August 1

We stayed at Mandalay Bay this week on Thursday night. We had a great time. The kids and I checked in at 3 and Bob came straight from work just a little after that. We went down to the pools then. They have a wave pool, kid pool and lazy river. There was something for everyone. And Seth loved it too. All summer he's tolerated swimming, but never had much fun and never lasts more than 45 minutes. But he was great the whole 2 1/2 hours we were there. Then we went back to our room and ate PB sandwiches and got a pay per view kid movie. We went to bed about 9:00. The next morning we got up and ate and were back at the pool at 8:00. We swam until 10:30 and then went back and got dressed and checked out. Everyone fell asleep on the way home.

Monday night we went to another 51s baseball game. This time we left a little later and it just wasn't as hot that day, so it was much more enjoyable. They have $1 food at the concession stand on Mondays; the kids thought that was great. Seth has discovered that he can run out of the grassy area, though. So he's not so easy to keep with us.

We went yesterday to the party store to get things for Rachel's birthday. She is definitely her own person. We went down the girly isle and she chose fish for her plates and cups, but they didn't have any invitations. So I talked her into some pretty pink butterfly ones. Then she decided she didn't want to do a pinata, she just wanted to do gift bags. So we went down the little trinket isle to pick things to go in the bags. I pointed out some glitter bracelets and necklaces and other things; but she chose rubber snakes--that's all. She just wants snakes and candy in the bags. I love that girl.

We met with Heidi, the realtor, this week. Things are still looking positive. We qualified for the loan amount we'll need and we kept getting compliments on our credit score. That felt nice. They are going to start the selling process at the end of August because if they start before that they think there's a chance it'll go through before Christmas and neither of us want that. And they have to open the house up for other offers at that time, but the realtor will try to deter that. So hopefully no one will put a better offer than ours. And we'll just wait now for the next month and see what happens in September.