Webkinz

Both Sarah and Alison have a few webkinz (for those of you not in the know, www.webkinz.com). Every couple of days Ali or Sarah will spend an hour or so playing in their virtual room getting things for their webkinz. A couple of weeks ago, Alison's 'mail' when she logged in said her membership was going to expire in two weeks, and if she wanted to continue enjoying webkinz world, she would have to renew her membership by purchasing a new webkinz. Are you kidding???!!! What a freakin' racquet! (I wish I had thought up that marketing campaign).

So they have to by essentially a big beanie baby that they don't really play with to be able to log into the webkinz world online and walk around in a room, play a few cheesy games, etc. for about $15 a year. Now, don't offer a membership or anything if you already have 15 of these things, just make them buy another one to be able to enjoy another year of fun. This is how we are going to end up with 20 of these things each. Apparently there is no recession in webkinz world.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, yes, we sprung for the $30 to get them each another one. Man, are we a couple of suckers.

Weekend

Kris had to work this weekend so that left me home with the girls. While I hate actually being home for a full weekend without Kris at home, it is also nice to be able to spend two full days with the girls. This weekend though, Sarah had a a scout workshop all day on Saturday so that meant Alison and I got to spend the whole day until 2:00 by ourselves.

Unfortunately, we also had to run over to Kris' parent's house to help them out with their sump pump. They have the hose going across the basement floor and emptying right into the floor drain (shhh, that's not up to code). Well the hose had cracked and water was leaking all over the basement floor so Ali came along to help me fix it for them.

Afterward though, we spent our time playing Trouble, Mario Kart, and she got a mani/pedi.

Today I did the same for Sarah with her nails. We also got to play a couple of rousing games Hannah Montana Mall Madness. So all in all, it wasn't too bad of a weekend.

Cousins

David & Tammy stopped by with Marissa on their way home from Michigan, unfortunately, everyone was in bed, except for Sarah who had just got back from dance class. Ali was still recovering from her cold so she went to bed early, and she was sort of mad when she learned that she missed Marissa. I wasn’t expecting David to stay long, and they ended up hanging out for about 45 minutes. Marissa was wide awake, but then again, after getting a freh diaper, who wouldn't be wide awake? I took the opportunity to take a couple of pictures of Sarah with her cousin.

Riverside Yearbook

One of the reasons I haven’t had time to do anything on here lately is because I was in the middle of my annual PTA project. For the past (3) years (this is the 4th) I have put together the “yearbook” for Riverside Elementary. It is more or less a collection of photos from the year taken at various events and activities along with group photos of all the “clubs” such as the chess club or scouts. Well I try to get a good variation of pictures so that I get as many pictures as possible of all the kids. After all it is supposed to be a yearbook of the school, not just 20 kids.

While it doesn’t take that much to put it together, it is very time consuming looking through pictures, and then trying to lay out the pages. While I am by no means a professional, I try to make it look somewhat coherent. But that has been taking up my spare time for the last two weeks or so. The deadline is 3/30, and I am trying to have everything done so that it can be Fed Ex’ed up to the printer tomorrow (3/27). One of these years I’ll get everything put together a month ahead of time. I hate scrambling to make the deadline!

Crisis Mode

We, and when I say we, I mean Kris and I (or is it Kris and me?), had to be in crisis mode last week. On Monday last week, Kris’ mom ended up going to the hospital because of a circulation problem in her toes. Apparently several of her toes were black and she couldn’t walk.

Kris’s brother took her to the hospital, but that meant that someone needed to take care of her dad. Well, that fell on us for a while. Kris’ aunt and uncle went over and spent the night with him, but he was with us for most of the day when Kris got home from work.

Her mom got to come home the next day, but then on Saturday we got a call at 10:30 at night. Kris mom fell and couldn’t get up, she thought she had broken her arm. I got dressed and went over and yep, it was broken, so I had to call 911 and get her to the hospital again. Luckily Kris aunt was able to come over again. I went home and Kris went to the hospital. Her mom’s arm was broken right above where her arm had snapped (2) years prior. What a mess that was.

We learned the next day that she had to spend at least another day in the hospital, so were again were scrambling to find someone to take care of her dad. He stayed with us during the day and Kris’ aunt stayed with him at night. Luckily the doctor let Kris’s mom come home on Thursday, but we still have to be available in the even that they need anything. In fact, Kris was supposed to go camping with the Sarah’s girl scout troop last weekend, but she had to cancel because we were going to have to help out Kris’ mom and dad. Kris was sad too because Alison was going along and it was her first camping trip. Ali had fun, but both Sarah and Alison were looking forward to Kris going along.

So far we haven’t had any further incidents, but it is still early. The doctors are going to try and let the bone heal on its own. If they have to do surgery, it is going to be a mess. With any luck we won't have too much to worry about, but I suspect that won't be the case.

