It's just been a busy few days.

Friday, Emily had a friend spend the night. They had so much fun together! I really like this girl. She's silly, funny, and SO STINKIN NICE! They had a bunch of fun watching movies and being girls.

During the visit, though, we ran the dishwasher...and FLOODED our kitchen. It was a nasty, sludgy mess. Initially, we thought that the garbage disposal had eaten a washcloth. Darren went to snake it, and CLUNK, ended up slamming into an inpenetrable clog. No Drain-o would clear it. Piece by piece, he had to dismatle the entire plumbing system in the kitchen, replacing pipe as he went along, until finally, he was under the crawlspace, under the porch (the kitchen was built on top of this porch), in sub-zero temperatures, trying to unplug and replace a BUNCH of the pipe. He has it jerry rigged for now, and thinks it will wait until Summer before misbehaving again. But then, this summer, we'll need to fix it again.  However, this whole weekend, we had NO clean dishes, and dirty dishes all over the place, smelling and grossing us out.

Saturday, Emily bridged from Juniors to Cadettes in Girl Scouts. It was a really heartreding ceremony. I was sad, because we didn't have the money to buy Emily her sash in time for the ceremony, so she didn't actually get pinned. She was one of just a handful of girls who earned Junior Aide, the Four Sign Awards, and her Bronze Award. We are very proud. She already starting to work on her Silver Award.

Saturday was also her Cotillion refresher for the ballroom dancing. She left from there with my friend to spend the night. After Mikey's game (we caught him picking his nose...EWWWWWWWWWWW), we dropped the boys at a friend's house for an overnight.

Sunday was the ball. Emily looked like a princess. It's her first ball as an assistant. She said it was difficult, especially when a boy she used to crush on asked to escort her, and she had to decline because the assistants couldn't be escorted as long as there were students needing to be escorted. She did have fun, though, and the older assistants really took her in like she was one of them. Did I mention she was absolutely drop dead beautiful? It took me well over an hour, but I curled ringlets ALL over her hair, and pulled it up, fastening it with a rhinestone tiara. Her dress proved to be a little long, so we tied her black shawl around her waist, bustling the top of the bodice over it in front, with the big black bow in the back. She looked absolutely precious.  This was a hand me down dress from one of the other assistants, and she kept raving how cute Emily looked. Well DUH!  LOL

After Cotillion, Darren and I finished our James Bible study at small group. I didn't really learn a lot from it, but at least I stuck with it. We're trying to decide between doing the Love Languages study, or the Romans book.  I wanted to do the Love Languages, but I didn't realize that people might be negatively affected by it, so we're doing Romans. I don't know anything about Romans, so I'm a little scared. Darren said we've done a Romans study before, but I don't remember it. I know we've done John and Luke, and the Alpha course.  One of the guys in the group, understanding my fears, said he would do Matthew with me at the same time if it would help. I'm not sure if 3 BIble studies at the same time is smart, though, because as it is, I am confusing John with James. I'm also trying to read the book, "Marley and Me," at the same time. I'm trying to give Biblical traits to a dog who is WAY too much like Daisy, and I'm trying to teach James to fetch. It's too much!