Life Aboard The Ark

About those band fees...

2005-08-02T06:59:00.000-07:00

Don't cash that check yet, will ya? About mid-afternoon the last day of band camp, just as I start to breathe a sigh of relief that Alex is well on his way to finding his niche in high school, the dreaded phone call came. Alex says, "Mom, come pick me up. " I say, "Band camp isn't over yet." He says, "It is for me. Just come get me." Keep in mind that after his rocky first day start, the rest of the week was all about drumming, complete with constructing a ghetto set of 'practice toms' and the rest of the family listening to nothing but rat-a-tat-tat long enough to drive everyone to the edge.

I get there, and he says he's not kicked out of the band, (at least not yet is the impression he leaves) and can he meet up with his buddies a bit later? Man, only if your story matches the director's story. I run a couple of errands, and swing back by the school to catch the band director at the band family cookout (yes, the one our family is now missing since Alex was 'excused early' from band camp, so scramble for alternative dinner plans). Anyway, the band director's version is close enough to Alex's, but it's clear that we're not out of troubled water yet. Don't worry I'm thinking. He'll settle down.

Fast forward to Tuesday early evening, the first day of the regular practice schedule. Alex seems properly motivated and enthused about going to practice. He's too cool though to bother with wearing clothes appropriate to marching in 90 degree weather. One hour and three phone calls from him later, I finally give in, leave my work undone, load up all the tots, drive over with a white tee. Of course he gives me the third degree for not bringing Gatorade. Oh brother. Get in the car. He gets lecture number 15 during the trip to a convenience store and back to practice. He claims that he managed to stay under the band director's radar during this whole time. We'll see.

Why does all this seem so vaguely familiar to me? Oh yeah, it sort of reminds me of our disasterous Christian School experience two years ago. After several mostly successful years of home schooling, Alex really wanted the social experience more than the academic experience. So we looked around, compared schools and philosophies, enrolled him in the local Christian school, one with a good reputation, who seemed to share our values; one in fact who had 'adopted' our family for different ocassions in times past, plying us with canned food at Thanksgiving and gifts and clothing for the children at Christmas. Good match right? Naive me, whatever was I thinking to send him off to basketball camp a month before he started school there at that nice Christian school, after several years our of the classroom? Hm.. that the transition from home school might be a bit tough, so if he can go to basketball camp and make a few friends BEFORE school starts, it might be a bit easier?

Let's just say that his rocky basketball camp experience, where the coach interpretted his summer-time hair do (blue mohawk) as a sign of rebellion (we saw it for what it was, an 'only child' in a family of many screaming 'notice me, not my family') was the harbinger of an even more rocky transition back into the classroom. I think the only thing Alex came away with from his 11 week enrollment at Christian school was a huge dose of skepticism about Christianity in general. If those people are Christians, I don't wanna be one! And believe me when I say that is not the experience we were trying to gain for Alex when we enrolled him in a Christian school to begin with.

Here's hoping that Alex's shaky start with band isn't fortelling bigger disasters around the corner!

Let's go shopping

2005-08-01T08:23:00.000-07:00

First off, let me just say, I am not a shopper. I will happily wear 'JoAnne-me downs' (nice lady in my church who has given me her cast offs for a few years now) and whatever my mother buys me to save myself the hassle of actually having to shop for myself.

Thank goodness Joe doesn't mind shopping all that much. He actually does all the grocery shopping. With the three tots in tow, no less. And of course he laughs his head off at me that I won't even stop for 'milk' with more than one of them in tow, much less all three. I always tell him that he can get away with looking like the doting old grandpa who doesn't know any better when he loads them all up and pushes them, squealing to the top of their lungs, through Kroger. When I try it, I just look like the harried, stressed-out mom that I am.

But to the point. Joe has drawn the shopping line. Even though he has handled the majority of the boys' shopping excursions for years, he refuses to take KeKe clothing shopping. Seeing that she came to us with the clothes on her back, and we've not quite got a good pipeline of hand-me-downs that are acceptable to teens going yet (is there such a thing?) I have finally had to ante up for my share of the shopping load.

Lesson learned from my first shopping spree with KeKe. Bring a book.

Lesson learned from ny second trip. Bring a book that you're not already halfway through reading.

