Going International

Or so it seems.

Quite some time ago I set up a tracker on my blog to see how many visits I was getting and from where. It was fun in the beginning to see the "hits" from all over the place, but anymore I very seldom check it. I would usually have a whole slew of hits from across the U.S. and then a few random hits from other countries--maybe as many as six or seven, but usually just three or four. Well, a few days ago I went to check the tracker because it had been ages since I'd looked at it and I was bored. I don't know what's going on all of a sudden, but these are the out of country hits from the past 30 days:

7 visits from Canada (four different cities)

7 visits from the United Kingdom

4 visits from Russia (all Moscow)

3 visits from each of the following: Malaysia and France

2 visits from each of the following: Singapore, Philippines, Mexico, Germany, India, Spain, Brazil, Argentina

1 visit from each of the following: Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Chili, Poland, Egypt, South Korea, Australia, Greece, Honduras, Saudi Arabia, Bulgaria, Finland, Iran

Is that crazy, or what?! A tiny part of me thinks it's really neat. A really big part of me thinks it's really creepy! The strangest thing is just trying to figure out WHY I suddenly have hits from 28 countries. I've thought several times about doing the dreaded "private blog" thing, for various reasons... and this sort of rekindles the idea! It's just too weird.

Let's see, what did we do on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday... School, school, and more school! :-) Tuesday House Cleaning Day didn't turn out very good. I decided that it only works on Monday so we'd just have to wait until next week. Ha! It's hard to get much done around here on Tuesday because that happens to be library day. I can't remember why, but we also had to go into town afterwards, so that made for a much later day. It's hard to get much done in the afternoons when school doesn't start until then.

The kids are doing very well in school. Katie is about to finish up her 3rd Grade Switched on Schoolhouse, so that makes her very happy. Joe has been working hard on his multiplication and some division and is doing great, though he's not very excited about learning his multiplication table entirely. It amazes me how well he does, even NOT knowing it. He's got a good brain for figuring. Sometimes. ;-) And Sam just finished up another Kindergarten book. He's been through several books and we just keep going over the same thing because it's tough to move him into 1st Grade until he's really reading well. He's working so hard on his letters and sounds though and I feel like he's READY to move on. He can sound out and spell words easier than he can read them (leave it to Sam to do it backwards! Ha!) and I told him that I think he is finally READY for 1st Grade! Wa-Hoo!!! He is quite proud of himself and I'm hoping the pride and excitement will affect his efforts at school. He's the kind of kid who will probably be able to accomplish just about anything by sheer determination. :-)

James is going to be gone on the Katie & Joe's birthday this weekend, so we decided to do our celebrating today. We went into town early for church and ran a few errands, then went to Hometown Buffet for the kids' big, special birthday meal. Only they were closed. Closed DOWN, I think! We had coupons for free birthday meals and everything. What a gyp. So we went to Furr's instead and the kids were thrilled. I don't get it. When I was a kid I associated Furr's with two things: Clifford Thompson and old people. Which is really like a category and a subcategory, I guess. Ha! But our kids think it's great. (Just for clarification, I've ALWAYS dearly loved Cliff Thompson and old people. :-) But Furr's wasn't my first choice for dinner as a kid!)

We went to pick up a birthday cake at Sam's Club before church, but there was nobody working in the bakery. Long story short, we asked three different employees for help and they kept trying to page somebody but nobody ever showed up to help. All we needed was for somebody to write Happy Birthday Katie & Joe for us, you know? I could see the tubes of icing and kept thinking that if only somebody could find a tip for me I could just write it myself! Anyway, we finally found somebody important and she radioed for somebody to come help us a few times, but still got no response. We were planning on sharing the cake with the church folks after service and church was going to start in about 15 minutes and we were beginning to panic! I told James to just buy the cake and skip the writing so we could get to church, but he didn't want to pay good money for a big blank cake! Ha! I finally found the important lady again and apologized for seeming pushy, but explained our situation a little better. She said, "Don't you dare apologize!" Then she grabbed her radio and said, "I want somebody back here NOW to write on this cake--these people are going to be late to their own party! And when they get to the front, the cake that says Katie & Joe will be NO CHARGE, you all got that?!" Ha! Who knew?! I'm so glad we found the lady with all the power. :-) Somebody did show up pretty directly, we got our cake, got checked out (NOT paying for the cake, just the 1st Grade school books for Sam--which he is sooooo excited about!), and made it to church with about 5 minutes to spare. Wa-Hoo!!! Good thing the church is practically across the street from Sam's Club! :-)

We had a really good Bible study tonight from the Body of Christ course. It was the lesson about the four wells of Abraham that Isaac digged again, symbolizing salvation, sanctification, the Holy Ghost, and The Church of God. Brother Chris did a good job teaching it and we really felt the Lord with us from the opening prayer. Good service.

Afterwards we invited everybody to join us for cake. The Clarksons had bought gifts for Katie and Joe and we were so surprised that Sister Connie had, too. We intentionally didn't tell anybody about the mini-party ahead of time because we didn't want anybody to feel obligated to bring a gift, but the kids made out pretty well! A gift from us, one from the Clarksons, one from Sister Connie, and before the night was out they each had $5 from Brother Hugo!

Here are the birthday kids (they looked rough--it had been a long afternoon, remember?!) with their FREE birthday cake.

A little pet shop thingy from the Clarksons

Joe was so funny to watch--he was soooooo excited about ALL of his gifts. This was the air gun from us.

Another pet shop thingy from Sister Connie!

Ha! Joe had really been hoping for this particular item, so when he ripped the paper and saw it he started squealing, "It's the watch! I got the spy gear watch! YES!!!!" Sister Connie got a GREAT BIG "Thank You" for that one!

And the "real men's handcuffs" from the Clarksons--another thing Joe had been hoping for.

I failed to get a picture of Katie with her gift from us (some more Sculpey clay that she so enjoys), but I did have to take one more picture of Joe with all of his loot--he was just soooooo excited about everything! Ha! Oh, the Toy Story Frisbee was a gift from his kind and generous sister. :-)

That's about it. The kids are fast asleep, I took care of some stuff for James and got a few shirts ironed for him to take with him when he leaves me AGAIN tomorrow for yet ANOTHER Convention without me. Jerk. Ha! Lucky for him this is the last one I'm staying home for--I seem to be getting a little less gracious about being left behind and my hostility has increased to the point of possible violence... Okay, so maybe it's not quite that bad. Or maybe it is! Ha! I just know I'm going to be SO READY to go to our own District Convention this month and Youth Convention next month! I'm not saying it's been a good thing that I've been unable to make the past three trips with James, but I have no doubt that I will appreciate the next few a lot more because of it and probably be extra blessed by them! :-)