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Monday was an up and back trip to Grand Lake to drop off the girls and their friends at the ILs cabin for a couple nights (and make a quick stop to Cold Spring Bakery where I picked up a dozen peanut balls...technically, peanut holes but given the size of the sweet nectar of the gods treats, we choose to call the balls), came home and did the attempt at school supply shopping (see previous day).
Today, I did the reverse. First I stopped at the Super Target where I DID locate the package of folders as I expected, however, even though EVERY.ELEMENTARY.SCHOOL in the south metro area requires ALL.ELEMENTARY STUDENTS to have wide ruled notebooks, there was not ONE wide ruled (basic) notebook to be found at Super Target. Oh, there were some college ruled ones, but not one wide ruled one. I was told they had been out of them for several days. So, I picked up a few of the college ruled ones and the folders AND that obscenely expensive calculator and dropped another $100. I guess I will be making yet ANOTHER run to Target. *sigh*
I then headed up to TJ as my kids are scarfing down their pita breads (pizza pitas) at an alarming rate, so I picked up another 4 packages. It MIGHT last through the weekend. Then, off to Cold Spring, where they had another TWO dozen peanut goodnesses awating me (love the call ahead feature). And finally to Grand Lake where, my girls were packed and ready to go! May wonders never cease.
Trip back was uneventful. Actually, it WAS eventful in that it took less time than it usually does, minus the stop at DQ.
I've put all the school supplies thus far on their own receipts and have them in a safe place. Mr. Accountant is going to be SO happy with me come April!
I'd say 3 short weeks but you know what will happen right? The weeks will ddrraaaggggggg and it will feel like we redid the whole summer but in 21 days. Uh...no.
Today I went supply shopping for the kids.
/insert whine
Who are these people who make the lists? Someone please tell me. Do they ever bother to talk to those people who MAKE THE SUPPLIES????? Do the stores even LOOK at the supply lists to see if they have the supplies in stock? I.DON'T.THINK.SO.
OK, I'll be fair here and all you Squal-mart* haters...well, you can put your hands over your ears and do the LA LA LA thing. I did find almost everything I needed at Squal-mart and reasonably priced.
@sidebar...with 4 kids in school, I do NOT take the easy way out and buy the little packages the school will make for the kids (and makes money on) because by November, their crayons are all broken, the black, blue and red in their marker boxes are dry and of course, "someone" left the top of the glue stick and it's completely dry and someone "borrowed" their colored pencils and never gave them back. So, then I'm going to head to Target and buy new....at 4x the current price. Uh....no.
So, back to Squal-mart,
I got all the crayons, markers, pens, pencils, protractors, rulers, scissors (yes, I bought new scissors...AGAIN, but for the last time...she loses these I'm sending her to school with a butter knife. She'll keep track of it then), pencil pouch (because, c'mon, the pencil boxes are SO 3rd grade), glue sticks, a few book covers (let the fights over who gets what color begin), graph paper, loose leaf paper (both wide AND college ruled) and composition books.
What I did NOT get, hence my whine are notebooks and folders. Most of the teachers want the kids having matching notebooks and folders for each subject but in different colors: red for math, blue for language arts (that's ENGLISH to us old folks), yellow for science, etc... Every year I have ended up at Target because they always have packages of 5 different colored notebooks (either wide OR college ruled) and the corresponding folder of the same 5 colors. The package has ALWAYS cost $1 each and I usually end up buying about 10. This year, Squal-mart had single notebooks for $.50 each. And Target, or at least our Target...
@sidebar...our Target added a small grocery section to it these past 2 months and the store now SUCKS. They rarely have anything I am looking for. The school supplies section this year is about half the size it usually is. If that...
had NOTHING. Oh, wait...they did have "something". However I wasn't willing to spend $3/notebook and $2/folder(when I need at least 5/child) of the matching unicorn pooping a rainbow notebook and folder "set".
I figured, OK...I'll go to Office Max because every now and then (like when the "odd" teacher decides that THIS year they want ORANGE notebooks and there is not an ORANGE notebook to be found in our town, unless you're willing to pay $5 for it at Office Max) I have to buy that odd supply there. Oh, I found the notebooks...in a variety of colors. All for $1 each. And no matching folders.
