Princess Merida

SO, don't tell Madison, but we've done a bit of early Christmas shopping for her.  Yes, you can see above that we got her something else related to the movie "Brave."  Her present is the X-box game of the same name, and the bonus was this:  inside the game was a free ticket to see the movie.  Well, of course we've already seen it once - so do you think we'd see it again?  Definitely.  This was a great movie, and Madison really enjoyed it!

After the movie, we returned to the library, and guess what?

She's only got four books to go until she reaches her goal of fifty books.  That means the next time we go to the library, she'll get a prize - and her name on the wall of fame.  Of course, there are other rewards for her accomplishment too, such as the satisfaction of a goal accomplished!  Speaking of which, just in case I haven't mentioned it here yet:  she's got to play three particular tunes on the piano perfectly (with both hands), and we'll go out and get her "Batman Lego 2."  She's been practicing on the piano quite a bit lately, and getting better at playing with two hands.  Pretty soon, we'll have to go out and get that game.  But it needs to wait just a little more:  we're not quite done with "Lego Star Wars" yet.  Today was a day off, as you can tell, and we actually spent a bit of time playing that together:  Madison is learning the story of Star Wars pretty much through Lego characters - which may come as a surprise later when she watches the actual movies.  So far, she's just seen Episode IV, which is the original Star Wars movie.  Not sure when we'll have her watching the others - we may wait for a special occasion on that!

The rain poured down today, and poured down quite a bit.  We actually sat out on the front porch, reading books together to the wonderful sound of rain falling.  It started later in the afternoon, right as we entered the library actually.  And it hasn't really let up since.  Right now, it's about 11:00 pm, and the rain is still coming down hard.  You would not believe our tomatoes and peppers!  Mommy had this delicious tomato presentation for she and Madison tonight, and despite the attractive appearance, everything was gobbled up pretty quickly!

This morning's intent was to sleep in - after all, it was a late night picking up everyone at the Appalachian Trail.  Yet there was a call from the doctor.  Or, at least a nurse.  She called about getting me set up for an endoscopy, which of course is something I'm not at all thrilled about.  This is an unexpected development - more news on that in a bit, as it comes in.  This has set my mind to wander - what could possibly be going on?  This wasn't the direction we were going in when I last left the doctor's office.

Despite that news, it was overall a relaxing day - all we pretty much did today was bank, movie, library.  We did chores in between, of course, such as fill the water bed and add conditioner.  Madison helped with that, and got a kick out of the fact that there was actually water in our water bed.  Go figure!

She's been funny in the car lately.  Her songs and stories always feature the phrase, "right now."  It is used as an add-on, and once Mommy and Daddy made a note of it, this phrase seems to pop up a lot more often, right now.