We had a beautiful Monday this week. We enjoyed a day off of the normal life, and spent the day together. We started off with a leisurely morning hanging out at home. Then, we headed across town to Arbor Hills Nature Preserve in West Plano. What an amazing park with bike trails, hiking trails, and mountain biking areas. We did a short hike of about three miles. There were slight elevation changes, lots of trees, and Brandon found a little friend (centipede)! After our hike and some time on the playground, we made our way home to clean up and have a small lunch of summer sausage, crackers, and strawberries. In the evening, we had movie and pizza night. What a fun day together. Wish we could hang out every day and play, play, play!

Audrey's DIY "Do"

Here's Audrey's self-made haircut. For an 8 yr. old, it doesn't look too bad. I keep telling myself it could've been worse. BTW - this was done with fingernail clippers. Even if the scissors are put away: where there's a will, there's a way!

Scouts in the News

We were so surprised when our Bishop called to ask if Kevin knew where our Scout trailer was. Of course, he didn't since his troop never takes the trailer on their camping trips, just the supplies go with them. We were horrified to discover that our scout trailer was stolen. After a few kind gestures and many forums being posted on the North Texas Hunter's Forum, we were surprised by an East Texas Harley Club. They donated over a thousand dollars and supplies to help us rebuild our supply of scout equipment. Hooray for the Mavericks! They rode to our neck of the weeods from east of Tyler, TX just to get the stuff to us. You should have heard the cheers of our whole group as they rode up into our Church parking lot. We had a Texas sized barbecue with brisket and all the fixin's. The local news teams were even there where our boys were interviewed as well as Kevin (he is the scoutmaster)! What a time we've had. Now we have all new equipment and the scouts have learned more about loss, service, and gratitude!

Vocab Lessons

Maddie: Jillian thinks she is rich. (turning her nose up)
Daddy: What does it mean to be rich?
Maddie: It means you are fabulous like Sharpay.
Daddy: Oh, and what does fabulous mean?
Maddie: It means you have maids and fancy stuff.

Drumroll Please!

The answer to the question posed last week:
56,000 miles
That's a quarter of the way to the moon. Or, 2.5 times around the Earth.

YIKES!

"Cut Own Hair" gland

For the fourth time in Audrey's life, she has cut her hair. She did it yesterday, but I didn't even notice until this morning. Her cute little bob is now a bob with lots of bangs. I was so mad. I lost it. I feel sort of bad now as I replay a conversation we had yesterday. It went like this:

Audrey: Mommy, would I be cute with bangs?
Mom: Sure, but I think your hair is just perfect the way it is.
Audrey: Whitney said I would be ugly with bangs.
Mom: Well, I think you would be cute even if you had green skin with pimples everywhere!
Audrey:(yelling into another room)See Whitney, Mommy said I would be cute even with a green face and pimples!

I thought the conversation was funny, and that I was reminding her that she is special no matter what. I am sure the seed I planted yesterday was squashed this morning when I was so upset. I swear she must have an overactive "Cut own hair" gland. Do you think there is a medication to tone this gland down?

All the other times before this, she has blamed it on someone else. This time she has noone to blame, not even a pretend tiger:

CORRECTION

I think it should be 900,000,000,000,000! Remember that is what is being proposed as our "stimulus" package. Correct me if I'm wrong.

How far can you stretch a dollar?

How high can you stack 900,000,000,000 (900 billion) dollar bills? Our friend, Sam, called last night and asked this very question. I was waaaaaay off. Anyway, make a guess. I'll post Sam's findings later. And, Jenn C. you can't answer since you already know!