So, I came home notebook/folderless. I'm hoping our town Target is just "under stocked" (that's politically correct right) and I'll be able to find it at a different Target or Super Target.
OH, I do also need to purchase a new calculator for my oldest daughter. School has recommended the TI-84. Yes that would be the one that runs about $100 (although I saw it for $80 at Squal-mart).
I wonder if the schools get a kick-back from Texas Instruments?
/ end whine
*Don't everyone get your panties in a knot over Squal-mart. I actually shop there frequently but hate doing so with my own children (Mom...can I have this...staple remover? luckily there was only one with me today but sadly, she was voted by a jury of her siblings, most likely to ask mom to buy her the store), but it was made worse today because EVERYONE seems to turn this into a family affair and there had to be 50 kids all running and grabbing stuff. It was like Chuck E. Cheese with crayons. *shudder*
It should really be Derby DayS madness, as it started on Thursday (for us) and continued through today. It is an action packed weekend but one we relish.
Thursday is the Taste of Shakopee. A chance to taste the foods from the local restaurants around our charming little metropolis. We met some friends and took our kids down to the Taste and allowed them spend some of our hard earned money. I was lucky enough to snag some things for us...some toothbrushes (can you really ever have enough?), some samples of Bare Minerals (our luck...Bare Escentuals has a roving truck doing makeovers and giving samples. I've been using BE for about 6 years now and LOVE it).
Friday we had Butter Burgers (home made...along with onion rings...both of which were YUMMY) with friends.
Saturday, the husband and friend went running in the early morning. I got a phone call around 10 am from him telling me to grab the friend's wife and come out to where they stopped. Luckily, I took his advice. Because it was fruitful. We brought our youngest children and they spent several hours riding 4 wheelers while we drank Bloody Mary's. We also got permission to "farm" a lovely little plot on the friends 5 acre lot next year. We were both really excited to have the opportunity to expand our knowledge of growing our own foods. We came home and I made my chicken pasta salad and had it with bread and wine on the deck.
We then headed back down town to watch the fireworks. Every year we think that there is no way they can outdo the fireworks they did the year before and every year we are proven wrong. l This year was no exception. We had about 30 minutes of straight fireworks that looked like this:
And this:
The kids were tired so we came home earlier than we have in years past. Good thing as Beanie woke us up at 3am by crawling into bed with us...only to discover she was sporting a 104 fever. We got her some tylenol and figured that her chances in dancing in the parade today went out the window. Her fever broke but I wasn't going to risk sending her out to walk a 2 mile route, while dancing, in 90+ degree heat after having a temp that high. I'm weird that way and LUCKILY, I got no argument.
We got up and went to set out our chairs on the parade route at ungodly o'clock this morning before we headed to church. Afterwards I made the older two girls (who were still dancing in the parade) drink big bottles of powerade so that they would have the electrolytes needed to make it through the 2 mile parade in 97 degree temperatures (very unusual for here).
Unfortunately we didn't get to see them dance (but that's ok...we've seen them dance before), but here they are walking in the parade. My oldest daughter...on the far left:
My middle daughter on the right:
At this point they were about 3 blocks from the end of the parade. So they were pretty hot and tired. My husband, however, was not. He seems to make friends where ever he goes. The Dominoes pizza guy:
I think he made some new friends among the Vulcans. What do you think?
Now this is the funny part. Beanie, had her bag and was collecting candy. For the first time in parade history, these kids got PICKY! Seriously. The first 20 minutes or so, they were all over ALL candy that was thrown like white on rice, acting like little scavangers. Mid-way through the parade, they decided to become "choosy" as to what candy they would pick up. Apparently, most of them had determined that they did indeed have enough Laffy Taffy and they didn't need to pick up the taffy that was being thrown towards the end of the parade. I can't tell you the number of soft (hot sticky weather) sticky pieces of laffy taffy, double bubble and tootsie rolls I stepped in on my way back to the car. Beanie did luck out however and the Von Hansons guy threw a stuffed dog straight at her. Here is her haul:
A couple weeks ago I posted about learning to wake surf here .
