the tale of a lost retainer

My oldest daughter wears a retainer. We’ve known for a while that braces are in her future so it’s not a surprise that she’s getting things started at the age of 10. All things considered, she’s been very responsible with the retainer – wearing it when she’s supposed to etc. But over Spring Break she lost it. We were eating lunch somewhere in podunk Illinois and instead of leaving it in the car like she always does when we go out to eat – she wore it inside. You know what happened next, she placed it on the tray at McDonalds and when Dad cleared the table – the retainer was gone. She realized it about an hour down the road.

Lucky for us her orthodontist offers a one-time-only free retainer replacement… IF K bakes them two dozen cookies or brownies AND writes a one page, 12 point font, essay (preferably humorous) on what happened to her retainer. They keep a binder of these essays in the office and they’re pretty funny. Today we’re heading to pick up her new retainer. Brownies are ready and without further ado, today’s post will be by my daughter:

Once Upon a Spring Break

Once upon a Spring Break I lost my retainer. We went so many places I can’t exactly remember where I left it. First, we went to Starved Rock State Park. I got to look down a canyon that was GIGANTIC! We also looked down waterfalls, and hiked up TONS of stairs. We even got to see the Starved Rock itself!

Then we drove down to Springfield, Illinois, which is ol’ Abe Lincoln’s hometown. We thought we should learn a little bit about him, so we took a trip to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum. We got to see his whole life through his own eyes. There were two movies that we saw. One was called ghosts of the library. It told us all about books and how they tell their own story. The second movie was about Lincoln’s life. There were many noisy sound effects that made me jump a foot in the air! There were many interesting facts all around the museum, but before we knew it, it was time to leave!

We loved walking through Abe’s house too! We saw where Lincoln first heard that he was going to be President! But what I thought rocked was the handrail that the Lincolns touched. We also got to touch it! Before the day ended we went to see his tomb. It was sad and AWESOME at the same time!

We did lots of other things over our Spring Break too! We saw the Broadway in Chicago show, Mary Poppins! It simply was Supercalafragalisticexpeladoucious! We also went to see Hotel for Dogs in the movie theater. I loved it! One of my favorite things was playing in a humongous park!

I don’t know where I left my retainer. Maybe I left it at the edge of Starved Rock. Or maybe it’s under Abe’s hat. Or possibly it’s on Lincoln’s fireplace! But I think it wanted to fly up with Mary and is on her umbrella right now!