Thursday

At dinner, we were talking about interest rates.  I talked to the kids about how when you're saving, high interest rates are good, but when you're borrowing, you want interest rates to be lower.  Zachary's response was, "So THAT'S what they mean in that commercial: McKlusky Cheverolet.  Lower prices; lower rates."

Sunday

Originally, Tim was going to take Jeremy to the Pinewood derby himself.  On the way home from church, he suggested that the whole family should go.  I'm pretty glad I did.  Here we are pre-check in:

 Jeremy weighed-in and modified his car three times before he was happy.

Jeremy is realizing he's been first in all of the heats so far and waiting for the next result:

 And first place in the final heat:

Big brother approves!

Playing on the track outside the Council Store.

 The boys and I had dinner at Mom's house.  Mike and Louise (who are still without a completed kitchen) made a pork roast with saurkraut and mashed potatoes.  Mom made the most amazing pear and cranberry pie.  The sunset out of the back door was beautiful.

Saturday

This morning, we finally took Jeremy to look at computers at Microcenter.  They were extremely helpful, and we may be back soon to get one.  He has been saving since last spring to buy himself one.We decided to grab lunch at Five Guys on our way home.  Good stuff!

Zachary got a regular sized bacon burger with extra bacon.  Oh. My. Word.

Saturday evening, the boys and I played Equate - a scrabble-like game, but with math.  Pretty fun!

Friday

Friday evening, Jeremy made corn salsa to go with our chicken tacos.  (Actually, whenever the kids have tacos, I wind up having a taco salad.)

We popped popcorn and watched Beetlejuice.   We were all in agreement that it was an exceptionally strange movie!

Thursday

Thursday I had to take Mom to the dentist to get the first stage of a 5 bridge crown made.  I ran errands all over Madeira while I waited for her, actually getting pretty much done.  I must be having a hard time adjusting to being back in school, because I had completely forgotten that Zach had student council after school.  When he didn't get off the bus, I panicked a little then called my next door neighbor who confirmed that there was a legitimate after school event.  Oops.  She even picked Zach up for me.  When they got home, we had to rush to karate, but since Zach forgot to bring his trumpet home for the second day in a row, we didn't go to trumpet lesson.  We did still have to run to Meijer (which I was planning on doing during lesson), because we were planning on hamburgers for dinner and we had no ground beef!  (I like to use free-range, organic beef that I buy from a local farmer, but I'm all out.)  Jeremy had gotten Tim a hamburger cookbook for Christmas.  When I suggested making dinner from that book, Zachary said right away, "Page 41."  So, we had cheese stuffed burgers.  After dinner, Jeremy worked on some homework, and Zach worked on the US puzzle we found downstairs.  Jeremy is back to trying to learn all the state capitals, so Tim is quizzing him every night at dinner.

Whenever I've been out most of the day, Goober is super wound-up at night.  Crazy dog.

There's just about nothing that makes me happier than a belly laugh from this boy!

Back to Reality

On Wednesday, we finally got to send the kids to school.  Boy did they need to get back to it.  So, what did I do after I put the second kid on the bus?  I bundled up, drove to downtown Loveland, and walked across the bridge to get some photos of the beautifully frozen Little Miami River.  I'm pretty sure more than one neighbor drove by, most likely wondering what the heck was the matter with me.  It might have been worth it.

I actually got a lot of work done around the house on Wednesday afternoon.  Jeremy and I had to pick Zach up from Classics Club at 4PM.  We all decided to ease into the back to school thing by skipping karate.