My son got up and did great. My oldest daughter and I got up but both of us had issues getting over the wake. This past weekend my husband decided to give it a go and he did GREAT! First time trying and he looked like this:
Give him some time to figure out the wake and he'll be tossing the rope back into the boat. OH, yes, the boat is pretty close. Close enough to do this:
Because even on a surfboard, behind a boat...
it's still Miller Time!
And just in case you were wondering, YES, I did make it over the wake and stayed up. At least for a good 20 seconds or so. I know that was keeping y'all up late at night, so now you can rest easy!
Or can also be titled...A Two-fer.
Yesterday was NNO. National Neighbor's Night Out. I seriously wish our neighborhood was involved, but alas, we're not. So, we've gone looking for "fun" and luckily seem to have been adopted by the development behind us. Well...maybe...until they got a look at my husband.
Friends of ours sponsor the NNO for their neighborhood and we usually (for 2 years anyhow) have crashed it. This year it was on a day where we were especially busy and I was running our girls and the friends girls to Derby Days parade dance practice. So, I ran them there and came home an ate dinner. I went and picked up about half of them (the other half having been invited to partake in other activities) and was going to just stay at NNO when I dropped off. My husband had intended on "scooting" over and my oldest daughter NEEDED to change before attending a social event (14 year olds ya know) so I ended up running her home. Only to find my husband had a special plan.
A couple years ago, at our annual fall ball (the first one that we did costumes) my husband was part of the Village People as his costume, specifically the biker. He had a lot of fun with his costume (maybe too much fun?). Well, he found pieces of the costume and decided to "surprise" our host (the construction worker of the Village People...it was hard to figure out which of the two had gone to the biggest extreme to make his point) by arriving at NNO in costume.
I helped him apply his "ink" (see...I know the lingo) and saw his costume and left, without said 14 year old, knowing her options were to: arrive with her father on the back of the scooter with him dressed as a g@y biker, or walk. She's 14 and as we all know, she'll choose humiliation (or the threat...there was nothing saying that anyone would actually SEE her on the scooter so it was a risk, one she took) over walking any day. That's the joy of tagging in facebook. Ahem.
That's where the two-fer comes in. You know it's going to be a good day when you can: entertain the neighbors (most of which you don't know and of course you leave the impression of...either they WANT to know us, or they do NOT want to be within taser reach of these bozos) AND humiliate your children in one swell foop! As our son caught a glimpse of my husband as he left, he was looking up numbers to witness protection program (and he calls the girls drama queens)
Still, most of the neighbors took his costume as intended and enjoyed a good chuckle. Those that didn't...well, we didn't want to hang with them anyway.
Pictures...they always say a thousand words...
This is what keeps them grounded.
Let's say that I think the bar has been raised. Expectations will be high for Fall Ball 2010!
I usually like trying out recipes on just the family but this one was a leap of faith. I had watched Robin Miller make it while on the treadmill (I get so many good recipes this way...or maybe it's just I'm really hungry and everything looks good).
I did read the reviews and decided that I needed to put my own spin on it. She makes a dressing and spits it, using half for a marinade and half for a dressing. I liked the idea but like the reviewers, I found that it did need to be kicked up. So, I tried it out on friends and they loved it (although...my husband's response was...it just needed a strip steak to accompany it. Spoken like a true carnivore.)
Believe it or not, I actually wrote down what I did the first time and WHEW...am I ever glad I did. I decided today to give it another try and see if it was as good as I thought it was. FYI...it was.
Need proof?
The marinade for the shrimp (and basis for the dressing), was orange juice, lime juice and zest, olive oil, fresh thyme, red pepper flakes, dijon mustard, sesame oil and salt and pepper. I divided it up and to the dressing, I added shallots, more thyme, a jalapeno and rice wine vinegar. The salad was romaine, orange and yellow peppers, julienned carrots roma tomatoes, cucumber and avocado. I marinated the shrimp and skewered them. OH, YEAH...I split a lime and grilled it with the shrimp (flesh side down). Unskewered the shrimp on the salad, squeezed with the roasted lime and topped with dressing.
