Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

I'm dancing because I got my girl back today! Not really actually dancing, because I have this migraine coming and going yesterday and today, and I wouldn't want to upset it, but dancing inside.

While she was gone we had NO contact with her. They had our number so we could be contacted in case of an emergency, but other than that NO CONTACT. Evie said that they were told that they should write to their parents every day, but when we were packing and as we were finding the cutest stationary for her to take she said, "Mom, don't be surprised if I don't write to you, okay?" Thanks, Ev! Guess how many letters we got from her. That's right! Zero.

When they came back we were so relieved to find out that only 3 girls, of the 40 or so that went, became seriously ill while they were there. And only ONE had to have an operation right there in that foreign country. That was one of Evie's closest friends. She's still there in the hospital (her parents went down to be with her, of course). Evie, a very unpicky eater, said that the food was pretty terrible. I think the illness was some stomach issue. Hmmmm.

They had a dance, the highlight of which was supposed to be this enormous cake. The cake came the day after the dance. We bought her new shoes right before the trip and only ONE of them came back broken (we can have it fixed, though). She only left one pair of underpants and one sock there.

For some reason, before she left, I envisioned her with her friends all going into the bathroom at night to wash faces and brush teeth together. It was going to be so fun and slumber party-ish. Well, apparently nine year-olds aren't so into stuff like that. When she came home she told us that she had only brushed her teeth once the whole time. That's ONCE in almost SIX days! Yikes. She said that all the girls kept forgetting. She mentioned that her friend, Ewa, has this whitening toothpaste and she said it's amazing. Ewa brushed her teeth and showed her friends the difference even after one brushing and they were all struck dumb with the whiteness. Uh, I think it may possibly have had something to do with the fact that her teeth had 4 days worth of yellow plaque covering them before she brushed.

They went to a castle, a cave, an open air museum, went on lots of hikes, and went swimming a few times. She had TONS of fun.

She brought Greg a cute little key chain leather backpack, David a mini pack of cards, Aaron a little stuffed sheep, which he keeps mooing at and throwing across the room, and me a bracelet with little black and brown wooden beads, which I LOVE and plan on wearing until it falls apart.

The number of pounds I lost while she was gone exactly matches the number of letters we received from her. I don't think there is any correlation between those two things. Man, if there was, I would have made sure she wrote me three letters each day!