If every day were like today

2005-07-25T18:27:00.000-07:00

I'm quite certain the next stop the ark would make would be the loony bin to drop me off! Not that it didn't start out almost normal. Except that Bailey had a nighttime accident (extremely unusual) and found her way to our bed at 4:30 am (normal thing). Of course she insisted on dry clothes, so I find myself stripping her bed in the middle of the night idly thinking this will skew the family weekly laundry average up slightly, so maybe 32 loads this week? And yes, the teens do their own laundry. Imagine that. And fold all the family towels too. Mean mama.

Back to bed. Alarm off two hours later, and Joe spends the next hour trying to drag everyone else out of bed. Why? Who knows why. At the time it sounded like a good idea. The evening prior, we had stupidly announced family breakfast for everyone in the morning. I mean, what with school starting back just around the corner, you gotta ease back into the routine someway, somehow? Right?? Of course, the tots hit the ground running, teens come dragging in after about a zillion calls to come to breakfast. (I think this probably defeats the purpose.) Is it even worth mentioning that most of them turned their nose up at what had been a breakfast staple last school year? Oh joy. It is probably worth mentioning here that Alex was one that spurned a real breakfast this morning in favor of a TRIX breakfast bar. Does the word hypoglycemia mean anything to you?

Me out out the door with Alex to drop him at band camp, blissfully thinking we're early, and ignoring that niggling little mama radar that says touch base with the director about your son's quirkiness; and then back home.

Encourage (okay, nag) KeKe to get her most basic chores and grooming done; push her out the door with Joe to the dentist. Who knows how long it's been since she's actually seen a dentist. Great news, only ONE cavity. Joe checks in to report she's been dropped off late to her summer program and he's starting to work.

Smooth sailing for nearly an hour. Good mid-morning start to work, and despite the fact that our early morning breakfast experiment cut into my usual 'first round' of work, I'm optimistic I'll be caught up to the place I usually am by 10:00 everyday in no time.

Notwithstanding the usual momentary interuptions, wipe a bottom, move the laundry down the line, heat up the coffee, answer a couple phone calls (sales weasels or teens for the teens), clean up a spill, fix snacks, blah blah blah; the tots are for the most part actually letting Chandler lord it over them while I'm merrily working away as fast as I can, since after all, Skyler and I have eye doctor appointments this afternoon.

Train wreck. Chandler brings me the phone. Alex needs to talk to you. Hey mom, come pick me up. I quit. You quit?????? You can't quit!!!!!! We rearranged our summer Saturdays to accomodate drum lessons without making you drop guitar lessons!! We've already plopped down $300 in band fees. You went to band fund raiser car wash on Saturday!!! You told the total stranger who cut your hair last week about you being in the band!! It's only the first day!! It's only 3 hours into the first day! What happened???? Just come pick me up he says.

Panic mode. Call Joe. Hold phone away from ear put phone back to ear just in time to hear him say, I'm coming home to watch the tots. YOU'RE going to go get him, and you better tell him if he comes home with you instead of sticking it out, he'll be grounded the ENTIRE drum season. Okay, sure. The only problem with that is he's GROUNDED NOW. Has his cell phone, has his computer, has his tv, has his video games...oh wait, that's another blog for another day.

Back to the moment. Yea, I know, too bad I can't trust Chandler not to kill anyone in the fifteen minutes it would take me to get there and back. Joe must not really be working. He must be over at his volunteer gig, as it sure doesn't take him long to get home.

I jump in the car and rush to school. Get there in time to help the band booster moms bring in grocery bags, start looking for the director before I'm drafted into lunch set-up. Find Alex first. Sit him down on the curb. He gives me a profanity-laden terse report declaring that it's too hard. Okay, I'd buy that coming from Chandler, but not from Alex. I leave Alex sitting on the curb. See band director coming in with rest of band. Catch him at an obviously harried moment. He's pretty adamant that he doesn't think Alex is trying. Fifteen-second conversation over; we head home. Alex is way too upset for me to believe that he really wants to quit.