Heaven!
I am finally there. There=ready for my children to go back to school. Cruel, vicious mother that I am, I'm done. Go ahead, tar and feather me. Turn me into child protection for REVELING in the fact that my summer sentence is almost over. And really, I did good this year. *I* am usually whining within 3 weeks of school ending that I can't wait for school to start, so, really this is a record for me. Maybe you can sympathize...
I'm tired of my kids staying up until ungodly hour o'clock at night only to roll out of bed AFTER the sun hits its zenith. And then look at me as if I'm nuts because I have expectations of them helping me to accomplish SOMETHING around the house.
Then come the complaints of "we don't have anything GOOD to eat in the house". Oh, the drawer stuffed full of cheeses and lunch meats, the fresh breads, the bagels I purchase fresh weekly, the fruit, the yogurt...none of that qualifies as GOOD. The GOOD items that I might happen to purchase while shopping, well, they rarely make it to getting put away. Did you know that 4 children can devour an 8 count box of pop-tarts within 7 minutes of bringing it into the house. And it takes them 5 minutes to make it to the bottom of the bag to FIND the pop tarts. I'm just sayin'.
Yesterday, we put an end to sleepovers for my oldest two girls. Wanna guess the number of times they have slept in their own beds in the past 2 weeks? Even if they happened to be home, one/both may have had a friend over here, which meant that we lost our family room to their nocturnal activities (no, they don't sleep in their rooms...the rooms with queen beds in them). If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say they maybe have slept in their own rooms MAYBE 2x in the past 2 weeks. The problem is that now they just EXPECT that if they ask for a sleepover, they get one. Squashed that sentiment in a heartbeat last night.
Then there is my son, who, yes is still working. And I am very proud of him as he gets himself up at 515AM, gets ready and packs his own lunch before he catches a ride to work. He then works anywhere between 8-12 hours in HEAT (it has been a hot summer...and I am NOT complaining) either on the trimming crew or mowing crew. If he is on the mowing crew, he is carrying around a 35 lb blower for the majority if the time. So, yes, I am very proud of him. When he gets home...OY! He has taken a twin mattress (that was part of a twin over full bunkbed that we took apart and just kept the full bed) that is typically stored under his bed for friend sleepovers and moved it to the family room where he sorta cocoons himself with the TV and whatever GOOD snacks he has managed to pilfer and hide from his sisters...kinda like his own teenage bachelor pad.
We haven't even delved into the summer activities in which my children have partaken. The boy has been to see a couple movies and went to a Twins game with his father so I really can't complain about him. The job has him focused on saving money to buy a vehicle. My oldest daughter did a volleyball camp, she has an intensive dance camp next week, she has been to Valleyfair! twice, seen Eclipse (twice...don't ask), Toy Story 3 and I'm sure a couple other movies. She (and her next oldest sister) spent 4 full days up at her cousin's cabin, they are spending 3 days at her grandma's cabin with 2 friends (each) next week. She (and her sisters) did an Apple River Tubing (no not done on a weekend) and I currently have tickets to take her and 7 of her friends (and their moms) to a broadway production of Wicked .
All 3 girls are also dancing in the Derby Day Parade on Sunday.
My next daughter played softball and attended a basketball camp. She also spent a full week at FROG (fully rely on God) camp through church (it was from 3-9 with one sleepover and a day at MOA Nickelodean Universe). She has a dance workshop next week. Beanie had a week of golf (which she loved) and has an intensive tap dance workshop next week. She had a week at VBS and a few sleepovers (but not even close to the siblings). All the girls have has several trips to the local pool and we have tried to get out on the boat every weekend (and have been pretty successful).
So, if they're not tired having DONE all that, I'm exhausted having just written it down. In addition to Derby Days festivities this weekend, we still have a weekend at friends cabin, a weekend at Fr Dicks and a weekend at Grandma's cabin (with family, not just friends...that's a separate trip) AND the State Fair before school starts.
I suspect, if you were me, you'd be counting too.
