Spitting Prohibited

Did you have a very Merry Christmas?

I really did have plans of posting something special for Christmas.  But let's face it, you didn't have time to get on here and read it anyway, right?  You can think of it as my special present to you, not posting that Christmas post, who can put a value on time?  And that's what I gave you my friends, a little extra time during Christmas.

You're welcome.

But now that the joyful day is over I know you just have oodles of time, it's streaming out your ears!  Hurry, put a cap on and save it!  (sorry, I don't know where that came from) And I can go ahead and give you a recap.

You're welcome.

So...Christmas...odd we didn't have any Christmas concerts this year.  That was weird.  Brooke's choir is working on their big musical for next month, and Grant isn't playing cello this year and I guess Jon hasn't progressed enough on violin to warrant a concert.  And not having any Christmas concerts is good and bad, you know?

We have no snow.  No white Christmas just like the ones we used to know.  Only dreaming.  It's been so crazy weather-ish-ness here.  In the span of a little more than a week we've had cold snowy days-warm up to 50 and melt all the snow-drop down to negative temps-and warm back up to the 50s.  Today they say 44 and tomorrow 69.  That's right.  Sixty-Nine Degrees Fahrenheit.  In Pittsburgh.  In December!  Why didn't all you Washington people come out here this year?

                                                                                    Oh that's right...no airports are flying there.

                                                                                                                           Sorry about that.

Enjoy your snow though.  I'm sure it's very pretty.

And now on to the main events.

We Christmas-eved it this year at my Aunt and Uncles. Yummy food!  Fun company!  And we watched the musical version of a Christmas Carol.  Is it bad that I can't help but think of Goofy as Jacob Marley?  I like when he falls down the stairs.  Sadistic I know, but it makes me laugh.

The kids were spoiled with treats and toys.

                                                                                                     As it should be.

                                    But it made it a little tough to settle them down.

But we managed.  It only took me 12-15 attempts to get this shot:

                        

Brooke is a little grumpy because she is not posing with her stocking.  Which I think is odd, because basically, her stocking is falling apart, it's terrible.  It's the only one I actually made myself.  And it shows.  But she was upset by not having it.  We found it a little bit later in a box we hadn't opened this year because I ran out of the little decorating mojo I had to begin with.  And she was happy again.  I'd really like to make her a new one, out of non-terrible fabric and make it all cute like the boys stockings.  But she wants her craptacular one.  ~ "It's special." ~  It's awfully sweet, but one of these Christmas mornings we're going to find her loot on the floor from the ripped out bottom of her stocking. 

Sometimes I think she was blessed with the extra dose of sentiment that wasn't given to me.  Like it was laying there on the floor after I was born and the angels said, "Oh well, just stuff it in her daughter."   

And then Christmas morning!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

                                                                 hey Seth, does that present envy remind you of anyone?

Santa did pretty well by our kids this year, Alex as you may have noticed, got a space station Mars set up, complete with Aliens.  So not technically accurate, as of yet anyway, but fun.  I was a little concerned actually about this one, but apparently Santa knows best, and he was excited about it from our trip to Kennedy Space Center.      

Jon as you may have been tipped off by the whining in the video got a Gameboy.  

And he was exceptionally thrilled to have the power to either allow or deny his siblings the right to play on said Gameboy.  You know what they say about absolute power though.

His Gameboy is now on a one-day timeout.  Some one, and it wasn't me, needed a little reminder that while it is indeed his Gameboy.  It and he reside in his parent's house.

Brooke got a new MP3 player.  This one with video capabilities.

Apparently we, I mean Santa, didn't get that quite right last year.

I wonder if we, I mean Santa, can just keep buying her off with a slightly upgraded version of technology of the same gift idea every year.  That will keep things simple. Especially since we, I mean Santa, are about a year or more behind in current technology upgrades anyway.