Cheer Showcase

On Friday March 6th we had a Menomonee Falls Cheer Showcase to attend. We are neophytes when it come to cheer since this is Sarah’s first year, so we had to ask what exactly it is. It is a showcase for the cheerleading squads at all levels, middle school, high school etc. where they perform their routines that they do for their competitions.

In fact, one of the squads recently performed in a national competition at Disney, so I am sure we’ll see that tonight. But Sarah, being a Jr. Indian Cheerleader will do the routine that they learned last year. I was going to post some pictures, but I ended up taking video of everything instead. Sorry.

Jo Bros

I forgot, on the 7th we took Sarah and Alison to the movies to see the new Jonas Brothers movie in 3D. It was actually an event for Sarah’s whole girl scout troop, but obviously Ali wanted to come along as well. Since it was an event for Sarah’s troop, I had to “take” Ali separately. More on the 3D movie experience later...

Early the next week, we found out that the Jonas Brothers are going to be coming to Milwaukee this summer so Kris and I decided we would take the girls for their birthdays. We ended up registering Sarah and Alison for the Jonas Brothers fan club so we got access to the “special” fan club pre-sale as well as all the fan club swag and discounts on merchandise.

I found out about (2) days before that there were LOTS of shows all having the fan club pre-sale starting at the same time. I got home from work (I took off for about an hour and a half) and logged in (10) minutes before the sale started. I have NEVER seen such heavy traffic on a website. It took about 25 minutes just to log in to get tickets. I was actually worried we weren’t going to get any, and I refuse to pay $300 a ticket to sit in the nose bleed seats to see a kid’s band. Luckily, everyone else in the Milwaukee area was having the same problem. We ended up getting seats about 11 rows off the floor, which should be pretty good sight lines since the stage is going to be in the center of the arena.

Student Art Month

March is student art month here in the Falls. Sarah and Ali both have projects on display in the public library. Ali doesn't do as much as far as art goes so she only has one thing there that the entire class worked on. Sarah has a couple of thing on display.


This is Ali's caterpillar. She worked on the second to last section.


Sarah worked on the blue head of this monster.


This is Sarah's chihuly glass project.


And finally, Sarah's entire class made a picture representing the letter 'S'. Can you find Sarah's contribution?

No Time

Things have been very busy here and I haven’t had more than 5 minutes to sit down and update things. When I have, it was about 11:00 PM and I was just too tired to sit down and type, so I’ll try and bring things up to date from the last two weeks. Thanks for being so patient.

Rain Rain Go Away

Today it is supposed to be in the upper 50's. A week and a half ago it got up to 58, and then dropped all last week, and rained most every day. Here are some shots of my back yard during one of the storms.









Yet another thing that blows about WI... rains in the early spring when the ground is still frozen so the water doesn't soak in. Even so, it looks like I'll be adding some extra dirt to the backyard this summer to build up some of the low spots.

Note the yard of the guy behind me. The water is about 5 feet from his garage.

Just a Quick Update

WOW! I can't believe that it has been a week and a half since I posted an update. Here is a brief synopsis of happened since the last post I made. Saturday we took the girls along with Sarah's scout troop to see the Jonas Brothers 3D movie. Everyone had a really good time. And right afterward on Tuesday (or maybe Wednesday) we found out that the Jonas Brothers would be making a Milwaukee stop this summer at the Bradley Center. Kris and I are going to try and get tickets and take Sarah and Alison for their birthdays which are a month after the concert. Def Leppard is also coming in late July to the Summerfest grounds and Kris was trying to get good seats for that show as well. Right now we have tickets in the 9th row, but we may try and trade them in for something better.

Both toilets in the house failed. Upstairs, the washers/seals in the tank deteriorated to the point where they needed to be replaced. Water all over the floor, but a pretty easy fix. Then as I was in the basement by my workbench, I noticed the top was slightly wet. It is right below the downstairs bathroom. Well I drained that tank and unbolted it from the floor, and yep.... the wax ring was leaking. I have no clue how it happened, but it required that I go out and get a new one. That is one thing I absolutely HATE. More later.

Best in the State

Well, maybe not the absolute best, but we found out Wednesday that the photo Sarah submitted for the PTA Reflections project received recognition at the state level of judging. I’m not quite sure what that means as far as being named a “winner”, but if I recall correctly that means her photo now goes on to the national level of judging. Below is the photo that she submitted:



Ali is bummed out though that Sarah got hers recognized and she didn’t. It is tough explaining to her why one would be a “winner” and the other wouldn’t, but she’s young. Next year Sarah may not even be able to submit an entry, it all depends on what the PTA does at the middle school level, so next year I can help out Alison with some ideas.

Wax Museum

Tuesday Sarah had her wax museum project at school. I stopped in during the afternoon to see it and by then, a lot of the kids looked pretty wiped out. They had “on buttons” where they would give a description of their character and I think by the time I showed up she must have given her speech about a hundred times. But she did say she had fun doing it, and I think her project was one of the best (though I am obviously biased). She got pretty good grades on it, the only complaint by her teachers was that it may have been a little “too much”; essentially telling a little about a lot instead of a lot about a little.