Back Home and Adjusting: My Life As Alicia

Whew! The rush of July is coming to a close, and it was definitely an eventful month. We got back from our North Carolina trip a week ago today, but it really does feel like we were there a month ago. I listed a lot of our plans in a previous post, but just for fun, I made a list of everything that happened in July:

• Week 1 - Went to Pinetop and Snowflake for 4th of July! Girls got to ride a horse for the first time. Bekah loved it!
  
• Week 2 - Visited with my parents who were renting a house in Gilbert - did Swim Class and Dance Class for Maija - my parents left town - I was called into the Primary Presidency as 2nd Counselor (basically, I'm working with the children at church and overseeing Cub Scouts)
  
• Week 3 - Flew to North Carolina to visit my parents - Kent golfed every day - I enjoyed my mother's help with the girls & got a shopping day with my mother and no children!
  
• Week 4 - Flew back to Phoenix on a 6am flight (we left my parents' house @ 3am...not fun!) - Maija & Bekah rode their 1st train at the Atlanta airport - I jumped right into Primary work - Maija finished Swim Class for the summer and started another session of dance classes - Kent took his final exam in his summer class - On the weekend, we rested & caught up on housework
  
• Week 5 - Celebrated Kent's mother's birthday with the inlaws - got my hair colored for the 1st time in years (that was today, so that's where I'll end.)
  

Click on this link to see pictures of our fun and crazy month - http://picasaweb.google.com/farnies4/July2008

My Life as Alicia - Episode 1

As a final note, I often find myself being assigned the part of Alicia, as in Diego's sister Alicia. Maija will tell me at the beginning of the day, "You are pretending to be Alicia, and I am pretending to be Diego. OK?" That "OK?" is not really to secure my approval because this is really more of an order than a negotiation. For the rest of the day she will refer to me as Alicia: "Alicia, I want juice!" "Alicia, I'm hungry." "I hurt myself, Alicia." And if I don't refer to her as Diego, she often will not respond. Today was one of my Alicia days, and at one point after I helped Diego, oh, I mean Maija, put on her pants, she hugged me and said, "That's my girl, Alicia!" So funny!