Memorial Day

Last Friday Alison asked me if Kris's grandpa was in the service.  I asked why and she said she wanted to put a flag on a grave for Memorial Day.  I told her that, no, Kris's grandpa wasn't but mine was, and if she wanted to, we could drive up the West Bend and stick a little American flag in the ground next to his headstone.  I think the boy scouts usually put flags on all the veterans graves, but I told her it didn't matter, we still had a little hand flag left over from the 4th of July last year and we could still do it.

So on the drive up I told her all about my grandpa, at least what I knew from what I as told and from what I read in the letters he wrote home to his parents.  I am sure there are stories my dad could tell her, but at least in the car I had a captive audience.

When we were done she wanted to take a quick drive past their old house.  Sarah was along too, but I think she more wanted to just get out of the house.  At least Alison seemed interested in the stories I was telling as we drove around West Bend.

I have to ask though, why do we put flags on veterans graves on Memorial Day?  Memorial Day is supposed to be for honoring those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.  My grandpa, and many others in that cemetery came home.  Veteran's Day is the day to honor them.  I'm just sayin'.

In The Home Stretch

We are in the home stretch fro school this year.  Sarah is already getting distracted by everything.  She has five real days of school left, two more this week, and Monday thru Wednesday next week.  Thursday they go spend the day at Great America, and then Friday is a half day of signing yearbooks.  Then she has her graduation ceremony Friday evening.  I don't think she has much actual work left.  She told me she has all her final tests this week, and next week is just going to be pretty much just showing up.

Ali has the same thing going for her, except she doesn't get to go to  Great America. Next week they are going to spend a lot of their time cleaning their room and getting things packed up and put away for the summer. Next year Alison will be the big kid running the school while Sarah will be the pleeb.  I have a feeling that they cannot wait for that final bell to ring this year.

Root Canal

I had my root canal done on Friday, and it really was a piece of cake.  It took about an hour and I was back at work with no problems.  The endodontist said that once the shots wore off my tooth would be a little tender for about two or three days but after that, I should have no problems.

Well it has been four days now, and it is still tender.  I don't know if I should call or not.  It only hurts when I bite down on something hard, and then it really isn't too bad.  I can at least tolerate it without going through the ceiling.  I mean, is it like a sore muscle and I need to chew on that tooth to work the pain out?  Or is it just supposed to go away?  I don't remember what it was like the last time I had it done so I don't know if it is normal or not.  I don't go see my dentist to have a permanent filling put in until we get back from vacation, so I guess I'll just have to be careful with what I eat

Tumbling Classes

Sarah is starting new tumbling classes this summer for cheerleading.  Her first class was supposed to be last week Wednesday, but it was at the same time as her Dentists appointment, so she skipped the first day.  We've never sent Sarah here before but from what I have heard,this place is pretty hard core.  Not to cut on the place she was taking her cheer tumbling classes but I hope that they actually push her a little more, because now that she is on the JV squad they are going to get a lot more complicated with their  routines and if she wants to stay with it, she is going to have to improve.

Sarah's Retainers

After three long years, Sarah is finally braces-free.  She got them off yesterday and now has two retainers, one on top, and one below.  They aren't like the retainers I remember, they are clear trays, like those invisiline braces.  Sarah has to wear them now for the next month, round the clock unless she is eating or brushing her teeth.  Then she goes back and the orthodontist will tell her when she needs to wear them.  Kris says she'll have to wear them (the retainers) for the rest of her life now, it's just a matter of how often.  I don't remember that being the way braces were supposed to go, but hopefully it'll be something like only having to wear them at night when she is sleeping. 

She had to go to the dentist to get her teeth cleaned later in the day.  Kris told me that the dentist gave Sarah a lecture about making sure she wears them, and emphasized the fact that we spent a lot of money to make sure her teeth were straight and she now has a beautiful smile and she better make sure she doesn't wreck them.  Good job Dr. Stark!  I hope that'll sink in because I told her the same thing and I got pooh-poohed.