I saved Grant for last because it is totally my favorite.  See, as you might have noticed in the video above, we have made a deal with our kids regarding the coveted Nintendo DS.  If they want one, they have to save up for one.  We, the parents, will meet them half-way, which means they have to save up about $70 for one...figuring tax and such.  Brooke scrimped and saved almost her entire 4th grade year.  Grant decided the time was ripe for him to attempt the struggle about a year later.

He saved.

                     And he saved.

                                                   And he saved.  (and he spent a little here and there, but mostly he saved.)

Until finally he had enough money if he sold us his Gameboy (we gave him $15 for it, what he would have gotten from a trade-in at Gamespot...see Jon above) around last May or June.  And there was much rejoicing.

Until about 3 weeks when he lost it.

We looked high and low.  We cleaned out closets and behind chairs and bookshelves.  We could not find it anywhere.  I thought it must have been stolen.

But Santa found it!  And brought a long a couple new games and a case.  What a guy! 

And now we will fast forward over many joyfully received gifts, for which those of you who are responsible for such gifts we are really thankful and appreciative, but seriously going through all of them would make this already long post exceptionally long.

                                 Except for Thanks Dad and Kate for the picture.  I cried.  I love it.  Thank you.

And for all the rest of you, whether you gave us a tangible gift or just the gift of being in our lives, please know that we love you!  We hope you had a really wonderful Christmas and we wish we could give you this in person!

 

...a 2 hour delay.

Of which I have mostly wasted already.  But heres a little bit of Sketchy fun for you to take with you as you go about your daily lives:

We (finally) have a Christmas tree and it is all decorated and everything.  Yay!  I don't think we have been this late since the Mac-Gyver tree.  But it's up and it's purty and the kids have messed with the lights so now they are all wonky as opposed to perfectly sequenced the way their dad left them, but oh well this is not a problem I am prepared to be concerned with right now.

We bought new lights this year (well, last year during the after Christmas sales) and they are pretty, and they don't get hot to the touch, and they don't use a lot of electricity so Tom lets me leave them on all the time (but maybe he is less afraid of this tree burning down as it only has to survive 5 days). However, they don't allow good enough lighting for me to take a cute picture of my kids sleeping under the tree.  We will be going back to the burning down the house model next year, because as you all know, it's all about the picture around here.

This year they remembered the "tradition" of sleeping under the tree all by themselves and it was cute to see them all excited.

Saturday, we baked.  Brooke and her friend Brittney helped.  They were cute.  "This is so much fun!"  Hmmm.  I thought it was a job to be crossed off my "Do Before Christmas" list.  I didn't realize it was supposed to be enjoyable.  But I tried to not intrude too much on their whole "having fun"; crazy attitude towards Christmas.

Tom will be happy I used a semi-colon there.  I used it just for him.  Apparently it is his favorite punctuation.  And I thought I already knew everything about him.

Sunday during the passing of the sacrament, Alex piped up:  "I wish they'd pass around some peanut butter too!  And bless that!" 

Needless to say our spiritual enlightenment was enriched with gratitude for our kids.  I mean honestly.  Not only did it crack me up that he wanted a peanut butter sandwich Christ's Supper, but he also thought ahead enough to forestall the objection I was just about to offer, by insisting that the blessing be offered over the peanut-butter as well.  Smart cookie.

PS: my spell checker is messed up.  It's taking perfectly normal words like objection and turning them into objection and then objeClion.  And I don't know who or what objeClion is or what he's doing with my blog.  And it's not just objeclion, there was crack and tried and many others and I tried to click skip but I may have messed up a time or too.  So let's pretend this is a bloggy game and you try to come up with the right word to match the right sentence, if you see one.  Enjoy Bloggy friends and family!  It's a little holiday bloggy party, if you are good maybe I'll serve dip.

pumpkins and "remains" and costumes

Well, actually just pumpkins...I'm tired.  We'll try the deathly remains tomorrow.

How in the world did it get to be a week past Halloween?  Good Gravy.