Joe reads him the riot act when get home. After all the yelling back and forth, details start to emerge. Darned flyer that we got really did say camp starts at 9. Turns out they reprinted it, and most of the kids got the corrected version that said it starts at 8. So Alex started off the day running laps for being late. Goes back to band room to get his drums. Runs back to the field. Can't quite figure out what's going on. Takes too long in the bathroom during the break. Runs back to the field late again. Older kids make fun of him. Not quite getting what he should be doing, but not showing any visible evidence of trying figure it out either. Tummy all topsy turvy (is it nerves? is it an excuse? is it what Chan was complaining of yesterday?) Could be his way cool all black outfit in 90 degree weather or the fact he didn't eat breakfast. Whatever it was, the band director accused Alex of slacking and suggested that an immediate attitude improvement is in order or he'd have to ask Alex to leave. Alex decided he'll save him the trouble and quit. Once Alex is convinced that dad is 'making' him go back to finish out the week before he can quit with less punishment, we head back to school after a quick trip to the drug store for Gatorade and Pepto-Bismal.

I get it that the band director and I don't share priorities. This guy is brand new; the school is reeling over the unexpected departure of the last guy that they all LOVED, and this guy, as good as he may be, and I sense he probably is very good, has a reputation to build and build fast, and even more pressing than that, a band show to put on. Not to mention a new baby, so I'm betting some sleepless nights tossed in here and there.

Nonetheless, I have my priorities too. I grovel. I mention that Alex has had adjustment difficulties in new situations in the past, and that he is diagnosed ADHD but is currently unmedicated. He reluctantly agrees to give Alex another chance. I leave Alex there; start praying praying praying.

Rush back home. Try to get my work groove back. Agree with Joe it's not worth his trying to get back to work since he has to watch the tots in an hour anyway. I rush downstairs to my office; leave everyone upstairs; make quick call to my mom; update her on the band camp fiasco going on even as we speak. Kids follow me down to my office, and through my office to their bedroom/playroom. I'm already at maximum capacity; on phone and trying to get back to where I left off at work. Let's face it. I'm not paying all that much attention to what they are doing.

Grr...realize that Cory is jumping up and down and PEEING through his training pants onto Bailey's bare mattress. The waterproof mattress pad just came out of the dryer and is sitting in the corner beside her bed. Take wet toddler upstairs; find new clothes, find towels, try to salvage the mattress. Yell at Joe for doing nothing while I'm trying to work. I'm sure he was probably doing something. Probably checking his email related to his volunteer gig.

Finally get back to work for a few minutes. Find a stopping spot. Mix up potato casserole for later. Jump into a 5 minute lukewarm shower, irrationally thinking that if eye doc gig is quick, maybe I can swing by and get a hair cut.

Do the eye doc thing. Skyler's eyes are fine. Mine have changed 'dramatically'. Duh, that's why I'm here. Get the run-down on what my insurance will pay for. Can't believe I have to pay that much AND do without my glasses for a week to 10 days while I have to send my glasses off to their location when my location can do it on site in an HOUR? Think I'll just pay for them to do them there so, as I can't possibly do without them for a day, much less two weeks! Ask for my out of pocket expense. Dang. Decide I like my insurance coverage a whole lot. Tell the lady I'll figure it out and place my order and send my beloved eyeglasses away on Wednesday when I'm back with Chan to have his eyes checked.

No time for hair cut. What was I thinking anyway? Decide me and Skyler never have any 'alone' time and he's seriously suffering 'middle-child' syndrome. Is that possible when you have more than 3 kids? Anyway, take him to Chic-Fil-A to blow off the last of the free ice dream coupons. He's more interested in playing on the playground than eating the ice cream. Soon tires of the playground. Somehow, I think it might be more fun when Bailey and Cory are there with him.

Check in with Joe. Go get milk he says. And sugar, and margarine, and blah blah blah. He's handling the rest of dinner. Fifteen minutes and $40 later, milk run is done. Back home just in time to drop off Skyler so Joe can get him ready for basketball camp.

Head back to school to retrieve Alex from band camp. Thank the band director for graciously giving Alex a second chance. Band director is not sure how he was this afternoon, since they were in sectionals and someone else was handing percussion. Anyway, he agrees that Alex can come again tomorrow.

Alex doesn't have much to say about how the afternoon went, except to insist he needs to go a music store tonight to buy a drum head to replace one he broke this afternoon. Shouldn't the school furnish that on a furnished instrument? Whatever, I'll take it as a sign he really wants to be in band.

