June 12 – “The Princess Bedroom”

Did I mention that we are living out a special treat these next few days?  We were selected to sleep in the Princess Bedroom.  Christi’s mom and dad came for the birthday party and for the performance, so they are in Zak’s room.  We are in AnnaGrace’s room – The Princess Room.  And it is just that.  Frills everywhere.  A doll house.  Beautiful little AnnaGrace-size dresses line the closet.  Princessy things even hang from the ceiling.  She has a trundle bed, so when it is put away, the bed even has a frilly cover thingy.  Feels like we won a Disney sweepstakes.

 

Speaking of princesses, we had a great start to the day yesterday.  AnnaGrace’s dance recital began at 9 a.m.  She did a tap routine as well as a ballet.  She was, of course, the best of the bunch.  The whole bunch, I mean, not just her group.  After the performance she received flowers from a friend at church as well as from her Daddy.  And the “Other Grandparents,” the Winkles, drove down from Arlington to cheer her on as well.   

 

Everyone came back to the house after we completed all the photo ops.  And there were a lot of photo ops.  Each set of grandparents.  The church friends.  Mom and Dad.  Brothers.  A family portrait.  These Vaughan’s really love their pictures.  Josh grilled some burgers and hot dogs and chicken for lunch. 

 

After we all had our fill, the girls returned to the recital.  Unbeknownst to us, the thing was lasting all day long.  They were heading back to watch the older, more experienced girls do their performances.  A few of them go to their church, so Christi wanted to be supportive.  I understand AnnaGrace was particularly interested … until she fell fast asleep.  I’m afraid I wouldn’t have lasted as long as she did.

 

So … I stayed with the guys back around the house.  To be helpful, all of us but Bob crawled into the swimming pool – just to get it cleaned out, mind you.  It did have quite a few leaves and other debris.  The water was fine.  Kind of cool, but the temperature outside was hovering around 100 with a wind chill of 105.  Hot.  So the cool water felt great.  And since we were in the water anyway, we decided that it would be kind of a waste not to enjoy it a bit.  Water wrestling matches may or may not have ensued.  Zak and Caleb are not nearly as easy to flip as they used to be.  Even Josh and I together had a really hard time knocking them from their perch on floaties.  Luke was easier, but he’s getting tougher as well.  After some intense battering, Josh and I gave up and crawled out.  The boys followed closely behind.  They had a trip to Academy already planned.  Zak had received several Academy gift cards that were burning a hole in his pocket.  Luke and I stayed behind, more because we didn’t really want to take two cars.  He preferred staying behind anyway, so he could sneak in a few extra minutes playing basketball video games. 

All of our princesses returned safely, and we spent a pleasant evening watching The Wizard of Oz on TV.  See, the theme of the recital had been “Over the Rainbow,” and AnnaGrace had never seen the movie.  In fact, neither had Luke or Caleb.  We had no choice but to introduce them to that iconoclastic bit of movie magic.  My favorite part came when Dorothy melted the wicked witch.  He held both arms out with a puzzled look on his face.  When questioned about it later, he immediately blurted out, “Why didn’t she do that right at the beginning, if it was that easy?”  That’s the greatness of cinema, Luke.  Ignore reality.  I told him the book was totally different from the movie, so he may put it on his summer reading list. 

 

Romans 12:10 says, “Be devoted to one another in love.  Honor one another above yourselves.”

 

Father, thank you for all the of our princess experiences these last few days.  Amen.