MWNews 18

Maeghan loves doing ballet. She talks about it all week and is always reminding you she is going dancing. Its not real ballet but she gets to wear tights and dance around so she thinks it is ballet. The teacher is trying to teach them ballet steps by having them bow and bend their knees out and things like that but the kids just do whatever they can and don't really try to do what the teacher is doing.

When they are told to hold their feet together and bend at the knees, with their kness pointing out in different directions, Maeghan just bobs up and down. That is more than the other kids do as they just stand there and do nothing but Maeghan at least tries it.

She loves to follow the teacher around and stands right next to her while she is showing the class everything. She watches the teacher and then watches the other kids to see what they are doing. If they are not doing what the teacher is saying, then she just follows the teacher.

This last week, she was all excited about going to dance because I was working at home and would get to go with her. It is just a couple of houses away from us and we walk there. You have to walk up a pretty steep driveway but she insists she can do it by herself and she does. she has gotten where she can walk almost anywhere without falling down. She still cannot run but she thinks she can. She says she is running but she is really just walking fast. It is no where near what the other kids can do, so they are always running away from her and she cannot catch them. She still thinks it is fun but she never catches them and she gets frustrated sometimes.

She now wants be to play chases all the time, because she can run away from me and I almost never catch her. She will come up to me several times a day and say you can't catch me and run away. I walk along behind her and tell her I am going to catch her. She doesn't like it when I actually catch her but she will run away for hours if I don't eventually catch her and pick her up. She then immediately says to put her down and do it again, so we play catches again.

She also likes to come up to me and say, 'Do you want to play?' She says it so cute that I cannot refuse her although most of the time I am busy doing something else. She will sit on the floor and make me sit with her and throw the balls back and forth. She has gotten bored with this lately and will only through the ball a couple of times. She then climbs over me and climbs up on my chest so she can use me as a slide. She slides down and then climbs back up so she can slide again.

She also likes me to bounce her on my knee, but only if her feet are touching the ground. I am not sure if you can imagine that but it is very painful as I have to sit on the ground and bounce my knee up and down. I can't do it for very long as it hurts my knee but she wants to do it for hours.

We went an got some of her toys off layby (lay-away) for Christmas. She didn't notice them when we were carrying them around in the trolley (shopping cart) and when we put them in the car. But, when Juanita was putting them away in the closet, she saw some of them on the top shelf. She opened her mouth and pointed at them. Then she said 'Those are mine'. We tried to convince her they were Williams but she was having none of that and said she wanted to look at them. We didn't let her but now whenever she walks by that closet, she looks up at the shelf to see if they are still there.

We still have the majority of her toys to get off of layby, and all the other kids presents also. They have what is called a no deposit layby over here during July where you can pick out all the things you want for Christmas and they give you until Christmas to pay for them. It makes shopping easier, so you don't have to go looking for things during the busy season but I am not so sure it is better. Since everyone knows they can go do this and all the stores do it within a couple of weeks of each other, you get really, really big crowds at that time.

We got there at 07:30 when they had it at Kmart. They opened at 07:00 and by the time we got there, they store was completely full. After we had found everything we were going to buy, which was not easy with the huge crowds, we went to wait in line. The line was about half way around the store. We waited for 2 and a half hours to put our stuff on layby. While we were waiting, the line got even longer and Angela had to wait 3 and a half hours as she didn't get in line when we did. And, it was a good thing we got there that early as a few of the things we bought, they ran out of and once they run out of something, you do not get a raincheck. They have to wait until they can order some more and then you have to pay full price as oppossed to the sale price they have during this event.

We went to another store the same day and got some more stuff but this time, we didn't have to wait in line as it was near closing time and everything was pretty much gone. We walked right up and did not have to wait at all.

Target had their sale a week later and we went to look even though we did not need anything else. We went about noon and they had the same problems that the other stores had. Long lines and they were running out of everything. The Target we went to is being expanded and they had opened a whole new wing with nothing but toys in it. We couldn't even get in there to look and didn't want to waste our time trying but it was a huge area, full of people and full of toys.

Our shopping center, the big one not the closest one, just opened a new level. They have been working on it for about a year and just opened it a month or so ago. It was one story and at that has over 250 stores in it. Now they have opened a second floor over half of it and it now has around 300 stores. We weren't going to go but we were passing by there and remembered they were having their grand opening that day, so we stopped by around 6:00 in the evening.

They were suppossed to be staying open until 9:00 that night but I think they staying open even later. We were there for about two hours. They have a lot of new stores that were having a lot of new sales. We went to the food market and got some stuff but didn't buy anything from all the other sales. Except they had half price nails at the nail salon, so Juanita and Angela went and had their nails done. It was only $20, which is a bargain I am told, but what I was not told was that they have to go back every two weeks and have them refilled or something. That is also $20, so I am not sure it was such a bargain.

I have been looking for one of those cheese graters that put the cheese in and turn the handle to grate the cheese. There are about foour new houseware stores in the mall and everyone said they were on order and did not have them in yet. It seems a lot of the stores were opening without being fully ready to open. The fish market opened for that one night, and had some really good deals, but then closed and did not open again for another three weeks. The Tandy store was not ready to open on time and did not open until a couple of weeks later and the Borders book store has still not opened.

All in all, it is a good deal and we still have not gotten tired of going there. We will soon, but for now, we go there instead of going to the local mall, which, by the way, is also expanding. Not getting any bigger but opening more shops in the middle of the walkways. Nothing we want to shop at but it makes it harder to walk around in there. One good thing is they have started having more and better sales to compete with the big mall.

Well, I am waiting for Juanita and Maeghan to come pick me up from work. They were suppossed to be here at 2:00 but it is 2:20 and they are still not here. They went to visit Juanita's friends again. Maeghan had to miss play group but she likes playing with Lecky (Alexis) so she didn't mind it much.

I guess I will sign off and go out and wait for her. I will talk to you later. You have seen all the pictures I have here at work but this is one of my favorites, so I will add it. It is taken when we were in Tasmania and waiting at the doctors office for Juanita's mother. I am not suppossed to tell this but the reason Juanita and Maeghan are smiling so much is because Maeghan has just given Juanita a kiss and she stuck her tongue in Juanita's mouth. Maeghan used to do that all the time and she still tries to do it every once and a while. Another big thing she tries is to lick you when she thinks you are not looking. She thinks it is hilarious but we don't know where she got it from.