Gram Post :

 

It is so hard to believe that you turned 15 a few days ago. You are a beautiful and sweet young lady.

 

Tatiana drives a tractor

 

Dec 31st Tatiana and Scotland left for Tyland.  First I took them to Frisco to get Scotland's pickup.   Then they drove to Tyland and did some things with the trailer.   Then they spent the night with Ty and Rosy. Silly Scotland, he tried to go to sleep at 11:45pm on New Years Eve.  They woke up early and went to Tyland.   The plan was for Scotland to get some trees, and Tatiana to practice driving using the tractor.   Scotland said it took forever to get the tractor jump started. 

Then Tatiana had an absolute ball driving around and knocking over little trees.  Scotland did not get a photo of Tatiana in the tractor!   I'm a little annoyed at that.   He cut down four trees and then he used chains to get them into a clearing.  He had one in the trailer, two in the clearing, and when he was looking at the fourth, a branch popped up and stabbed him "in the eye" but really it was more on the inside of the nose and not the eyeball.  Apparently he bled quite a lot.   So then they came home.  And we relaxed.  Scotland and I watched some TV and Tatiana read one of her graphic books on the computer. 

Tatiana had gotten a video from inside the tractor.  It had one of those front scoops and she played around with picking up dirt with it. 

 12-22-24

Gram posted :

Tatiana  and I had GREAT fun going thru my gloves and scarves and slips and  hose . She had a fashion show & modeled some items .for her Mom.

She is 14 years old and such a fashionable gal.

I was so glad that I could see her happiness..

 Today we arrived at Charlesville VA very early. So we had  hours to kill until a room would be cleaned. First we ate breakfast at a fancy diner. Tatiana had an amazing Brie & Fig Grilled Cheese. Then we drove around looking at houses. Then we saw Monroe's house and went in. Then we drove around again. Tatiana asked < What are you doing?" Scotland said "Killing time" Tatiana said " I think it is dead." Scotland and & I laughed so hard and we were proud.

Shopping with Tatiana

On Friday we went shopping at Once Upon A Child.  Tatiana wants some casual dresses.  She is at the upper end of the kid age range.  I was reminded of the last time we went shopping there.  It was many months ago.   We bought a LOT of clothes.  At the checkout, she worried that the total would be too expensive.  I said to her, "Do you remember the last time we went clothes shopping for you?"   She thought and thought and was worried that she didn't remember anything about it.   I said, "Neither do I, which means it was a long time ago and explains why you don't have much that fits you.  Also, why I'm not worried about the total."  We didn't buy quite that much this time.  

She is in a hard-to-shop for size.  They have her size but the selection is much less.   I talked to the lady at checkout and she said that they rarely get much in her size.  Tatiana tried on a bunch of pants but none of them were good for one reason or another.  There was only one swimsuit and it had this weird black netting on the sleeve.  We did buy a bunch of rompers and casual dresses.  

On Sunday we went to Walmart to get some night clothes.  It was tough there too.  She was a bit traumatized to shop for night clothes in the same area as my clothes.  They were too plain.  Then we looked in the kid area and most of those were too childish.  But we did find some things and they all fit.  She didn't want help in the dressing room.  While I was standing outside I saw a display of PJ pants and saw Eeyore.  So, we got those too. 

When we got home we climbed back into the mommy-daddy bed and we ended up taking a nap.   Saturday Bradford and Tashombia came over to play games and they left at midnight.  We hadn't planned on taking a nap, but the we were listening to a book and some cats climbed on top of us.  

First season tickets to the opera

 

We saw Rigolotto yesterday afternoon.    Our season tickets are for Wednesday evening, but I moved them for this show to Sunday so that Tatiana could go to Camp Grandparents.  
It was lovely.  She wore one of her new dresses, the white one with little sparkly things on it.   We liked having the parking underneath.   It was also nice in that we barely had to go outside.  It was raining a little.  It had three acts and the first act was a little long.   We think she dozed on my arm a few times during it. We think she was a bit tired from Camp Grandparents.  I'd brought some Gouda Baby Bel so we had those during first intermission.  The second and third acts were much shorter.  During second intermission we were going to check out some different seat locations.   We down some stairs.   She was so focused on flying down the stairs that she went too far and I lost her.  I waited for a bit then looked at the other seats.  Then I went back to our seats.  She came back there too.  She said she'd looked for me, but she chose the elevator to go up and it took awhile.   We both loved the Women are Fickle famous song from that opera.  When we got to the car we were both very eager to get home. 

 

Camping last weekend

 

We have greatly enjoyed the AHG camping trips, but the one this last weekend was by far the best.   The girls got the idea to have their own tent and have a sleepover camping.   Fortunately, Kristen's family has two tents so they put up the big one for the girls.  They had soooo much fun.    The giggling went on late into the night.  The next day I noticed that the zipper was open, which just invites bugs so I went to the tent to close it.  I looked inside.   It was funny how entirely messy that was.   We had bought a bag of candy and they had it in there.   There was candy wrappers in piles on the tent floor.   I took a photo. 

Friday morning I started my first fire ever.   Patty joked that us moms needed badges too and that I should get the AHG Mommy Fire badge.   Since I wake up early, I will probably be starting lots of fires in the wood stove.  Likely let the house get cold at night and then heat it up in the morning,