Overwhelmed, and suffering from writer's block

I don't know what has happened. Weeks ago, when I was secretly pregnant, I couldn't wait to share the news! It seemed like everything I wrote about was slightly lame, like I needed to just be able to talk about being pregnant and then everything would be back to normal. But it's not! At midnight, I think of great blog titles, fabulous and funny stories to write about. At 3pm, I have nothing. I might as well be napping! So here's a big shout out (Tim's favorite expression) to my 3 faithful, if bored, readers.

Tucson was great, as I might have mentioned. It was like going home, somehow. Probably because I know more people there than I know here, I was able to suggest places to go for lunch, and I even offered up a new and fun suggestion to my sister of a place to take her in-laws, although she has lived in Tucson for more than a decade.

I might or might not have gained about five pounds last week, from all the yummy places I went to lunch, and from Shayne's amazing dessert selection at last week's coffee. My sister and I took the three girls to get Halloween pictures taken at Sears (why oh why do I torture myself that way? They are horrible! And expensive!). It didn't go well. I spent gobs of money anyway. Shayne and Andrea and I took the kids to the zoo. Kate and Claire fed the giraffes (Claire for the first time; it was hysterical. She was SO excited to feed them [because Kate was excited], and then she saw the long purple tongue on the giraffe and freaked out and dropped the giraffe snack behind the little fence. Me, having just paid a whole dollar for that snack, raced the giraffe to it and won, so Claire and I could feed him together. I think she has recovered by now. I guess I should have started a whole new paragraph [or post] for this topic.). Kate played with her best friend Reagan for hours. Tempie followed Claire around faithfully whenever they were together. I read an entire book. It was such a great week.

I don't know if I will do the trip again next week or not. It is one thing to drive nearly 8 hours (not including multiple and unbelievably long stops) with two adults to corral the children, and to do it alone might be suicidal. But three weeks is a long time for us to be here alone, and I think we might get slightly bored. I think the secret is to get up and drive as early has humanly possible. If I can only drag my butt out of bed at 4am...

Kate is incredibly excited about Halloween. We took the girls to the Reid Park Zoo to go trick-or-treating, and now she can't wait until it's dark every night so it will be Halloween.

I have not figured out how to explain places to Kate. She is having trouble wrapping her head around the notion that even though we drive several miles in one city, that we are still, quite likely, in the same city. Every time I drove them from place to place in Tucson, Kate wanted to know when we would go back to Tucson. I'm pretty sure she thinks of Tucson as Reagan's house and Tempie's house. And perhaps after our trip, our hotel with the fountain.

And now, because of lack of direction and focus, I will leave you with some photos of our recent trip.