Here is the lowest of low-downs (would "down low" work in this phrase?  I'm not so hip to the jive turkey):

Wednesday night:  We finally got around to carving pumpkins.  I seriously considered that this could be the year we dropped pumpkin carving from the standard Halloween rotation.  So busy, and broke from fixing Tom's car.  Maybe we could/should just forgo pumpkins?

Of course not.  We haven't missed a pumpkin carving since we were married.

         

I am not sure what all the disgruntled faces are all about here.  Perhaps I intrude? 

Also someday I will do a photo montage of Grant and his gross pumpkin pictures.  I'm sure we have at least one from every year.  It is required.  Perhaps his first year away from home or something...

Anyway, here are the results of the Great Pumpkin fest:

   The picture I wanted taken.

                                 The picture they wanted taken:      

And the final results:         

I don't have a shot with candles....it's on my to-do list.  Hopefully the pumpkins won't rot before I get around to it.

Here's a glimpse of the evening...it was supposed to be the annual tradition of teasing Brooke, but it also illustrates the annual whining and attention seeking. View at your own risk:

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Oh and my hubby the superstar, picked clean the pumpkin seed remains so we made Fabulous pumpkin seeds this year.  Every year I say I'm going to do this, but inevitably I hate cleaning the seeds so I throw them in the refrigerator to do "tomorrow" and a week later throw them out.  But if he cleaned them off, I would definitely make them.  They turned out FABULOUS this year if I do say so myself.  I should make them every year...as long as Tom cleans off the seeds for me.

Here's what I did:  soak the seeds for a day or two in salt water (about 1/2 cup or so of salt)

heat the oven to 200 degrees, spread the seeds out on a pan that you can have them mostly in a single layer.

Place in the oven and turn off the oven.  Let dry well (at least overnight)

The next day forget they are in the oven and then preheat your oven to 400 degrees (you can skip the forgetting about them part, unless you really want to be sure you follow my exact steps), start to smell something a little funny.  Remember the Pumpkin seeds!!!!!  Go check, see that they are just starting to brown slightly.  Run your spoon through them to make sure they roast somewhat evenly.

Pull out of the oven.  Salt slightly.  Sprinkle garlic salt on them.  Then about 1/2 tsp of chili powder and 1/2 tsp of cumin.  This gives it such a yummy slightly smoky but not hot flavor.  They taste like they were freshly made even days later.  YUMMY!

We seriously had to stop ourselves from devouring them all that very night.  Oh so very good!

Joyous Guy Fawkes Night

Go light a bonfire,

Eat some Groaty Dick

And celebrate the way the Brits do, on the night their parlimentary building was NOT burned down by Roman Catholic conspirator Guy Fawkes.

Well, I suppose it's not every day someone doesn't burn down the House of Parliment.

Yes, technically that is virtually every day.

But this was a special one of those every days.

Finally this song makes sense to me.

Number One Super Guy

OK, we might be slightly early...

But seriously in the world of Costume Creations by Sketchy the earlier the better.  Children's imaginations in Fabric form do not create themselves over night.  Not that they create themselves at all, but you know what I mean.

As my kids have gotten older their costume choices have gotten more difficult.  Gone are the days when we could pick up a Disney Princess costume or a simple ghost.  No they want more.  It may be my fault.  I always think I want to make a really cool costume for them.  At least until I'm 50% into the costume.  Then I would LOVE to just be able to run to the store.

My kids have had some unusual choices in the past for example, Brooke's Japanese Anime muses have been:

     and

and she even talked her little brother into being a "cabbit":     

although he did feel the need to wear an older Batman costume to the school's costume parade.  (Sometimes it is awesome living in a non-politically correct area.)  Apparently cute and fuzzy is not cool for school.

                           As you can see, I need all the advance warning I can get to create costume miracles.

So tonight they were discussing their options.

  They decided on:  

Which was all well and good until Brooke decided she couldn't be Dot, seeing as she is the oldest "maniac" in the water tower we call home.  Instead she chooses:                            Hello Nurse!

                                                                                                                          Uh, OK...

