Cookie Time

Last night was the pick up for girl scout cookies. The girls and I spent the night putting together their orders and we'll be spending the day making cookie deliveries. So if you bought girl scout cookies from Sarah or Alison, we'll be seeing you soon.

Scout Bowling

Saturday we had the Riverside girl scout bowling event at AMF Lanes. Alison was looking forward to it, Sarah, not so much. Alison really loves bowling. She plays it on the Wii and will actually average around 200. I have only beaten her once since Christmas. Well Saturday's bowling was of the bumper variety, but she still did a pretty good job. She scored a 109, which was tops for her group.

Sarah's Braces

Sarah didn't like the picture I took of her the day she got her braces on, so here is a better one:

T-Minus 730 days

Or somewhere thereabouts. Sarah got her braces put on on Wednesday morning.



As you can see (or maybe not depending on how good your eyes are) Sarah decided to go with pink and blue rubberbands. Notice also the chocolate pudding she has on her nose. Maybe I'll try and get a better close up. It went pretty good until the motrin wore off. It wasn't too bad though; by today (Friday) Sarah didn't need any pain killers. Updates to her treatment as it comes. Next appointment is toward the end of March.

Riverside Variety Show

Tuesday night was the annual Riverside PTA talent/variety show. This year there were (I think) 20 acts. Sarah did a dance routine with one of her friends, and did a very good job.





At the end of it all, a couple of the teachers dressed up like the Jonas Brothers (though they really looked to be drifting into early 60's Beatles territory) and lip-synced to a JB song.

Happy Valentines Day

What a busy weekend. I have been getting ready for an upcoming customer audit and I was planning on going in to work Saturday and Sunday. One thing... I forgot that Kris was working as well, so that meant I had to stay home with the girls.

Sarah was at a friend's working on a dance routine for the upcoming talent show on Tuesday night. And Alison had a birthday party to go to Saturday morning. She actually slept over at a friend's Friday night and then they went to the party together (it was at the WI Humane Society). Well we all know what happens at sleepovers, up late and waking up early. I had to pick up her and her friend at noon from their party and they both fell asleep in the car on the drive back home. Then While I was working on the Riverside Yearbook stuff, she decided to crawl up on Kris's lap and fell asleep.



I stopped at work on the way to pick up Alison, so I could at least have some things to work on at home, but I got all of about a half an hour to do stuff. By the time I was free to do anything, it was 11:00 p.m. and I was just too wiped out to do any work. Hopefully I can get some things done this week at work.

Sarah also gave the family a Valentine's gift that she worked on in scouts. She earned some kind of cooking badge for doing it. She made chocolate suckers. I'm not quite sure how they are made other than melting chocolate and then pouring it into molds to cool, but here is the gift we got. YUM!

Trip to the Orthodontist

Sarah is all scheduled to get her braces on next week, the 18th. She had an appointment on Tuesday night to get prepped. She got spacers put in (whatever those are) to get her mouth ready for the braces. More next week after they're on and she is whining and complaining about how bad they hurt.

Feeling Sick

Everyone around here is feeling sick. Both of the girls have what I would refer to as head colds… watery eyes, runny noses, and a cough. Sarah went with a friend to her dad’s house over the weekend to work on a dance routine they will be doing at the Riverside talent show next week. She didn’t get a whole lot of sleep, and now I think it is catching up on her. Ali has a low fever and a cough, and actually stayed home from school yesterday. Hopefully she'll be feeling better today because today is her Brownie meeting and they'll be earning a dance party try-it which she was really looking forward to.

Sarah is feeling a little better since she got some rest, but now both Kris and I have come down with a touch of what they have. I hope it doesn't last long because I'll be putting in 12 hour days for the next week preparing for an audit and there is so much to do that I can't afford to be sick.

Fun Fair

Saturday was the annual Riverside Elementary Fun Fair. Sarah was very excited because this year she got to volunteer to work some of the games. Alison also got a job. She along with her friend Olivia, worked the sucker booth. Luckily Kris and I had volunteered to help with some of the activities and were right next to where Alison was. From time to time we covered for her so that she could go and play games and have her hair done. She’ll have to learn that when you have a real job, you can’t just go take off when you feel like it.

The turnout this year was great. Last year we had a snowstorm which hampered the attendance, but this year the sun was out and the temp was around 50. In the end the girls had a good time and the PTA was able to raise a lot of money.

Wax Museum

Sarah finally finished reading her biography for her Wax Museum project. She is doing Lucille Ball, the first lady of comedy. It took a couple of weeks for her to get through the book, which was almost 300 pages, and lots of it was very dry… Lucy describing her various movies. I never realized how many movies she actually did. I only knew her from TV, but she had a very extensive career prior to I Love Lucy in B-Movies in the late 30’s and early 40’s. It was actually pretty interesting. But now comes to display and the costume. We bought her the Lucille Ball wig and dress, so hopefully it’ll all look good. We’ll keep everyone updated on how our progress is coming.

Furniture Shopping

Right now our basement is empty expect for a computer desk, and a couple of end tables holding the TV, DVD Player, etc. So Kris and I have been looking and trying to find the right kind of furniture to go in the space. Our problem is the “narrowness” of the room. The room is 22 feet long, but is only 9 feet wide for about a 7 or 8 foot run. It makes it very hard to find furniture to fit. Well after searching online, we thought we had found something to work, a Klick Klack (or flip flop depending on where you are buying it). Essentially it is an armless couch that can fold down to become a bed. We thought it would work good for the girls for watching TV, or playing Wii, and if they ever ask to have friends sleep over they can fold it down and have a place to sleep.

So we get to the furniture store and it isn’t the right color, and we can’t order it in anything but that color. So we decide to go look someplace else and see if another store would have what we are looking for. It is then that we realized that furniture shopping is just like looking for a car. You have to drive all over looking for different stores, and the stores are not nearby. You go to one, and then drive across town to get to the next one. So we pretty much wasted the afternoon driving around to look at 4 or 5 different furniture stores, and in the end… we still have no furniture in the basement. What a waste of the day.

Made It In A Day

I never thought it would take so long to drive to Minneapolis. It really doesn’t look that far on a map, but when it was all said and done, it was an 812 mile round trip. I spent just over 12 hours driving (which really isn’t too bad). I made really good time, just under 5 hours from home to the WI-MN border. It was a 2 hour visit at the place we were going and even got an hour or so to stop to have dinner in Minneapolis at an Outback Steakhouse. But I will say, it was really nice not having to sleep in a hotel. There is just something nice about being able to sleep in your own bed, even if it wwas only for about 5 hours.