Get home. Joe jumps in car with Cory in tow to drop off Skyler as substitute to Alex's spot at basketball camp. He should have made the substitution arrangements earlier. After all, I'm sure I told him he needed to at least a dozen times. Alex pitches a fit when he realizes no one is planning on taking him to the music store. Decides to ride along with dad. Joe calls from the road informing me he's in a bit of a traffic jam and can I call the camp location and work out the kid switch? grrr. I make the call and make the substitution arrangements. Irriated coach informs me he needs to be on the court with the other kids, but agrees to the substitution.

Joe calls to say Skyler is all signed in, and he and Alex are running to the music store. Big surprise. On the off chance that the band guy is an email fanatic, I decide to jot him a note. More grovelling.

Time go get serious about work; after all, only Bailey and Chandler is here and he's got the phone glued to his face. Ten minutes into it, I can't withstand Bailey's instistance that we take a walk 'right now', and agree with her that a walk would be a great idea. Short walk. Get back inside only for Chandler to say aren't you going to take me to Full Turn (local teen 'bible' study)? Dang. If he's going, we need to leave now to be there on time. I did promise him hours ago that he could go. And I also told him hours ago to let me know early if Shandy needs a ride. Yep, I say, get in the car. He says, we gotta pick up Shandy. Grrr.. didn't I tell you to tell me that early???

Start to load Bailey in the limo. (yes, our other car is a limo) just as Joe drives up in the van from the music store. He can't believe we haven't already eaten dinner, and is quite put out that I have agreed to take Chandler somewhere, but honestly, Chandler has been a slug all summer. At least he wants to do something. We can eat later I say.

Ditch on the limo (temperamental air conditioning). Unload Cory from the van; load Bailey into the van, pick up Shandy, drop Shandy and Chandler off; get home to Joe getting the warmed over dinner on the table. Alex, who still hasn't eaten enough today, grumbles that the meat is 'too tough'; we trade his for one 'less tough'; after the first bite, he eats three pork chops and not much else, but hey, he ate.

Joe decides he'll make all the pickups and leaves early enough to catch a few minutes of Skyler in action at basketball camp. Skyler is not the most coordinated kid in the world, and what with his eyes dilated, I'm hoping he doesn't get hurt and have been a bit worried about leaving him alone (well as alone as you can be with 150 other kids and 20 some odd grown-ups.)

Anyway, I'm glad enough for Joe to go, as I'm thinking yah, maybe I can get some work done. Or maybe not. Talk to my sis on the phone, updating her on today's train wreck while cleaning up dinner dishes and Bailey and Cory running wild. Put them in the bathtub and take the wireless laptop with me to the bathroom. Work for 15 minutes until I can't stand the splashing. Declare bath over, put laptop away just as Joe calls to say he's dropping Skyler off before his other pickups. Heat up Skyler's dinner and fix bedtime snack I'm knowing the tots won't eat. Convince Joe to let Cory ride along to pick up the teens. Head remaining two tots off to the bathroom for teeth and potty. Convince Alex that now is not the time to make cookies; thankfully, he discovers the fresh strawberries and doesn't press the point.

Get downstairs. Realize Bailey's bed has never been made up. Make up the bed. Read a book. Or three. Convince them no more books today. Skyler, who was eating dinner while Bailey and Cory were pushing their pie around their plates, reminds me he didn't have a snack. I ask him to wait until Bailey falls asleep and then we will go back up for his snack. This usually works, as he will fall asleep waiting. Not tonight. Back we go. Get snack done just in time for Joe to arrive back home with Chandler, KeKe and Cory.

Ask KeKe if Dad has told her that her morning routine would have to be running on time tomorrow since Alex would be leaving at the same time. She's late nearly every day. He hadn't. Here's hoping she heard me. Tomorrow morning will not be fun, but I have already had the 'you must eat breakfast tomorrow' conversation with Alex. I tell KeKe what we're serving (that again???) and ask if she wants to eat breakfast here. (Her gig includes breakfast and lunch every day.) She doesn't know. I tell her that I will take her not knowing to mean 'no' and leave it at that. I head back downstairs (with all the uneaten key lime pie) to get Skyler and Cory settled in bed, hoping that Joe will figure out he needs to feed Chandler and KeKe and finish the kitchen.

Skyler goes right to bed. Cory insists on a nap lap and sharing the pie. I'm weak. I give in. Amazingly enough, it doesn't take all that long for him to fall asleep. But it's hard to work full speed with one hand. I keep shifting him around, and he keeps resisting my shifting, so I tell him nap lap is over it's time for bed nap and he goes down.

