Is it just me?

Alright, just be forewarned, this is a rant. Last night I took Emily in for the "New Beginnings" program at the church. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this program, it is one of the two major programs of the year for the Young Women's. It is designed to welcome new young women with their parents and explain a little about the program. Now I realize these programs take a lot of planning and work (or they are supposed to). However once again I realized that this is not the same church I belonged to growing up. Because I am extremely old fashioned, I make my daughter wear a dress to events like this, and that includes pantie hose (pay attention Jackie and Diane, I know we have had this discussion). But I would be willing to overlook the pantyhose if anyone there besides the two of us would have even had a skirt on! That's right, it was a sea of denim! Apparently, the young women's program has gone so down hill that we don't even dress up for one of the two main programs of the year. Everyone there, including the ward leaders and even the stake leaders were in jeans. Jeans! Now, I realize that they are comfortable, trust me, I wear jeans to work every day, I love them, but what the hell? Isn't part of the reverence we are attempting to show our children about how to properly dress to participate in the Lord's programs? During the program they talked about church dances, and how there is a dress code, the whole time I am thinking do you not make the correlation? If there is a dress code for dances what the heck do you think there is for all of you sitting here right now? And not to cast to many aspersions, but there are a lot of middle aged Mormon women who would look a lot better in a skirt than the old, stretched out, over washed, frayed jeans! I was raised to respect the church and its programs, my mother would have been so embarrassed if I had attempted to wear jeans to an event like this. So come hell or high water, Emily and I will continue to show up for functions like this overdressed!

Safe & Sound, but what the heck...

OK, Emily made it home on Thursday morning, around 2:00 am. Her Dad won the pick up your child in the middle of the night lottery, so off he went. We didn't really see to much of our darling the following couple of days until Sunday, when she was finally caught up enough on her sleep to start playing the Wii again. So I confiscated her camera memory card and started perusing (as any good snooping mother would). It looks like she had a pretty good time, and I don't even mind her holding the gator...after all she is my daughter. The most disturbing part of the image is the red beret. She claims to have bought it at Epcot, in the France pavilion. So that's it, she is home safe and sound, and the beret... well that is in the closet, hopefully for a long time!

Nope

Last summer, in a moment of weakness, Emily talked her Dad and I into paying for a school trip to Florida. After all, don't all 13 year olds go to Florida for Spring Break? Wait, hmmmm. But Scott and I figured it was a pretty safely chaperoned trip, however, if she shows up in a commercial for Girls Gone Wild, she will be in really big trouble. So Friday morning a piece of me left for Florida, that's right... I let her take my iPod. (I can always buy another 13 year old out of foster care, but have you ever tried re-syncing a new iPod?)

Needless to say Erik is relishing his current position as an only child. Let's face it, he lives in a pretty big shadow! Anyway, on the way home from church yesterday Erik said, "Hey Mom, ask me if I miss Emily." Ok, I knew it was coming, but I asked anyway. The answer, "Nope!".