Field Trip Day

Alison had a field trip to the art museum yesterday.  She had a fun time.  For whatever reason she really enjoys going to the art museum.  The featured artists at the moment is Tara Donovan.  She apparently makes her art out of everyday materials.  One of the things Alison saw by Donovan was a wall of straws.  She thought is was really cool.  Now she has asked if we can go over the summer so she can show us all the cool stuff.  I think that would be a good activity for a Saturday afternoon.

After their field trip, they came back to the Falls and went to the park for the remainder of the day.  They spent their time in the park drawing.  Alison was looking forward to it, but when they got there, the stuff they were drawing didn't really interest her, so she just sort of went through the motions for the rest of the day.

More Bad News

Well, when it rains it pours.  After getting the news about needing a root canal, I got home from work and then I find out that we are now in the market for a new couch, because the sofa sleeper broke.  As Kris was sitting watching TV there was a "pop" and the cushion dropped about an inch or two.  The bracket that held the wire that goes across the mattress of the sofa sleeper that keeps it off the ground when the bed part is folded up.  Now, the bar is resting on the floor and the cushions sink down you sit on them. 

This is not going to work, not at all.  So now we will be starting the process of shopping for a replacement.  It is not something I am going to be looking forward to.

Root Canal

I finally had my appointment with the endodontist today.  I went in right before my surgery because I was having a really bad toothache.  The dentist wanted me to go have a consultation with a specialist for a possible root canal.  Well after I got done with the surgery, it wasn't hurting as bad, so I put it off, but I finally got in to see him.

It took about two minutes for him to determine that a root canal is in order.  So now I have that to look forward to.  I'll be getting it done on Friday.  I suppose it's better to take care of it now, because I wouldn't want to spend my vacation with a toothache.  But I still don't like it.

Cost of Surgery

The bills are starting to roll in from my hernia surgery.  Granted, all we owe is the deductible, but wow!  I'd total up all the bills from the doctor, the surgery center and the anesthesiologist and post it, but I don't think it would be very appropriate, plus I don't want to sound like I'm whining.   But I wouldn't have guessed that it would cost as much as it did just to have a small hole patched.  And for what we pay in insurance one would think that we would have a little lower deductible.  It's reasons like this that I don't go to the doctor as much as I should.

Keeping Our Fingers Crossed

Sarah has her appointment tomorrow morning with the orthodontist to get her upper braces off.  Hopefully this time he'll have found that last gap has closed enough for them to come off.  Sarah was very excited last time when she went in and then disappointed when he told her they'd have to stay on for three more weeks.  If all goes as planned, she'll get them off at 8:40 and then she will go back a little after 3:00 to get her upper retainer.  So keep your fingers crossed for her.

New Toy

For Mother's Day I got Kris the iPhone 4S.  I have to admit it is pretty cool.  But it has been quite an ordeal learning how to use it.  Best Buy transferred all of her contacts, but it took a bit to download all the apps she wanted as well as getting the hang of the touchpad for typing messages.

Then, once she thought she had it all figured out with syncing it to her calendar in Outlook and her music, things started showing up on her calendar twice, or not at all.  I think it all had to do with using the icloud feature.  I think I have it figured out, at least for now.  I just ended up disabling the calendar in the cloud.  Hopefully that will do it.

Also, it is funny watching Alison or Sarah show Kris how to use things on it, like the camera.  So now when there is something she needs and can't figure out, I just have her call Alison, mainly because I think it's funny.

I would almost consider getting one myself if I could justify the extra cost of it.  I don't know how people have iphones from themselves and their kids, it's just so expensive and unless you are somehow using it for business where you can deduct the cost on your taxes, the cost just doesn't seem practical.

Good News

Sarah called about an hour ago and she made the JV cheer team.  She is waiting right now to find out which friends might have made it with her.  So let the drama begin.