So finally. Time to get back to work. Work for a while; still not done. It works so much better when I can make four clean sweeps from start to finish through all my assigned areas. Maybe tomorrow.

At midnight, Joe checks in and wants to know if I'm going to be much longer; informs me can't wait up. I'll be there in just a minute honey. If I can get it done before 1:00 AM, I might just beat the first of the night crawlers into bed.

Doing the potty dance

2005-07-18T10:24:00.000-07:00

Believe me, after 8 solid years of diapers, and several hassle-free potty training success stories, no one is more eager than me to get Cory out of diapers. Here's hoping that he's my last to potty train. Though it's darn sure, he's not even close to be my proudest potty achievement. For sure and for certain, he's been the most challenging.

Speaking of all that high minded parental judgement we tend to have before we walk a mile in someone else's shoes, I am now ashamed of all those times I've rolled my eyes towards the back of my head when I heard some stressed out mom bemoaning her potty training horror stories. Just put 'em in panties and sit 'em on the pot every couple of hours. Nothing to it. Heck, I nearly laughed out loud a few months back when a work colleague was making reference to potty training as the most basic of power struggles between parent and child. Oh thank goodness for that ounce of self-control that day. If she could only see me now.

So with a little less than a month left before Cory begins twice a week pre-school, 'ready' or not, he's going to potty train NOW! And believe me when I say, he ain't ready. I must confess that after nearly a week's worth of cleaning up the messes, my determination is wearing thing. I'm actually now reading with interest all those potty training advice stories, wishing I'd been paying attention instead of rolling my eyes way back then.

Back when we grew up wearing cloth diapers, rarely was anyone still in them much beyond the age of 2, so I'm convinced this late potty training trend is a nothing more than a money making conspiracy from the diaper manufacturing companies. Heck, let's face it; it's just darned easier to change a diaper when you get home than to know where every darned public toilet is between here and there. But now that I've allowed myself to be a victim of this evil profit grabbing scheme, I'm paying the price in more ways than one.

Despite doing the potty dance, putting him on the pot on a timer, handing out stickers for every success, withholding whatever it is he wants right 'now' until 'after we go potty', lettting him run around naked (not because I'm some huge advocate of this method, just that all his soiled training pants happen to be in the laundry), every time Cory cheerfully announces "I pee," or "I poop" and procedes to drag me to the spot to 'clean up the mess', I can't shake off this nagging feeling that I am definately losing this round of the power struggle.

Tick tock.

Night Crawlers

2005-07-16T22:13:00.000-07:00

In the great parenting debate between AP (attachment parenting) and CIO (cry it out) methods, I'd certainly not consider myself an AP nazi. In fact, I'm quite certain any casual observer would quickly surmiss that I have far reaching CIO leanings. Nonetheless, with the possible exception of kids who joined our family after the age of 6, I'd say the vast majority of all the kids who have ever been a part of our household, even our short timers, have somehow managed to worm their way into our bed.

Not that I'm a huge co-sleeping advocate. In fact, I can remember back to my high and mighty pre-parenting days, when I was oh so wise as to pronounce judgement on parents for this and that. Oh that I only knew then what I know now.

For no reason other than how often I've thought how humiliated I would be if she could only see me now, this one particular incident stands out in my mind. Early in our marriage, we had been house hunting, and wound up looking a neighborhood in which a friend of my sister's lived. Since we were looking at a similar floor plan, my sister had the bright idea to take me over and introduce me to her friend who lived in the neighborhood. I can distinctly remember her showing us around, and thinking how charming her little girl's room was, and how appalled I was when standing around in the master bedroom, when the homeowner made some casual remark about their daughter nearly always sleeping with them anyway. I don't remember what I actually said, but I'm pretty sure I was condesendingly rude to this total stranger with some flippant remark about how I would NEVER let my children sleep with me and my husband.

So who knows exactly how it came to be that nearly every child that has been with us for any length of time winds up out of their bed and into ours somewhere in the middle of the night. I suppose it started with our own son Alex, who suffered with us through three bedridden pregnancies that came to naught, and subsequently spent lots of time in our bed simply because I couldn't otherwise care for him. Then of course after each loss, there was some amount of comfort derived for all of us from the family bed.

