I’m pasting an email I just sent to a friend here…no energy to even retype or revisit the events of the day. Unbelievable…

At the hike, wanted to greet visitors from Russia with a nice “dobre utra!” (“good morning!” – can’t believe I remembered that from my travels many years ago) so I belted it out. They were, after all, getting off a van inscribed in Russian with “Russia Hawaii Tours.” Felt it was a pretty safe bet. I also heard them speaking what I thought was Russian, but I was too far away to be sure. All I got was icy stares. Wow. Hmmm… Had to ask – ah ha – they were from POLAND! Nice. Of course I remember from my travels that Poles, and many other Eastern Europeans, do not wish to be addressed in Russian at all. DORK. HUGE DORK. How could that have been my luck? I smiled and said “Ok sorry! How about ALOHA!?”

Then the hike this morning – 3 moms 6 kids – despite some whininess and a rocky start, we all did fine and the kids had fun. Little 2 1/2 yr old Cameron wins the big trooper award for doing all 1.7 miles on his own two legs! We almost didn’t find the cache but finally did…Sam got dirt in his eye, rubbed it, got corneal abrasion. Has been alternately fine then screaming every 15 min or so all afternoon. He is usually a very tough guy so I imagine this is really bothersome.

Went out for pizza – ladies behind me were cracking up while eating. Finally had to ask why – they said “it’s about YOU!”  I’m like – no…not again. Don’t want to be center of attention and a DORK again. A plate had blown off their table and onto my HEAD, stayed there long enough for them to deliberate what to do, finally get up, retrieve it, get back and seated, and I never knew about it!

Went for ice cream, then home and in bath, finally.

Just get Sam’s head washed without a major freak out and I turn to look at Ben and there’s a huge pile of poop in the tub! Like huge pieces of grape and other misc food that won’t even fit down the drain! So I have to evacuate Sam before he rubs his eyes with poop-water hands…clean his hands, evacuate Ben, figure out if we’re calling it a night with the bath or not…decided to call it a night and head them to bed. I’m hoping he’s ok now, and will be even better tomorrow. There’s not much that can be done anyway and in kids it heals really fast. Poor guy. What a trooper. I feel like everything that could happen in a deployment – just about – has happened in 7 days. What a week!