Upcoming Road Trip

Well, I thought I'd try and take a little time to post despite leaving for our road trip tomorrow. I have all kinds of last minute things to do, I may just have to stay up a little late.

We experienced a first the other day with Emma. She has lost her first tooth since being home. Here's what it looked like:

Yes, that's a look of utter fear on her face. We wrestled with the tooth all day long on Saturday, as it seemed to be hanging by a thread, but still refused to come out. Emma was not fond of our pulling, yanking and tying of string around her tooth. We tried to explain to her how exciting it would be to get money from the tooth fairy, but this didn't make things go any smoother. Finally, at the end of the day, I grabbed hold and yanked that sucker outta there. Emma's sheer terror turned into sheer delight when I showed her the little tooth in my hands. She screamed and jumped up and down exclaiming how she is going to get a "new, big one!" (tooth)
Amazingly, this is only the third tooth Emma has lost and she will be eight this year. I guess God is giving us some time to get some calcium into those adult teeth before they come through the gums! :)

The excitement continued the next morning as Emma woke up to money from the tooth fairy. Her big plans for the money: buy a slurpee for daddy and mommy. Sweet kid!

Tomorrow we embark on our first road trip. We will be heading out for five days to Calgary. We have an appointment for Emma at the U.S Embassy on Friday. We need to get her a visa as we plan a winter vacation to the U.S. She needs a visa as she is not yet a Canadian citizen. And, of course, the U.S. embassy is three hours away and she has to apply in person. It took us two months to get this appointment. But it actually turned out to work out quite well, because I have some work training to do in Calgary on Monday and Tuesday, so we'll spend the weekend and maybe try to have some relaxing family time. I dunno.....five days, three hotels.....not sure how the change of routine will be on Emma. The poor girl rarely gets to leave our house, let alone stay in hotels far away. Well, I'm hoping a good time will be had by all.

That's all for today. Time for me to start packin' and get the house good and spotless. And, of course, I have to find out who the new American Idol is! Or, as Emma would say, "Merkin-Idoe"