Ummm...that's not my Emma

We have had a few really busy weeks around here, and I have been neglecting the blog. Dave and I volunteer for The German Immersion Foundation, a non-profit foundation that supports our girls' school and we host an event each March. It's an awesome event that I'm privileged to be a part of, but I got a little over-committed {despite not really wanting to admit that to Dave and not even being able to spell the word ~ my spell check caught it three times before I got it right}. Now that the planning for that is behind us, I should be able to string together more than one or two coherent thoughts at a time.

Everything went really well with the auction. Incredibly, it appears that this tenth anniversary event will be the most successful yet, so we are beyond pleased with the outcome, and very thankful! I would post pics, but after months of preparations, I forgot to bring a camera. It's a good thing that documenting the event was not my responsibility. Anyway, I have lots to catch up on and hope to do that in the next several days.

The event was last Saturday, and with a super busy weekend ahead of us, I took Alyssa, her friend, Martina, and Rebekah to opening night of the First Stage performance of The Hundred Dresses last Friday night. It was a great play, probably one of our favorites! Emma was at a friend's birthday sleepover party.

First Stage does this really cool thing on opening night of all their mainstage shows. They have an after-party where you can meet the cast and eat cake, it's so much fun, and if you ever have the chance to get opening night tickets to one of their shows, I highly recommend sticking around for the party!


Saturday morning rolls around, and it's time for me to pick up Emma, bring Martina home, get Rebekah to a birthday party she begged to go to earlier in the week, and prepare for the auction taking place that evening. Dave was already helping to set up the event.

First Stop: Pick Up Emma. Emma was at a party for her friend, Alyssa, whose mom, Tanya, I teach with at our church. Alyssa has been to our house for a few playdates, but this was Emma's first time at their house. I arrived at the party to be greeted by a woman that I didn't know. I wasn't alarmed by this, Dave had dropped Emma off the night before and said a good friend of Tanya's decided to stay and help with the party. She was organizing a pile of sleeping bags lined up by the door, and I had no reason to believe I could possibly be in the wrong place. I introduced myself as Emma's mom, and the lady smiled and called for Emma to come to the door.
First Problem: The child who happily ran to meet me at the door was not my daughter. "Ummm...that's not my Emma," I said trying to hold back panic. The nice lady replied, "Oh, you're looking for Tanya's house on the next corner, they're having a slumber party over there too." In extremely embarrassed fashion, I apologized and told her it was nice having met her and I quickly skedaddled one block over. We were on a row of numbered streets, I needed ___th Place and I was on that same numbered Street. In my defense, my GPS told me I had arrived at my destination ~ How humiliating! At least Tanya and I got a good laugh out of it.

I collected my beloved Emma and we were off and running again.

Second Stop: Drop Off Martina. I'm proud to say that I safely returned Martina to her actual home with her grateful parents :-) No problem here.

Next Stop: Bring Rebekah to Michael's Birthday.

Next Problem: We arrived at the party {which was about 20 minutes farther away than I thought it was going to be, seriously I need to take a class of WI geography! I had no business even trying to be all the different places I planned to be on this day} 10 minutes late and with a sleeping Rebekah. It was a Tae Kwon Do party and we came in at just the point that all of Rebekah's classmates are flailing feet and fists through the air and screaming about as loud as you can expect a group of four and five year olds to scream. It was awful, her just woken up eyes struggled to take it all in and she clung to my neck. After about ten minutes of trying to reason with her, and her sweet friend Gladys trying to take her by the hand to the karate mats, she refused to stay at the party. I had to leave for the auction in an hour, I wasn't dressed, and I was closer to the event than I was to my house.

Final Problem:After returning home from a happy and successful auction, Rebekah got sick overnight. She's much better now, and who knows, maybe that was why she refused to stay at the party that she had been looking forward to?

The amazing blessing about it all: despite my challenged geography skills and being so busy I can hardly remember my own name, it feels great to be a part of something that improves the quality of education for the students at our girls' school. The school is an amazing and unique place. Like public schools across the country, it is faced with serious budget issues and while there are many ways I could choose to invest in their school, this is our current commitment. Along with the other parents (we have an amazing school community!), I know Dave and I are involved in something wonderful that has a true impact on the school and the three little girls who we love so much, and I am so thankful to be able to help.