I suppose you could make the noble argument that the family bed is a great place for restoring a sense of security and belonging to these kids so traumatized by the chaos in their birth families; and maybe that sentiment held true in the early days. But fast forward a dozen years, and at least a half-dozen night crawlers later. Our current tot set has all been with us since birth. What gives???

Okay, I admit it. I have no secret AP agenda. There is no noble idealistic unreachable parental statement we're trying to make by maintaining a family bed. The hideous reality is that we are both just too pooped to get out of bed and resettle the offending tot in their own bed. Scoot over.

Do us a favor, will you?

2005-07-15T10:54:00.000-07:00

Only a couple of weeks ago, I was accosted by two little old ladies at church asking me to 'do them a favor' and 'make my children behave'!!!!

All the while I'm nodding and smiling at them through gritted teeth, thinking that most likely their grown children are NOT in church anywhere, and maybe the reason they keep cancelling children's church is cause nice little old ladies like you won't VOLUNTEER to help.

I did graciously offer to move thinking that the logical best place to move to would be NEXT to them, so they could have the pleasure of having two bored tots used to going to children's church climbing all over their legs, dumping out the contents of their purse, scribbling on their sermon notes, sighing loudly and asking when will it be over....then maybe they'll not care all that much that the teens are sitting when they should be standing, laughing when they should be singing, and passing notes back and forth to each other when they should be listening???

They said, nah, you don't have to move. Just make 'em behave. Sure, we'll make them behave. But why don't you do us a favor instead? You move.

From the inside looking out

2005-07-14T05:12:00.000-07:00

Arrrggghhh....all this pressure from my work colleagues for a peek inside the ark is getting on my nerves!! From our point of view, it's pretty ho-hum stuff day in and day out. Only maybe at a little faster pace? I had this trouble when the TBS film crew was following us around as well. I'm just not quite sure what the fascination is. I can name probably a dozen or more folks that awe and inspire me with their life's work. Who knows, maybe from their point of view, they consider what they're doing not all that special either???

On any given day, I'm not so sure we're doing such a great job, certainly not great enough to be featured on national TV..unless of course we were the inspiration for some sort of new reality TV hybrid ..... 'Nanny 911 Meets the Osbornes' comes to mind.

Scoot Over

2005-07-13T13:31:00.000-07:00

Not that we don't already have enough chaos here, we have actually entertained the idea for the last couple of weeks that if it comes right down to it, we could make room for a 16 year old girl that needs a family. I think our chaplain friend thinks that surely there is a 'calmer' place for this gal, so I don't really think she'll wind up coming here.

Interesting though that the teens were all in complete agreement that we should let her come. Of course the boys' rationale was that if she's 16 then surely she can drive, and if she can drive, then surely she can drive them around to where ever they want to go! KeKe was more into the notion that we need to equal out the girl power here since us girls are currently outnumbered 2 to 1!

Pretending to be Me

2005-07-12T08:42:00.000-07:00

I'm just a pretend Mom, and have been for quite some time now, playing the role of 'Mom' to eighteen, or maybe it's been nineteen kids who've wandered into and then back out of our lives over the past few years now.

At the present time, I'm playing the role of mom to three outrageous 'tots', aged 3, 4 and 5 (yes, really, they are all exactly 18 months apart), two of which were significantly drug exposed in utero. To balance off the terrible tots, I also have a lovely set of equally outrageous teenagers, including our 'own' 13 year old son, adopted at birth, our 14 year old son who came to live with us for '9 months' when he was 8 years old, and our most recent family addition, our 13 year old daughter, who had wandered into and back out of our lives once before. All the teens carry the official 'label' of ADHD.

My husband of 16 years is playing the role of 'Dad'. We both juggle (and sometimes not so successfully) part time jobs around the kids. In another life, hubby was a stay at home dad, and I was a successful corporate type.

For more about 'us' and what we do and why we do it, check out our recent recognition as one of the 2005 TBS Pathfinders: http://tbsstoryline.com/pathfinder.html

But as to me starting this blog; in fact, it's my darned job that has driven me to blog. I can't quite figure out the fascination with blogs. However, I must confess that there was some kind of perverted thrill in printing the blog entries of a couple of my sons' friends the other day, and then reading the evidence aloud to the boys while explaining WHY they won't be hanging with these particular girls for the rest of the summer! Interestingly enough, one of the blogs was 'removed by the owner' just a couple hours after our family meeting! Nonetheless, here's my first blog entry. Now let's see where it goes!