i can't believe i'm still trying to finish writing about our trip

alright, the fast version: on saturday morning we drove up mt. lemmon with erik and isabelle. it was awesome! the view from the top was amazing. you could see the entire city of tucson surrounded by mountains. i think it was my favorite adventure of the whole trip.
then after lunch (burritos, mm....) we got ready for the wedding! the wedding was a blast. great food, bottomless margaritas, dancing, family... a wonderful time. not one thing to complain about.

unfortunately, we had to get up at 3:45 on sunday morning. our flight left tucson airport at 6 am, but it was ok. we were surprisingly awake. the girls did a fantastic job as usual, and the flights were uneventful. maggie insisted on wearing her pajamas and no shoes, and i didn't want to fight, so i let her. at first i felt like a bad mom, but then i noticed that EVERY OTHER kid under 3 was in pjs! and then i felt like everyone would think all the moms were doing this on purpose now (maybe they were, i probably missed some article in some parenting magazine about leaving your baby in PJs to fly so they're nice and comfy). so there you go, i went from being slightly embarrassed to feeling superior. haha!

whew! caught up!! now i just have to catch up on everything i missed writing about while i was writing about tucson. there was a LOT, too. first ever parent teacher conference, i got a job, the girls were sick, a doctor's appointment. well, let's go in chronological order. maggie got sick:

on monday, we let nina sleep in instead of waking her up bright (i mean, dark) and early for school. so we didn't end up getting there until 9:30 or 10:00. but, better a chipper late child than a dragging, cranky timely one, i thought. then i went home and did laundry. but not sheets! i had put fresh sheets on the beds just before we left, so i would have one less thing to do when we got home. poor choice, it turned out.

on tuesday morning, nina was off to school on time. shortly after she and nick left, maggie woke up. then she threw up, all over the bed. totally out of nowhere. well, not totally, she'd talked about having a tummy ache the day before at dinner, but i thought it was probably just left over travel tummy. the poor little girl continued to throw up hourly until noon, whereupon she slept for a few hours, and woke up feeling just fine!

i was glad she woke up feeling fine, because i had a parent-teacher conference with nina's teacher. that was wonderful! nina is a great student and very well behaved. all of the kindergarten screening was done over the first few weeks of school, and they determined that nina already knows everything they hope to teach in kindergarten. we knew this, but figured we'd see what the school thought about nina before telling them about her, and figure out a plan from there. she's actually beyond what they want kids doing by the end of K, which is reading and writing 20 or 50 (can't remember) sight words. she's reading all kinds of words, but her teacher is going to start separating nina from the rest of the class during reading time and working with her independently. so, that should be fun for nina. she's been learning to read for a really long time now (i remember her reading her first words before maggie was born, and reading 3-letter words easily at 3.5. by this summer, she was reading longer words and starting to fill in the common but odd short words like they and their). so, i wouldn't be surprised to hear she's reading on more of a first or second grade level, but as long as they're working with her at her level and she's enjoying herself, i'm happy.

ok, bedtime. the resolutions of maggie's illness and the lowdown on nina's checkup after the kids are asleep!