                          As long as we all understand ours will be a less, um, curvy Nurse.

But this leaves a dilemma at the dinner table.

Have you spotted it?

                                             Yep.  I think you've got it.

                                                                                                No Dot. 

Who should be Dot?  Way-eeell ...  she is the smallest one of the group.

And their eyes all turn as if drawn by a specially designed retina magnet, to Alex...

                                             "Yeah!  Alex should be Dot!!!"

To which I am pleased to say my youngest son is not quite the pushover to his older siblings whims (well, really Brooke's whims...he's pretty much never had that "older-brother" worship, he more rules the room actually) that he was last year.  Or perhaps the cute little fuzzy "bunny" costume from last year has left its own scars. ...the pain...the pain!  ...the horror...the horror!

(But wasn't he CUTE???  shhhh...don't tell him I showed you that, he's got a reputation to uphold.)

And he put his foot down.  "I.Am.Not.Dot!"  Way to go Buddy.

                                                                              Instead he chooses:

                               I love these kids!

Honestly, Hong Kong Phooey, that is just awesome.  I can't wait to get started on that costume.  I think I'll go fabric shopping tomorrow, because we have a hard fast rule that once the fabric is bought the costume inspiration cannot change.

Woo Hoo!  I cannot wait for the "fists of fury" pictures.

Can I get a do-over?

I have always loved the 4th of July. When I was a kid, growing up on Fruitland Street, all our neighbors would be out. It was a small dead-end street with lots of kids. Everyone had their own fireworks to light, but more often than not it ended up a group display.

First we got to light those black smudge things. I'm not sure what the benefit of those things was...they grew to be longer black smudge things. I suspect the biggest appeal was they had to be done in daylight so you could send your anxious and hyper children outside, and get them out from under your feet a bit while they would happily exclaim over that black smudge "Ooooh! Cool!"  Eventually, snaps came out, they wiped the floor with the black smudgy things for daytime kidlet firework entertainment.

Finally it would get dark enough, or our parents would just give in to our repeated pleas, and the dads would come out to light the real fireworks. Mr. Graves would bring out a big bucket of water and the fun would begin. I remember once one of the dads strung a wick from about 8 fireworks together to shoot them off all together. Now that was cool! Other than that my favorites were the Jumping Jacks. OK so they're illegal now, apparently their flying aspect lit one to many roofs on fire, but hey that never happened on our street.

After we'd exhausted all our supplies, all of the kids and most of the parents would head up to the top of our hill to watch the big fireworks being shot off down by the river and across the river in a nearby town. At least until our trees got too big to see over. And we always suspected that the cities got cheap and started shooting them off lower so that you could only see the fireworks if you paid money and drove down to the parks to see them.

Now I'm the Mom. And I take great pleasure in spending the holiday with my kids. I love getting them patriotic shirts and even cuter little dresses when Brooke was little enough to allow me to dress her in them. I plan activities and schedules in advance. I love it.

This year seemed like a recipe for Independence day awesomeness! Tom had a 4 day weekend. How fun is that? 4 days without even having to use up vacation days!

Unfortunately there hasn't been much global warming around here I guess. It's been rainy and unpredictable.                                                                                                   Oh pooh!

I want to go camping! I want to swim in a river and rent a canoe! I want to hike along a ridge or through a canyon! I want have a barbecue or cook in my Dutch oven! I want to see a parade or something...

But instead we are saving money, so that hopefully in the midst of paying off our big bill we will have the happy circumstance of a weekend with good weather and Tom's 3 day weekends (he works a 9 hour day schedule so that every other week he gets a Friday off) occurring like kismet, at the same time. And if that weekend of magic occurs, we would have money to take that trip.

It's not a bad plan. But I don't want to do it. I want it all. And I want it now.

                                                                                                                    note to self: learn patience.

