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Last week was sort of nutty so I didn't have time to post before we left, but we're now back from a successful camping trip. Ros' doctor said she could go, so even though she was having rather rough nights, we took the risk and went. Fortunately, she's come through like a trooper and is now doing much better.

The camping trip was with two other families, whose daughters are also adopted from China, and the kids all get along (mostly) great, and we're friends with the other parents, so it all works out well. It's actually the third year we've all camped together.

And much to my amusement, there was even Take That content for the weekend.

On the three hour drive to the park, Ros was occupying herself making a bunch of lists. My favourite flowers, my favourite birds, that sort of thing. This was what she came up with for my favourite songs:



She came up with that all on her own. Honest! (I have to say I'm rather pleased she picked a Mark song and a Howard song.)

Then last night, I caught this snippet of conversation between Ros and one of the other girls:

Ros: And one of their names is Robbie, and he wore a harness and then he jumped off the top of the stage.

Robbie has made an impression on her mostly for that stage leap, not for his songs. As she made clear when she was putting in a request for music during the car ride.

Ros: I want you to play original Take That.
Me: What? You mean their first few albums. I don't have those with me, kiddo.
Ros: No! The one with Patience!
Me: Oh, you mean Beautiful World.

So for Ros "original Take That" means TT4 without Robbie. ::Iz amused::

Just got back from an afternoon of playing doctor-x-rays-doctor-pharmacy.

The official word is...Rosalind has pneumonia. Yikes!

Fortunately it's mild, her energy is still pretty good, and she's on a massive dose of penicillin, so that's good. And her doctor says we can still go on the camping trip we planned for the weekend.

And now I shall do the "working at home" I'd had planned for the afternoon.

Today's score: 4 - 3 for the other lot. But we played a really strong game and we actually leading 1 - 3 for a good chunk of the game. We just had a five minute stretch where one of our less confident goalkeepers was in the net and our defence fell apart completely. But everyone still seems to be having a good time, and they're all coming along, skills-wise. Now I just have to cure them of trying to get the ball from their own teammates.

The Sweetie is taking his duties as bloke in charge of our player rotation very seriously. When I got Ros home from daycare today, he was obsessively going over tonight's line up, trying to sort it so the stronger players were well distributed, and the kids who will wreak havoc of the bad sort on the field together are kept on different lineups. He's so cute when he's organizing things.

Ros continues to be Take That obsessed, bless her. After we got home from the game, I wanted to check the score of the England v. Ukraine game before running off to my acupuncture appointment. (It had been 1 - Nil for England when I left work and then I didn't have time to check the score before we ran off to the soccer field. This resulted in the following exchange.

Me: England won!
Ros: Yay! Does Take That play for England?
Me: Um, no. They just play charity matches, kiddo. They're not that good.
Ros: Oh.

It was a soccer coaching night, and the team managed to (decisively) win their first game. 3 - 0! Of course, it probably helped that the other team was mostly smaller and a bit more clueless, but it was still nice for the kids to get one win under their belt. And I think I've got the line up sorted so that there's always at least one of our stronger players on the field, but everyone still gets on the same amount.

The game was right during the time when Venus was making its transit across the sun, so I couldn't watch it. I feel like I've failed as a former astrophysicist, so to make up for it, here's finally one of our Florida pics: Ros in front of the NASA store in the Orlando airport.

I have just survived coaching my first U6 soccer game by myself! Footie!Mark approves!



We got killed--0 - 6! thank Christ they don't really keep score at this age--but Ros and the other kids had fun, and so did I. But I think I'm going to draft the Sweetie to help with player rotation next time because there's no way I can do that and pay attention to what's happening on the field.

( To celebrate, have a Take That Footie Pic Spam )

The other day I'm making dinner with Take That's Progress tour on in the background when Ros and the Sweetie come home from the park. I flip the concert back to Shine so Ros can watch it while I'm finishing dinner. (They do this version as an Alice in Wonderland pastiche, complete with the White Rabbit, and Ros loves it.)

Here's Howard, Mark, Jason and the rabbit.


A couple of minutes later, a very excited Ros comes running into the kitchen.

Ros: Mommy, mommy, I know why he sings "But you're stuck in a hole!"
Me: Why?
Ros: It's because the song is about a rabbit!

I don't know what I love more, the fact that the line was clearly bugging her, or the fact that she's latched onto the explanation that it's about a rabbit. And she's sticking to her guns on the point. Any time she hears it now, she insists "This is about a rabbit!"

