Btw? She's BACK!!!!

Our Rosie is finally home, sweet home! We picked her up last night at half o'clock in the morning.

Here she is getting off the bus.

Here she is bidding one of her fellow Australian-Americans a tearful goodbye.

Here she is being engulfed by some of the other young ambassadors in a farewell mosh pit that was more dangerous than all the surfing and rapelling and spelunking combined.

Here is a picture of a picture of her cuddling what appears to be a dead Koala. Dead of some exotic disease, no doubt.

Here is a picture of a picture of her rapelling down some....
OK, I can't do this anymore.































Anyway, she is fine and dandy and only has one scratch on her foot to show for all her risk-taking, danger-seeking adventures.

When we were driving home, I asked her a bazillion questions, give or take, before we settled into a comfortable silence. After a few minutes, as she gazed out the window, I heard her say,

"I miss them all."

My heart swelled, my eyes got all misty, and I thought to myself, 'I've raised this girl right. What a sweet and tender thing that she misses her brothers and sisters...'

"Can we go soon?"

"Go where, darlin'?"

"To the mall. I miss the mall."

Oh. I miss the mall, not I miss them all.
Strike the wistfulness and the tender heart.


Anyway, by the time we got home and got her suitcase in and she said hello to all her siblings who were waiting up, it was 2 in the morning before I was in bed, and much later than that (nearly 4, maybe?) till I fell asleep, all to get up at 6 to drive someone somewhere (you Moms know what I'm talking about). And I'm back from that, but have to leave soon to take a different kid to the dentist.

I don't need a cup of coffee, I need a coffee infusion system today.

That's OK. I've got my girl back safe and sound,

It's all good.

Home Stretch

OK, it's Saturday, and Rosie arrives home tomorrow. She's I've made it.

She has I have survived her hair-raising, knuckle-whitening adventures, most recently including hand-feeding wild dolphins, rapelling down mountains, zip-lining, rock-climbing, and surfing
please, please, please, no one tell me about the recent rash of shark attacks off the coast of Australia....

As we speak, she is enjoying a relaxing evening at Sydney's Hard Rock Cafe, followed by packing up all her belongings and getting one last night of sleep in the Land Down Under before jetting back to America.

So the only thing I have left to worry about is her hurtling through space at 500mph, 50,000 feet over the vast South Pacific.

Nothin to worry about here, folks....




Hurry back, Rosie....

****************************

Don't forget, I will love you forever if you throw me a vote on Top Mommy Blogs. You know the drill by now, don't you? Just click the juggling chick and you've voted. You can vote every day till like, forever.



Thanks!

Ack! I'm slippin' and slidin' down the list on Circle of Moms contest for Moms with Big Families, and there are only a few more days left of voting before the contest ends! Please help a girl out by voting for me? Just click this pink badge, then scroll down till you see my blog, and click on the thumbs-up button. You can vote every day till the contest ends on Weds 8/1. Thanks!



***************

In case you didn't know it, I'm like the queen of blog-hoppin' lately. It's kind of like square dancing but without the dated outfits, smelly gym, and elderly caller.

Here's the schedule I keep:
Monday: Homestead Revival's Barn Hop and A Cat-Like Curiosity's Monday Mantras.
Tuesday: Heavenly Homemaker's Gratituesday
and Wrinkled Mommy's Tuesday Archive Link-Up
Wednesday: My Life and Kids Finding the Funny
Thursday: A Rural Journal's Rural Thursday Blog Hop
Friday: Deborah Jean's Dandelion House's Farmgirl Friday
Saturday: Camera Critter's Life With Dogs Pet Blogger Hop and Country Momma Cooks Saturday Link-Up

Since today is Saturday, that means I'm linking my post "Farm Friday - Punkins" with Country Momma Cooks Saturday Link-Up, and my post "Frankenstein's Dog" with Saturday: Camera Critter's Life With Dogs Pet Blogger Hop and Come join the fun!

She Hasn't Been Eaten By a Dingo. Yet.

Rosie's been away now for 12 days.

Not that I'm counting or anything.

She has so far survived snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef,
after travelling for 30 +/- hours, and eating like, a potato (give or take)

bush walking in the outback, sleeping over in the house of someone I've never met, sleeping in a tent on a farm in a jungle

(No need to worry about things like scorpions and spiders and snakes. I'm sure there aren't any in Australia).

What's that? Australia is home to more deadly species of animals and insects than any other place on earth? Hmmm? I'm sorry, I can't hear you...

spelunking, touring a crocodile farm

lalalalala, I can't hear you, lalalalala










And if, when you read "spelunking", you envisioned a guided tour through a well-lit cave with concrete steps and handrails, you thought wrong. She traipsed through the jungle to the cave opening, then lowered herself into a dark hole in the ground, and belly-crawled through the pitch, with flashlights distributed to every other person. Exiting the cave required clambering up a landslide of boulders and rubble till they could reach daylight again. She was covered in filth, but alive....