Instead, we ended up whining (mostly me) most of the morning and trying to figure out what to do. Should we just chance it and go for a hike? Should we go to our ward's potluck? Should we head downtown for the big fireworks? Should we go buy some little ones to set off in our front yard? For the record the answers were: But what if its raining? But it's raining... But what if it rains? and oh let's just get some sparklers.

In the end we did at least get out to see some local fireworks. It was raining a bit when we left our house but it didn't last long. The kids were thrilled with the police department and paramedics handing outglow sticks . We brought some really short burning and hard to light sparklers to pass the time. (I mean why get something that will start easily when you are trying to help pass time? Although, if they'd lasted a bit longer it would have been easier to take pictures. It's a toss-up really.)

And we went to see Speed Racer at the dollar theater. The kids had fun.

you can tell I gave up by the green shirt...

  <-- my favorite shot.

But really, can I please get a do-over?

Moving right along

So then, if you aren't caught up with our journey to Savannah and our arrival at my sister's go here.  If you are all up to speed, well then, virtual brownies for you...mmm brownies...  And you get the treat of just jumping into this post.  See isn't it better if you just schedule your life around checking my blog, just in case I might post?

"I do not accept excuses, I'm just going to have to find myself a new giant."

Well, that was fun, wasn't it? (note: anytime you get to quote Princess Bride qualifies as fun.) But as this post is titled "Moving Right Along" I suppose we'd well, better get to it.

So we arrive at Rich & Lynzie's a day early according to them, right on schedule according to me. Regardless we are all soon resting blissfully on our pillows and awake ready in the morning for some beach fun.  Yay Beach!

As Lynzie is working, Rich is going with us up to New Smyrna (which my sister and brother-in-law pronounce "noo-sah-mer-nah", with the emphasis on "sah" so I was very confused about where we were going).  We got just about to that fateful Walmart down the road and Harry Potter (which we were listening to on the drive down) said something like..."Harry, Ron and Hermione merphshplitergumgerbah..." as we came up to a stop light.  Thinking that Harry Ron or Hermione would never say such a thing, I took the tape out immediately being afraid it was being eaten alive.  It looked normal.  I put it back in.  Nothing happened.  I thought, 'Maybe if I restart my car...' I turned the car off.  And Nothing but me getting really frustrated happened.

The light turned Green.

Rich and Tom (who was riding up with him) drove off.  I stayed where I was.  And stayed and stayed. Until finally they called me -- an interminable 2 minutes later.  They came back and got us.  Pushed the car over into that lovely Walmart parking lot and looked to see what the heck was going on.  First we think the battery.  Then we look at the alternator.  "Oh look, part of it is melted!"

Now if you've been reading this blog for more than 3 months and let's face it there has not been that much to read in those 3 months around here, so you should all be caught up.  You'll be thinking about now "Didn't your husband replace the alternator in your van a little while ago?"  And the answer is: yes, yes he did.  (I am just all about the web links this time aren't I?)

Apparently the automotive shop we bought the alternator from, let's call them "Hep Toys" sold us the wrong alternator.  There is apparently more that one version of alternators for 2000 Ford Winstars -- yeah, thanks for that Ford!  But we knew this when we bought it.  We to the old alternator in to Hep Toys so they could make sure we got the right model.  "Yeah, that'll work for you." I think was their exact response.

"That'll work" apparently means in this instance: well your car will go for a few months, but sooner or later it will start arcing and could potential start a fire, but at least you'll get those couple of months out of it.

Which you know, had I known I think I would have insisted on a different model of alternator.  I'm picky like that.

However, we apparently owe a huge debt of gratitude to whichever angel was watching over us because not only did it not start a fire (although there are a few scorch marks on the underside of the hood of our car from the arcing), it didn't even die somewhere in the hills of West Virginia somewhere.  We got all the way to Florida where we had a kind brother-in-law and sister to help us out.  Which is the way to go if you ever have to go through something like this I must say.

So.  No beach that day.

But the kids were OK with that, as much as I would have liked to be doing something else.  Mainly because Uncle Rich and Aunt Lynzie have a Wii.  Yes, they probably could have spent the entire vacation in Uncle Rich and Aunt Lynzie's living room.

