Brownie Meeting

Sorry I haven’t been more on top of this.  Life seems to just keep moving on despite my best efforts to slow it down a bit.

So I got to help Samantha with her Brownie meeting.  She was chosen to do the Dance “try its”.  I think extra folks showed up to see me try and teach dance.  Chris found a game for Sam to use that is designed for girls to invent their own dance.  This works great with 4 or 5 girls at a sleep over.  14 Brownies at an elementary school gym were not going to make it.  I had adjusted the rules a little and Sam and I tried it out at home.  We thought we were all set.  Nope.  The game still took too long so I adjusted on the fly and just handed out some stuff and then they got to dance and act silly.  I think they had fun.  Samantha said it was fun and she enjoyed her meeting.  That is all I could possibly ask for.  What a difference Cub Scouts and Brownies are!  These girls sat quietly and wrote letters to pen pals.  If I tried to get my scouts to do that you would have a bunch of letters with tanks blowing up army guys, blood, planes bombing the enemy and very few words.  Neat meeting to see...once.

I found out that my snow blower works.  First time I fired it up this year.  I forgot to test it in the fall when I put away the lawn mower.  I really hope they have school tomorrow.  I have a lot of work to do.  Getting the kids out the door these past couple of days taught me to appreciate just how worth it the money we spend on the morning sitter is!  If we have a snow day I will end up further behind.  

Stuff

So New Years Eve ended up being pretty comical.  10 seconds after midnight my daughter asks me if she can go to bed now.  I wasn’t the one keeping her awake in the first place but hey, who am I to argue?

The new sitter is working out well.  The kids love having Sarah W. babysit and get bummed when she has to return to school.  So Sarah R. had some pretty big shoes to fill.  I think she is filling them out just fine.  Of course it’s only been a couple of days.  We will see how quickly my two can make her run for the hills.

Monday I went to empty the dishwasher and they were clean-ish.  I looked again and noticed the bottom of the dishwasher filled with water.  It decided not to drain anymore.  My sad little dishwasher died.  I change poopy diapers, wipe bugger encrusted noses, wipe up baby vomit, clean dog messes of every kind and just keep chugging along.  I draw the line at dishes.  I hate washing dishes.  I hate, hate, hate washing dishes.  So I went on craigslist and typed dishwasher and, bam!  I found a dishwasher.  Nice lady who used it more to hold wet dishes since it was just the two of them.  Sam had an appointment on Thursday so I swung out and picked it up.  Works like a charm.  

It is the little victories I hold on to.

New Years Eve

Jason left for his Uncle Roger’s before I got home on Thursday.  This means a Samantha weekend.  We went to Connor’s for dinner.  She acts so grown up.  My almost 8 year old, who thinks she’s a teenager, (Some days the attitude follows it) orders on her own and even left a tip.  She wants to stay up and watch the ball drop.  We will see if she makes it this year.  Last year Jason and Sam fell asleep on the couch.

I ran errands with Sam trying to return some pants and a sweater.  I had to go to Home Depot to get wall repair stuff after Jason slid into the kitchen wall and popped a hole in the drywall.  By the second store I got a “I’m thirsty.” By the third store I was deep into “Can we go home now?”  We tried to return some jeans at Kohl’s but the line was 50 or 60 people deep and I was not going to stand in that line for any reason.  I will return them later – maybe.

Well I must be going, laundry beckons. 

Spoiled Puppy

She came home from her weekly run at the Doggy Day Care and flopped down to rest.  She pulled the pillow off the couch and got her new toy and fell asleep.  I woke her up trying to get a picture.  (Not to worry, her eyes closed again and she was out for awhile.)

Christmas

Well, Christmas has come and gone and we all survived.  The kids had a great time having Christmas Eve dinner with Uncle Roger, Mom & Dad Weisenberger and Chris’ Mom & Dad.  Christine’s Mom & Dad came up for the weekend and the kids had a fun time visiting with them.  They were excited and sometimes seem to steamroll the grandparents.  Jason helped Grandpa chip ice off of the driveway.  Sam and Grandma sewed a blanket and some curtains.  Sam told me over and over how cool it was going to be to have Grandma teach her to sew.

One of our gifts was the X-box kinect.  I wish I had pictures of Chris’s parents jumping up and down in front of the TV trying to guide a virtual raft down a river.  On Sunday after her folks left the kids were begging to have the tree taken down so the area to play kinect was larger.  So the inside of our house was de-Christmased.  I was able to let my inner scrooge come out and play as we put all of the inside stuff away.

Abby took to my in-laws faster than I thought.  She played with them and followed my mother-in-law around wherever she went.  I think bribing her with T-bone bones worked. 

The kids were able to video chat on Christmas Eve and talk on the phone to Chris on Christmas day.  That did wonders for the kids.  They even walked away from the video chat as we chatted with Chris about her new surroundings.  I think the holiday went well overall.

Now for the laundry….

It's only day 5!

So far so good.  The morning baby sitter is doing great and this is working out well.  I ran into a bit of an after work glitch when I needed to stay at work later than normal.  I would have stayed longer but I know the kids "go pumpkin" if I leave them alone too long.  Being independent kids they won’t panic or be scared home alone but they will kill each other.

So we tried using Skype to video chat a couple of times this week.  Very neat, but the hotel internet just wasn’t up to the task and the video was glitchy.  It will be interesting to see how well it works from halfway around the planet.  She told me about her training and it sounds like very cool training.  Military training was dull and uninspired when I was going through it.  It sounds like the Army figured out how to keep your attention and teach you at the same time. 

Bills and paydays still leave me in a bit of a panic.  It has been a long time since I paid bills.  I am sure it will be fine and it will all work out.

Day 1

Ok, so it isn't officially Day 1 as she is in DC for training this week.

On the way to drop her at the airport I started hearing a thumping noise from the front corner of the van.  When we pulled up at the curb i looked at the wheel only to discover I was missing a lug nut and stud.  I figured I could fix it when I got back home.  The snow pants shopping trip we planned for the afternoon was on hold. 

I figured as long as I had the Van wheel apart I might as well replace all 5 of them.  I called AutoZone and O’Rileys auto parts.  The only store with 5 lugs was 15 miles away and the snow was still coming down pretty hard.  So I got in the car and headed out.  Got there ok and picked up my parts.

On the way home I spun out (going 25 I might add) and smacked a guard rail butt first.  I am ok, but I am now backwards.  A nice person slowed down so I could turn and pull out.  That is when I figured out I had a flat.  I pulled over in a park driveway.  I got out to assess damage and check out the tire.  I had some scrapes on the bumper and a quarter size hole in the sidewall of the tire.  Surprisingly, and happily, little damage, but bad timing.  I put the spare on but it was soft, so I crept come for the last 7 miles or so.  When I pulled in the garage the rear tire was flat and it would not hold air. 

So I got to work on the Van.  The brakes on the van are more complex than the last van and took a bit of time to take apart.  It was a learning curve the whole way.  As I started to disassemble them the kids were yelling at me that the basement toilet wouldn’t stop running. So greasy hands and all I went and fixed that.  As I took more of the wheel assembly apart it became apparent that getting the stud seated was going to be a trick.  I am comfortable with repairs but I have never done this before so I did not have the tools necessary.  In the end I was able to MacGyver together the tools to get the job done.  It took two hours and a lot of grunting and swearing just to replace one stud.  I opted to just swap out the broken one as 5 would have killed me.

Tomorrow should prove interesting.