Category: Life in general

We decided that Lucy has been in diapers long enough and that it was time to start potty training. It’s been a mild success — she’s actually done very well. The girl needs something to hold her attention, and this sometimes does and sometimes doesn’t. Overall, though, it’s been good.

This is the week that my dad has a share on a Lake Powell houseboat. The boat is called Going My Way, and we’ve been going its way for many years. I think my mom and dad have been going its way for nearly 20 years, which is hard to imagine. Of course they always went during the week of my birthday growing up, which has been the root cause for much counseling ever since. But I digress . . . We decided not to go this year. We realized sometime during the week when Gwenyth was on her 3rd hour of screaming and Lucy just created a puddle in the bathroom that it probably wasn’t going to be our year. It might take the rest of the family another 20 years to recover from that type of a trip, not to mention the “what’s wrong with Brian’s kids?” sentiment they’d all harbor for at least that long. So we’re home.

I put a bunch of new pictures up, mostly of Lucy. There are a few at our Potty Party, which was quite the hit. We were celebrating the donning of “big girl pants.” Very exciting. The pictures are here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/midder/

or you should be able to see them to the right.

Tomorrow, Grandma Eslin has volunteered to take Abigail and Grace overnight before they start school next week. We’re going to Erawan before hand. 🙂

There’s always something going on, always somewhere to go. It’s been a busy few weeks or so. Some friends, Ryan and Sherri Steele, are moving to Tucson next week. We had them and Aaron and Krisanne over on Friday. It was a good time. Saturday was Elsie’s 1st birthday party at Janene’s house. I think that Heather and Cleine know more people than I ever will. There were quite a few people there.

Abigail and Grace are gearing up for school. Abby’s been telling me for 3 weeks that her school starts in 2 weeks. So it’s coming up soon, I guess. Gwen is growing. Lucy is Lucy. And Julie and I are trying to keep up. Meanwhile it finally got below 100 a few days ago. I think we’ve had 3 days in a row now, and the next few days look about the same. Still no measurable rain, but we’ll take it for now.
There are a few new pictures here.

Well, Target has a bunch of school stuff on sale, and we had to get down there before the unwashed masses cleaned the place out. Tonight I took Abigail and Grace to go school shopping. They’ve been saving their sheckles for a while and were excited to spend their money on all of the important stuff. So we went. They were both decked out in their pajamas, night masks, and sandals. It was pretty exciting.

We waded through boxes and packages of crayons, pencils, glue, folders, lunch boxes, and other sorted varieties of treats and fun. We passed on the Sponge Bob and Bratz folders and went for just the stuff that was “for sale” (on sale) only. We got home, where they both promptly ripped everything open, filled up their pencil boxes, and handed over $10 each for their school preparation. Now we just have to make sure that everything is still there by the time school starts. They’re so excited that they might run through it all.

In other news, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, broke high temperature records at 118, 116, and 114, respectively. I missed a lively round of Golf with Michael, Zach, and Dad on Friday that was no-doubt incredibly refreshing. I hear that Dad ended up jumping in the lake to stay cool. Maybe one of these days the thunderstorms I keep hearing about and seeing on TV will reach us.