Second try for the beach.  Now Rich has to work and Lynzie has a morning class, but the afternoon free.  So I decide to hit Walmart (again) for a couple of things I needed...and didn't get either of the 2 previous stops.  All goes well, except for when I get back in the car to leave.  It won't start.

I call Lynzie.  She comes to rescue me this time.  Jumps the car and we head back to her house.

Thinking that perhaps the battery did not get sufficiently recharged the previous day.  We charge it up for a good 2 hours this time.

It won't start.

Thinking at this point the batterery is just dead and we need a new one.  I hop in Lynzie's car this time, head back to Walmart and buy a new battery.  Get back.  Tom and Rich (who's returned by now) install the new battery.  And the kids play on the Wii.  Yay, all is well.

At this point Rich tells me that he thinks it was just the cables weren't tightly connected.  But I don't care.  The van runs and also fairly importantly, it will also start.  Sure we could have saved that $75.  And yes there are probably funner ways we could have found to spend it in Florida.  But the van will start.

So.  No Beach that day either.

Last day at Lynzie and Rich's.  We pack up for the beach and Yay!  We get to go!  Lynzie decides she wants to head to New Port Richey which she'd heard was "cute".  So we go.  And we cannot find a beach!  Thinking pretty much we should just have to head west and we would run into the ocean, was apparently not the best plan.  Finally, we find a private beach who gives us some directions.  And we see a tiny little sign that directs us to Clearwater Beach (or I think it does my memory is a little sketchy on this point) and we get to enjoy some white sand, finally!

Now this will sound odd, but it was as un-ocean-like and ocean I have ever seen.  See to me going to the ocean means cold water, and waves, and water you don't have to sit down in to get your ankles wet.  Somehow this just didn't fulfill my expectations.  But it was gorgeous.  And we had a lot of fun.  Even if it wasn't a "real" ocean.

Next stop...Epcot!

Your patience has been appreciated.

Good heavens, it appears that we have been back from our trip for almost a month!  I am willing to go almost a month apparently, but a whole month is just too long.  Really, it's like not sending your wedding thank you-cards out for over a year, not that I would know anyone like that...(excuse me a moment while I hang my head in shame).

So without further ado, I present to you The Great Disney Adventure, 2008:

Thursday, March 27.  "What do you mean you have to work tomorrow?????"

Friday, March 28.  packing...cleaning...packing...cleaning...pick up kids from school early...pick up husband from work (grrrrr)...driving...driving...driving...driving...driving...and so on.  Arrive in Savannah, GA approximately 1:00 am.  Tom at this point I should mention has been up for nearly 22 hours as he got up really early to go into work.  (Please forgive my griping.)

Saturday, March 28.  Drive down to the heart of Historic Savannah.  GORGEOUS!  We explored Forsyth Park, snapped pictures, paid too much money to a man from Trinidad who made me a Colonial Rose from some pine he had cut somewhere.  Probably out of the many trees in the park or near it. Snapped pictures.  Found a playground (for which the children remarkably revived, during the walk they were so exhausted they could hardly stand up, and when I say "children" I really mean Alex).  Snapped pictures.  Snapped pictures.  Snapped pictures.  Snapped pictures...  Get it?

And still there is more...

After walking and snapping we grabbed the cooler out of the car and made lunch. Although let me give you one tip if you ever stop to picnic in Beautiful Historic Savannah.  Savannah-itonians love their dogs.  Really love their dogs.  And most of them carry those little dog poop baggies when they take them for a walk, but not all.  Be warned.

