September 11, 2001
We've had an incredibly busy weekend, but very nice.
Alesia went to her first sleepover Friday night! She was so excited. Elena Barr, her little friend who's also adopted, invited her to spend the night. Elena also had to babysit her younger brothers and sisters Friday night and Alesia helped here there. She and Elena still stayed up talking and painting each other's fingernails.
Mother and I went out to dinner Friday night, Red Lobster, after Alesia had left. I wanted to go to a "grownup" movie but couldn't find anyone on such short notice. I didn't know Alesia was going until later Friday afternoon. Elena likes to do things spur of the moment. She's a nice kid, though.
Alesia helped me with some household chores Saturday, including her favorite thing, the carwash. She loves sitting in the car in the carwash.
Saturday afternoon we went over to cousin Tim Embry's house and Granny got her hair cut by Tim, and Elena and I hung out and talked to his wife Mazi, who's an artist. Very pleasant visit.
Saturday night we went out to dinner with Malinda Phillips, a cousin on the Hasty side of the family. I also got in a good visit with Michael and Cissy Hollingworth. Michael is the pilot who got me the buddy passes for my last adoption trip, which was wonderful - sitting in business class definitely beats coach. His wife Cissy is a fellow paralegal and emigrated here a few years ago from China. Cissy has a 14 year old daughter, Jessica, a cute girl, who is a year ahead of Alesia in school.
We ate at Provino's - a nice family style Italian restaurant in Duluth, just up the road.
Today, Alesia had her first Sunday School class at All Saints. She did great - lots of kids in the class, and they gave her candy, so now she wants to go back. Hey - I like bribery myself... She also had her first church Youth Group meeting tonight, where again they got fed - dinner, this time, and had a program. Both times Alesia was asked where she was from and she said "Russia." One boy this morning asked her "Do you speak Russian?" and she reported to me and Granny she scornfully answered "No!" which we thought was funny. I said, "Next time, just start chattering away in Russian - that will freak them out." LOL
We had Varsity for dinner tonight. I was too tired to cook. Plus, it's right next door to the church. The smell tempts everyone to sin...
I told Alesia that Granny and Grandpa Tony used to go to the Varsity when they were dating, because Uncle Tony was too poor to go to a nice place. She quite enjoyed her hamburger, fries, and onion rings. Of course, she loves almost all hamburgers.
So we've had a very busy weekend - I left out the exciting details of the trips to kroger and Office Depot. Tomorrow, busy busy again...