Graduation Day

We found out this week that Alison won't be able to attend Sarah's 8th grade graduation, or as they call it the "completion ceremony".  Because they are having the ceremony in the school auditorium and there are only 740 seats, every family will get two tickets.  Her class has something like 291 kids, so if the kids are all seated in the auditorium too, then seating is going to be very limited.

Now I realize that this is only an 8th grade graduation, but we couldn't have set up chairs in the gym with the bleachers?  I don't know the capacity of the gym but when we had the honors breakfast there were over 1000 people in the gym.  A little bit of planning please!  Alison is a little bit bummed out but there isn't much we can do except make the best of it.  I'll just have to make sure I take a good video of it for her.

Tryout Night

Tonight is Sarah's cheer squad tryout.  She has been practicing all week at a cheer clinics and tumbling that were put on by the varsity cheer team.  So far so good.  Sarah said there were 12 sophomores trying out and then about 14 freshmen.  I think Kris said that they wanted to have a bigger JV team if possible, but only if the girls were good enough.  They were not going to take a girl just for the sake of taking a girl.

Sarah called at 7:00 and said her tryout was done and then she was just going to wait until everyone else was finished and see what the decisions were.  I am keeping my fingers crossed for her.  Either way when she gets home she is going to be wired I think.  If she made the team, she'll be bouncing off the walls, if she didn't, well then she'll be inconsolable.

Lost Documents

Yesterday my dad called to see if I knew when my grandmother was naturalized since I have the majority of the Hahn family tree records.  I told him I might have something in the stack of photo copies I got from my aunt, but I didn't have it recorded in Family Tree Maker.  But it reminded me that I wanted to grab all those documents and read through them and input all the information.  I remember seeing a photo copy of my grandparents' wedding announcement that listed all the attendants, etc. and I wanted to record all of that. 

At one time I had it all in a 6 folder, spiral book.  But the spiral had gotten hooked on something and was pulled out at the bottom.  I had gone through everything and took it out of the spiral folders and put them in, what I thought, was a new folder.  Well now I can't find it.  It isn't in the other bins of folders where I have all my other folders of school stuff stored.  It isn't in the file cabinet, and it isn't in Kris's hope chest.  I went though drawers, and cabinets, but I can't seem to locate it.  If I have lost all those papers, I am going to be really mad.

Social Studies Extra Credit

This weekend I spent Saturday and Sunday helping Alison with a little extra credit project for her social studies class.  For some reason she decided she wanted to do a report on Menasha.  I'm still not sure why.  So I spent Saturday trying to think up all the cool things about Menasha (are there really any?) and landmarks, and looking up the history of the city.  I thought that a lot of the things that I knew about Menasha growing up would not be one bit interesting to someone in Menomonee Falls.  I think things are more interesting to you when you have some sort of a connection to it, and Alison thinks it's cool because that is where I grew up.

I'm sure I could have found a few more things for her if I had more than a day to go look for information for her, Ali could have had a killer report.  As it is, I found about 10-12 interesting tidbits about Menasha and then found a three paragraph summary on the history of the city from some Wisconsin Historical Society web site, so she was able to write up a small description.  I hope she gets a good grade on it, just because she seems so excited about it.

Cheer Week

This week is going to be a very stressful one for Sarah.  Every night this week she has cheer clinics/practice to get ready for high school cheerleading tryouts.  The Falls does not have a freshman squad, so it is JVs or nothing, and there are going to be few spots opening up, and in addition to the girls on her team last year, there are the freshmen this year who were 8th grade cheerleaders that didn't make JVs last year too.  And this isn't like the jr. high cheer teams.  These girls are heavy on the gymnastics/tumbling skills, and I don't think Sarah is as advanced as some of the other girls in terms of her tumbling skills.

I am hoping that she can make it and work on the skills she doesn't have yet.  But if she doesn't make it, I hope that she at least uses it as motivation to get serious and get her tumbling skills down so she can make it as a sophomore.  I am keeping my fingers crossed.