( This way to Robbie as the Rabbit, and a mini Shine pic spam )

In other news, I have finished the final assignment in the bloody online course I've been taking. It's not the most brilliant job I've ever done, but as long as I pull off a reasonably respectable grade, I'll be happy. Now I've just got to survive the launch of a massive new project I've been part of at work, and then I can get my head back around the Pros Big Bang and any other fannish project that strikes my fancy. Yay!

The Sweetie has once again shown exactly why it is I love him. He spent yesterday evening sorting through literally thousands of pictures on Facebook and found the missing pics of me on the Iron Throne at the Game of Thrones exhibit. He rocks, and I'm luck to 'ave 'im.

So, here I am:


As a bonus, he also found the pic of him and Le Ros on the throne, complete with her foam rubber swords. They had it done when he took her down to the Lightbox for a March Break screening of My Neighbour Totoro. (Bringing the swords was totally the Sweetie's idea. He also kept trying to get me to wear my replica Boromir vambraces and bring my prop sword, but I resisted. Apparently, somewhere inside him is a cosplayer yearning to get out.)

( This way to the rest of House Zed )

It's been a hectic time in the Zed/Sweetie/Ros household, and one of the many things keeping us busy is Ros doing Tae Kwan Do twice a week at a studio not far from our house. The studio is a really great space. The Kwan Jan Nim and a lot of the main black belt/teachers are women, and it's a remarkably nurturing place, considering they're also teaching everyone how to, you know, kick and punch people.

I've been wanting to go back into martial arts training for ages, and this seemed like a great place to do it in. So this week I signed up for a month's trial, and this morning I did my very first 6 a.m. class.

It was awesome.

It was also slightly nuts, owing to the fact that most of the other crazy people who decided to get up at an ungodly hour to train are black belts. Once upon a time I was a blue belt, and they're letting me wear that belt as a courtesy, but man, I am soooo not in that kind of shape any more. But if I keep this up, I have a feeling that I'm soon going to be.

To celebrate, I thought I'd post a pic of Ros and me at her first belt testing last month.


I have no desire to be a hockey mom, and while I'm pretty okay with being a soccer mom, I totally love being a martial arts mom. *g*

Hallowe'en continues to be one of Ros' favourite days of the year. Costumes, candy, and getting to tear around the neighbourhood with her friends? There's nothing better.

Here's Ros with our pumpkin for the year. (I drew the witch, Ros and the Sweetie did the carving.)


( More Hallowe'en pics this way... )

Hoorah for LJ being back up! (Not that I've had much time to be online this week, but any time I had a few minutes spare and couldn't access the site, well, pretty much sucked.

But in the meantime, I've been sort of productive! I've been making steady progress on my Pros Big Bang story. Here's the current word count:



So, I'm firmly over the minimum, which is good, but there'll still be a bit of a slog getting to the end. I can't quite believe I've come up with another plot that's going to take me 30,000 words. Well, at least there are no zombies this time. :-/ And I'm firmly in the final climactic bit, so there's lots of lovely emotional scenes I can get my teeth into, which is fun, even if, as always, I'm terrified I'm going to screw them up.

In my other fandom du jour, the Take That love also continues unabated, and seems to be transferring to my daughter quite nicely. Tonight I was on the laptop whilst she was watching The Cat in the Hat, when she happened to catch a glimpse of the pic of Mark in the glittery suit I've posted before.

Ros: Who's that?!
Me: That's Mark. He's in Take That. He's one of the guys who sings Patience.
Ros: I like that picture!

That's my girl.

She then take over the laptop and starts scrolling through my (frighteningly extensive) collection of TT pics, and asking me about the Progress tour. I am currently under orders to find pictures for her of:

The boys in the light up suits

Mark riding the giant caterpillar

Mark, barefoot on stage after his shoes got drenched in the rain

Oh, the hardship. *g*

I'm also in the last fifty pages of A Game of Thrones. I lurved the mini-series so much that I decided to re-read the first three books so I could finally read the fourth one, and then move on to the new one. I reckon I'll finish them all around Christmas. (Oh, for infinite reading time. As well as writing and vidding time, of course.)

And finally, one of our local rep houses showed Equilibrium last night, which is a huge Sean Bean guilty pleasure of mine, and I dragged along a friend and her sixteen-year-old son. The son already loved the movie--he watched it at our place once when he was babysitting--and my friend is now a new convert. It's not a great film, and there are plot holes you could drive several large lorries through, but my god, it's a nicely shot film. Plus the Bean is lovely, and it's chock full of characters actors I adore. William Fichtner! Angus MacFadyen! Sean Pertwee! And Christian Bale ain't so bad in the lead, either. ::sigh::