Later that day, when we hit somewhere near Jacksonville, we thought we should call the fam. (PS: thanks Rich and Lynzie)  Just to let them know we were a little a head of schedule.  And instead of arriving somewhere late that night it would be closer to dinner time.  No answer, leave message...finally get a hold of Rich.  He explains they have some church commitments that will keep them away from the house until 9pm.  So we determine we will find something interesting to do and meet them around then.  We pass lots of interesting things.  We don't stop.  We pass more interesting things.  We don't stop.  Tom wants to find their house, and then find something to do near them.  Not a bad theory.  At least until you get to my sister's house.  Really there is not much to do around them.  How odd.  We end up at a Mexican Restaurant (a little more Cuban influenced than we're used to, but still yummy) and then, wait for it...Walmart.  Wooooot.  On the plus side, we found the kids cute little plastic canteens they can take around the parks.  On the negative side, Walmart.

And then we go see the fam!  Hugs all around.  We get the kids sleeping arrangements set up, and then as we are talking find out they weren't expecting us until Sunday.  Wha?  You mean I didn't communicate very well?  Yeah, sorry about that guys.  I think the problem was we kept talking about what we could do Sunday.  Me thinking, "that will be our first full day to do anything."  Her thinking, "they're not showing up until sometime Sunday."  But I must admit they were entirely gracious about our early arrival.  It's good to have sisters by the way.  I was told however, that if we'd arrived when they were planning on us we would have been treated to a view of my sister's dresser cleared off and the cat box having been cleaned.  All in all, I think we would still take the free beds as opposed to another hotel stay.

Well, it's getting late and I'm anxious to post.  (Yah, I know, *almost* a month keeping you waiting and now I'm anxious to post.  But get over it.  You all should know me well enough by now to know you can't really count on when the blogging muses will inspire me.)  (that almost read, "...when the blogging bugs will bite me." but I didn't want to give you any additional reasons to make clever comments at my expense.)  So more to come!

Love is in the air

So, the Valentine's cards are done.  Tonight we have to make their Receiving folders, or boxes, or whatever, those things the kids in their classes will put their Valentine's Day cards into.  This is my 3rd year in this school district.  I just realized that we are supposed to make these at home.  No wonder they've always just come home in used shopping bags.

Apparently I'm not so good at reading all the way through the form letters that get sent home.

Sorry kids, next time save up and invest in a mother who can read.  Or one who pays attention enough to notice there was a problem the first time around.

Today was the 2nd level Breakfast at school.  So I took the opportunity to ask Jon's teacher about the receiving envelope/box/thing.  She told me how she and her son had made a shark.  Excuse me?  "Oh yes we spent all weekend paper mache-ing that thing!"

"Oh, but it doesn't have to be any big thing..."  I think she was taking pity on me there at the end don't you?  Yes, I definitely noted a tone of pity there, and perhaps disdain.

What I want to know is what's wrong with the United States Education System that they no longer make the stupid things for an art project at school?  Is there no educating going on anymore?  Reading, Writing, 'Rithmatic and all things created in Construction Paper, was the motto in my day and I see no reason to change it now.

PS:  I think I'm getting Tom the illusion of having a wife who is not sick for Valentine's Day.  At least I'm going to try to give him that.

edit:  Here's the end results.  Found a great website of course http://www.thebestkidsbooksite.com/valentinesdaycrafts.cfm scroll down and you'll see the link for mailboxes.  Probably too late to be helpful for anyone else, but maybe next year.

Because nothing says Valentine's more than a Stegosaurus, Brontosaurus or a Yellow Submarine.

Day 15

Yes it's true we are now on day 15 of the almost 3 week visit from my Dad and Kate.  We have all survived.  We all mostly like each other.

I count this as success.

However, we still have 3 more days to go in which to ruin our relationship forever.

Just kidding Dad.

I'm sure we would get over it in a year or two should something catastrophic happen.  We're a forgiving family.