I haven't gotten to talk to her every day, because they are sometimes in areas
where they have no cell service for days on end

Not that I am worried or anything.

Nope.

Not me.


And they have actually managed to engage in a couple of non-scary adventures while in the land of Oz. Like meeting politicians, touring the beef and sugar cane industries, visiting schools, and trips to the zoo and aquarium.





What's to come in the week ahead? Staying on some godforsaken island, more snorkeling (this time among ship wrecks), sand tobogganing "on the island's giant sand dunes", hand-feeding wild dolphins, navigating their way through a city known for its "mobs of kangaroos", dining at a restaurant known for serving kangaroo, rapelling down an "exposed rock face in the Blue Mountains", and surfing, to name a few of the items on their itinerary.

But me? Why, I'll just be swinging in the hammock, footloose and fancy free, drinking a lemonade.

With a Xanax IV on the side.



***************************


Images courtesy:
symbiosis-travel.com
travelblog.org
animaltourism.com
koorana.com.au
squidoo.com
armyrotc.pr.erau.edu

****************************

Don't forget, I will love you forever if you throw me a vote on Top Mommy Blogs. You know the drill by now, don't you? Just click the juggling chick and you've voted. You can vote every day till like, forever.



Thanks!

And to vote for me on the Circle of Moms contest, click this pink badge, then scroll down till you see my blog, and click on the thumbs-up button. You can vote every day till the contest ends. Thanks!



***************

In case you didn't know it, I'm like the queen of blog-hoppin' lately. It's kind of like square dancing but without the dated outfits, smelly gym, and elderly caller.

Here's the schedule I keep:
Monday: Homestead Revival's Barn Hop and A Cat-Like Curiosity's Monday Mantras.
Tuesday: Heavenly Homemaker's Gratituesday
and Wrinkled Mommy's Tuesday Archive Link-Up
Wednesday: My Life and Kids Finding the Funny
Thursday: A Rural Journal's Rural Thursday Blog Hop
Friday: Deborah Jean's Dandelion House's Farmgirl Friday
Saturday: Camera Critter's Life With Dogs Pet Blogger Hop and Country Momma Cooks Saturday Link-Up

Since today is Saturday, that means I'm linking my post "Farm Friday - Coop Queen Dream" with Saturday: Camera Critter's Life With Dogs Pet Blogger Hop and Country Momma Cooks Saturday Link-Up. Come join the fun!

Living in a Land Down Under

Living in a land down under
Where women glow and men plunder
Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover!



I want to take cover.
By climbing back into bed and pulling the covers over my head.

My Rosie is gone to the land down under!

This past Tuesday she hopped on a jet plane and flew off to Australia with her People to People group.

I MISS MY BABY!

And I'm afraid of the plundering men.

And sharks.

And scorpions and spiders and snakes.

And any other deadly things that begin with an "S".

And I don't want a dingo to eat my baby!





She'll be alright.
Won't she?

Tell me she'll be alright.

It's only three weeks, after all, what could go wrong?

Don't answer that....




Here she is, getting on the bus and driving off like she hasn't a care in the world.

Julie had to mop me up with a sponge off the asphalt. I dissolved right there in the parking lot.

Good bye my darling baby girl who is now all grown up!

Send me a post card!

Come home soon!





Watch out for rabid wallabies!

***************


Image courtesy: eclectech.co.uk
Video clip courtesy: socalrunner951
Lyrics from Men at Work's "Land Down Under"

***************

Don't forget, I will love you forever if you throw me a vote on Top Mommy Blogs. You know the drill by now, don't you? Just click the juggling chick and you've voted. You can vote every day till like, forever.



Thanks!



I've been nominated for another Circle of Moms contest! This one is for Top 25 Moms With Big Families. To vote for me, click this pink badge, then scroll down till you see my blog, and click on the thumbs-up button. You can vote every day till the contest ends. Thanks!



***************

In case you didn't know it, I'm like the queen of blog-hoppin' lately. It's kind of like square dancing but without the dated outfits, smelly gym, and elderly caller.

Here's the schedule I keep:
Monday: Homestead Revival's Barn Hop
Tuesday: Heavenly Homemaker's Gratituesday
and Wrinkled Mommy's Tuesday Archive Link-Up
Wednesday: My Life and Kids Finding the Funny
Thursday: A Rural Journal's Rural Thursday Blog Hop
Friday: Deborah Jean's Dandelion House's Farmgirl Friday
Saturday: Camera Critter's Life With Dogs Pet Blogger Hop and Country Momma Cooks Saturday Link-Up

Since today is Saturday, that means I'm linking my post "Farm Friday - The Drinker Nipple" with Camera Critter's Life With Dogs Pet Blogger Hop and Country Momma Cooks Saturday Link-Up. Come join the fun!