in Clackamas. That store has so much stuff in it, I never have enough time to see it all. Fun stuff. I'm really looking forward to getting some serious scrapbooking done over the summer. We rounded out the day with some Cha! Cha! Cha! take out and a picnic dinner at Kira's school playground. She's got to keep up her mad monkey bar skills. I swear, we'll probably spend half the summer at the playground there!

This next week is my last week of school, and it's going to be INSANE. I have SO MUCH TO DO, I'm kind of freaking out a little bit. This month has been the toughest as far as teaching two classes this year. There's just been so much going on, but it's all been a lot of fun. I can't believe the year's coming to an end. It went by so fast! I'm looking forward to having 13 of my sweet little Juniors back next fall. For now, I'll focus on surviving this last week, and praying that it doesn't rain on graduation day this Wednesday. (We've had some freakish thunder storms today!) I'm looking forward to getting a bunch of projects done around the house, and getting some much needed R&R before Kira gets out of school. As soon as I'm done with school, I'm going to work on our master fun plan. I have so many ideas, and lots of days to fill with new adventures and activities. This is going to be a summer of DOING. We're going to have the bestest summer ever!

PS--I STILL don't have my bike. We went to pick it up on Saturday, but got there just after the shop closed. Hmph. We'll try again tomorrow!