PumpkinBread Men

Mary Lou cut these out of pumpkin bread and let the kids decorate them. Lots of fun!

Mad, Glad & Confused

Mother Nature strikes again. Right after Dave and Heather take a costly little trip to Palm Beach, we are forced to have an unplanned vaction in Tulsa, OK. This was a closest place that I could find a hotel reservation. We left Houston at around 10:30 pm, and it took us 20 hours to get here. In the first three hours, we made it about seven miles from our house. It was surreal, seeing the freeway absolutely packed, people running out of gas, etc. I'm just glad we left at night, so that when we shut off the air conditioners to conserve fuel we didnt' sweat to death.

This picture is of the kids at a entertainment place in Tulsa. We bowled, drove race cars and stuffed ourselves with pizza. According to our neighbors, we didn't even get a drop of rain, but after seeing New Orleans, we didn't want to stick around and see how things turned out.

Beach Bum

Dave and I just took a weekend trip to Palm Beach, Florida. I had originally planned our trip to New Orleans - the hotel was reserved and we were going to drive there. Mother Nature stepped in and put a stop to that plan, so we switched to Florida instead.

Where's my waterproof house?

I came across this picture a few weeks ago, and thought it was really funny. I've put it up here for Beenie's amusement. BTW, don't do a google search on Housewife unless you've changed your preferences to filter out porn. Apparently my computer at work does this automatically for me, but my laptop was not up to the task. Urgh.

Text Only

Well, there's no more pictures for a while, because I managed to crack the screen on my digital camera, somewhere between my trips to Utah, VA and back to Texas. We figured it would cost more to fix than the camera was worth, and we were right. There was a glimmer of hope last night, when I dug out the receipt and discovered that the salesweasels at BestBuy had added a $59.99 service plan to our purchase. I distinctly remember the jabbering salesguy telling us that this fabulous plan would come in handy, in case something crazy happened to the camera - like a cracked screen. I also remember saying no to the service plan, but apparently we'd purcased one.

Well, apparently the BestBuy Performance Service Plan only exists so that managers can get a bonus for foisting them on unsuspecting customers. The ever helpful idiots over at the Geek Squad informed me that my screen had been broken by impact, hence it was not covered. Duh! How else does an LCD screen get cracked? That was the original salesguy's main talking point when he tried to talk us into buying the plan - "What if your screen gets cracked, won't you be glad you purchased this plan?"

After some more talking and wrangling, during which I refused to give them another $24.99 for shipping and handling so that some Best Buy lackey in another state can refuse to fix my camera, I moved on to the Service Plan. I've paid $60 for a 4 year service plan. Six months into the plan, I now own what is essentially garbage. If Best Buy won't fix my camera, I should get a prorated refund on the now worthless service plan. The manager and other Best Buy slave looked at me like I've sprouted another head. We left shortly afterward - and I do feel sorry about the goofball manning the door who thanked me for coming to Best Buy - I had a few words for him and poor suckers at the checkout line.

Later in the car, as I re-read the service plan, I found the paragraph that clearly states I can cancel the plan at any time, and receive a prorated refund. While this does not give me back my camera or the money I wasted on it, at least I won't have tossed out another $60 for nothing. My advice - say no to store service plans - the manufacturer's warranty will cover any actual defects, and the extended warranty offered by the seller is just a cash cow for them. Today I will have the pleasure of going back to their store and squeezing my $53.09 back out of their manager. I hope someone's bonus get's cut too.

Tomorrow, tomorrow . . .

Today is the last day of summer, tomorrow the first day of school. I should be full of motivation today, organizing school supplies, buying shoes, doing something. So far all I've done is clean the oven. This sounds better than it actually is, because it's a self cleaning oven and I just absent mindedly pushed the CLEAN button this morning, because it looked kind of grimy inside. There's also the nagging thought that cleaning the oven does nothing to prepare my children for their first day of (insert proper grade for each child here) tomorrow.

