Bad hair day.

Had a great business trip/mini vacation. I did have to call the accountant from the front desk because I didn't actually have the credit card with me. They asked for a third party authorization. Other than that it went swimmingly. Good user group meeting with lots of interesting items discussed.

Word(s) of the day: SPACE MONKEY

Really odd thing happened to me this morning. I subscribe to Webster-Merriam's word of the day email group. Every morning when I come to work, there is an email with some word of the day they picked. I never use theirs for my blog however. I like to use words that pop into my head or that popped out of my mouth for some strange reason. Well, the darndest thing, last week I used 'infinitesimal' for my word of the day and that's the one I got emailed this morning. Hmm. Lets see them use space monkey, huh?

Lexie log: I guess I forgot to keep a lock of Lexie's hair from the first cutting. Both Carrie and TT were shocked. I was on the phone with an insurance rep when we were discussing this. I put her on hold to call home and check with Frank to see if the lock of curled hair I've seen for the past two days on the floor by the door was still there and he had already thrown it away. TT says I should put in her baby book this story. Ok. -- Oh my little swimmer. She slept most of the way to Olympia, since we left at 6:30am, this is not surprising. On the way out we stopped at the grocery to pick up wipes, etc. and I bought her a little elephant we named Olympia. She loved it and played with it the whole weekend. It is right up there with pink puppy, in fact she usually has one in each hand and they are the best of imaginary buds. We arrived at the hotel half an hour before the meeting. Amazingly enough, the room was already available. After dealing with the credit card issue and getting Lexie and Daddy settled in the room, it was 9:52am. I had eight minutes to get to the meeting. Now, the mapquest directions I printed out say that it takes eight minutes to travel from the hotel to the hospital. This is not correct. More like 15 minutes with lights etc. Then parking was next to impossible. After the meeting I called Frank, who was slightly panicked about Lexie. She was prancing around the room, fell, and hit her head on the corner of a divider wall. When I got there, she had a huge bump on her head. A goose egg. She acted fine, however, and when we called Dr. Miller's office and spoke with nurse Lori. She said everything should be fine. We picked up take out Mexican food from a restaurant we spotted while driving around. Lexie had gone since 9:30 with no nap. She finally slept in the car and Daddy rode in the back seat with her and put ice on her head while she slept. No way she would let us do it while she was awake. We had a pleasant evening. Lexie and I went down to the pool from 5:45pm to 6:45 pm. It was such a blast. The whole trip was worthwhile just for the joy we shared in the pool. I walked and swam around the pool with her hanging on to my neck, sometimes in back, sometimes in front. She squealed with delight and kept yelling, "Swimmin, swimmin!" Then she played on the stairs, kept climbing out of the pool and then getting back in by climbing over the side. I'll tell you, she was not happy to leave. Daddy had to carry her kicking and screaming. Then we spent the rest of the evening in the room, watching T.V. and eating good Mexican food. Two big old queen beds to jump around and play on. We brought the stack of Valentines cards her Grammy had bought post holiday discount, and she played with them for a long time. About the only negative thing was that Daddy was constantly worried that she would injure herself again. The next morning we tried to get Lexie to eat eggs, cheese, and oatmeal from the continental breakfast, but she would have nothing but banana and milk. It seems that right now she has issues eating anywhere but home. She will eat some, but hardly anything. After pseudo breakfast, we swam in the pool from 10:00am till 11:00am. Again, it was great. After swimming, Lexie and I took a shower/bath...more water. Then we spent a couple hours wandering up and down the Percival Landing boardwalk. We saw the capitol building, spent some time at the water fountain, which Lexie loved, again with the water. Took pictures, spotted a Belted Kingfisher, stopped and got Latte's from a walk-up window, picked out our favorite boats, and people watched. Frank had a chocolate caramel latte, and I had a Kaluha latte. The cashier was very generous and filled Lexie's milk bottle up with chocolate milk for free. Then she charged us less than the menu price, and then didn't take the penny. Of course we tipped back for her kindness. We walked all the way to the end of the boardwalk, right up to the fence for the Port of Olympia with the huge loading cranes. Then we drove home. It was a wonderful trip. Saturday night, after we got home, Lexie took yet another bath, and Daddy finally caved in and gave her a hair cut. She is so cute. Now you can actually see her face, she is not fighting with her superlong bangs. No more sheep dog. -- Sunday we spent a couple hours over at Grama Betty's on the front porch with Aunt Patty and Neighbor Jay. Lexie entertained us all. It was a gorgeous sunny day, and Lexie finally let us put a hat on her. All winter she would not wear a hat, but when her head got too hot in the sun, she was more than happy to give it a try. She tried to follow Jay into his house to get papers to draw on. We were all a tad concerned that she should be so willing to follow this stranger she had met only a couple times. Too trusting. Jay has this outrageous laugh that carries for miles. It used to be extremely annoying when we lived behind him, but now it's just funny. Whenever he laughed, Lexie would do her best fake laugh. What a great weekend. -- Oh, now she knows how to climb up onto and down off of her changing table. Little monkey girl.

Today I'm grateful for Frank and Lexie, mini-vacations, time with my family on the porch, water, birds, and happiness.