**Incidentally, I found out at lunch yesterday my Aunt Leslie reads my blog occasionally, everyone in unison say "Hi!  Aunt Leslie!!" (double incidentally, I typed that originally "unisom" perhaps a subliminal message that I got up way to early this morning.)  It would be nice if my family would occasionally post a comment or two so I would know they were reading.  I mean in other ways then a casually dropped comment about something they read on my blog 6 months ago...a comment is not really that painful.  A "Hi!" or "That's so funny" is not that mentally challenging or painful is it?  And is still appreciated.  (Although in Aunt Leslie's case it may well be painful if her hands are giving her trouble.  If that's what's happened to your comments Les, and you've been wishing and dreaming of posting a comment then OK, you are excused. But the rest of you...)  Although I try to require some mental exertions from myself in order to post (hence the extreme lack of posts lately), I don't rate my commenters in order of witty to dull on the Richter scale.

**Incidentally #3: Does the phrase Richter scale remind anyone else of "Big Trouble in Little China" or is it just me?  Or are you all about the death and destruction side of Richter scale?

  Just remember what old Jack Burton does when the earth quakes, the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big old storm right in the eye and says, "Give me your best shot. I can take it."

OK I can't find the quote about the Richter scale, but I know it's in there somewhere.  I just know it.  Like you know about a good melon.  (Quick name that movie!)

But you didn't come here to hear about that, did you. You came for this:

Day 1 - They arrive.  They arrive on my day of cleaning (which was preceded by the 2 days of wrapping and shipping and slapping stamps on Christmas cards).  They arrive on the day after Grant's "Winter" Recital, afterwhich I come home to find a message that they will now be arriving an hour earlier or so than I had planned.  Let the frantic cleaning frenzy begin...

Day 2 - We play Apples to Apples Jr.  We realize, and by "we" I mean just the adults, the kids cannot seem to fathom this fact, that Grandma Kate does not really enjoy playing board games.  (The children have since tried to cure this shocking condition -- of which they are not really aware -- by continued repetition of requests to play games.

Day 3 - We take Dad and Kate downtown to walk about Pittsburgh.  I don't take a camera. Sorry.  It is here where I am realizing that I am not nearly taking enough pictures.  We eat lunch at Famous Joe's (or something like that) which did not suit Dad and Kate's tastes in terms of largeness of subs, but I think they enjoyed heading to the PPG building, seeing the out door skating rink, checking out the display of Gingerbread Houses, and our narrow avoidance of the puking man in the food court.  Well perhaps they did not enjoy that experience, but our avoidance of the impending urpiness is surely something for which to be grateful.

Day 4 - We drive to Wheeling, West Virginia to see and .

"...the show has grown into one of the nation's largest, covering more than three hundred acres over a six-mile drive throughout the resort. "

Not a bad way to spend an evening, if and only if, you arrive just after the sun sets and can pretty much start driving through the lights, but if you think you are going to go after dinner, you will be stuck in a long long long long long long long long long (have I made my point yet?) long long long long long long long long long long long line of traffic on a windy road with no exits or desperation change-your-mind-I'm-getting-out-of-this-madness pullouts.  I was amazed as we drove out at the incredibly long line (I knew you missed that above so I'm mentioning it again now) of people waiting for their chance to drive through the electric splendor.  If I had waited as long as those people I would have driven out pretty upset that we'd driven all the way down there for that!  Also there is no nativity scene.  You will think at one point when you see a giant star (over a menorah incidentally) that appears to be guiding one around the bend and up over a hill that when you reach the base of the star there will be a Christ child, but you will not find Him.  You will find fancy moving Christmas tennis players though.  Again, if you go before dinner this will be a disappointing fact but not entirely upsetting, "We wasted our entire evening on THAT!" kind of thing.  After Dinner?  Big time annoying.

Day 4 - Sunday dinner at Shauna & Kevin's plus Nick and Karina and minus Shauna, who felt ill.  Uh oh, is there an urpiness theme going on?

and contemplating if Grandpa really would pour that water over his head if he didn't stop misbehaving at the dinner table and which would be a really cute picture of brother and sister if I hadn't gotten the light fixture in Nick's face, you know we still love you right Nick, and and it's not everyday you get snowmen with bullet holes, and and cross-dressing .

And...

                                                                                           You'll just have to wait for days 6-10...

I have to keep you in suspense somehow.