I've just finished my nasty Healthy Choice lunch, bleargh! Now Maddie has come to me with a short list of items, all obtainable at Walgreens. I've given Ben the all clear to go play with his friends - shoes can be obtained this afternoon. Maddie, Ellie and I are going to head over to Walgreens and get something accomplished today. Luckily for Sammy, his school started on Monday, so he's not stuck here in the doldrums with us.

Provo, UT

This past weekend I got to make a suprise trip to Utah to see Kelsey and Edrick be sealed in the Provo Temple. Jenny came also, and Kelsey didn't know we were there until Saturday morning. We had a clever ruse planned, where Beenie (who was stuck in Virginia dealing with the recalcitrant movers at our parent's new house) would call Kelsey on her cell while she was headed to the Temple and end the conversation by saying "I really wish I was in the car behind you.". Cue Kelsey looking back to see Jenny and me riding with our Dad. Except, Kelsey's husband drives even faster than our Dad, so we weren't able to catch up with them. So Beenie makes the phone call and Kelsey wonders what she's talking about. Well, we caught up eventually and she was really excited.

Dead Tired

This is a typcial Sammy pose after a long summer day of doing nothing. I know this boy will be happier when school starts again. He goes back to preschool on August 8. Everyone else goes back to school on August 10. Yeah for school!

Waterbaby

Here's an example of Ellie's excellent underwater skills, gleaned from swim lessons this summer. This is quite a leap from May, when her soccer coach had a pool party at his house. Ellie & Sam were super excited until they saw they actual pool, plus the two big dogs (which stayed in the house anyway). They melted into hysterics and wanted not just to get out of the pool, but to leave the party. I told them tough luck, and by the end of the party they were both sitting in the attached, non-heated hot tub having fun, but that was as wet as they would get. Ellie now jumps into the pool, goes underwater willingly, and will try to swim to people. She doesn't quite have the movements down yet, so her swimming doesn't get her anywhere.

How much is that doggy in the bathtub?

This is our darling Serena, having a bath. She pretends not to like it, but afterward she's always wrapped in a towel and cuddled for a good long while, so we know that's she's a faker.

Ellie got her facepainted at the neighbor's cool party. On the actual 4th, we went to see our friends Laura & Mark. They were nutty enough to have four children too, so all the kids have a good time together.

4th of July

This is Maddie and her buddy Victoria in our cul-de-sac on the 4th of July. Actually, this was yesterday, on the 3rd, but it's the day we had our fireworks. Our neighbor had a potluck party, including a karaoke machine. I was too much of a wuss to sing, but another Mom sang "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", much to her children's embarassment. She is my hero. When it got dark, we went outside and shot off hundreds of dollars worth of explosives. It was fun to watch, but really loud.

Girl's Camp

Maddie got back from girl's camp today. Everything in her bag was filthy and she had a great time. Right before she left I found our old digital camera, which had been lost on a previous camping trip. Now the kids have a camera they can take on trips, etc, without us having to worry about them losing or breaking the good camera. Here's a picture she took of their cabin.

Noah's Ark Pool

Today I played hooky from work, and met my boss at the Noah's Ark pool. This is Ellie heading down the slide there. Ellie has really come along in the water this summer. She and Sammy have been taking semi-private lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays. However, since last Tuesday, we've switched to just private lessons for Ellie, becuase she's gotten so far ahead of Sam. He is still very reluctant to get his face wet, while Ellie is actually swimming underwater, and just needs to improve her skills in staying afloat.

Clutter Patrol II

First, I have to confess that after posting the pictures of my playroom, I never touched the shelves in there. They are still an unholy mess - maybe this weekend.

However, yesterday I attacked my desk head on. This is a before picture:



Here is the after pic:



The little table/bookcase thing makes a huge difference. My desk lives in the corner of our dining room, so it's much nicer if I can clean it up and close the fold down part when people come over.