Happy anniversary to these two. Two of my favorites.

We are so lucky they married and watching them love each other has been an honor. In AP's words - "I'm going to text your parents "happy anniversary", but not a cheesy 'your marriage is an inspiration' text - even though it is."

So, it's the 6th of July.  In teacher speak, that means it summer is almost over...  Today, as we organized and unpacked from the holiday weekend - the kids requested that we finally clean out the "school cupboard".  This houses all the school activities and projects and tests and homework that I didn't get to recycle during the year.  I was a bit hesitant to do this with the kids "helping", but they were very helpful - and actually did most of the work.  We recycled and saved and stuffed up our keepsake portfolios - all the while making room for next year's goods.

With school on the brain, Harper sat down to do some homework, and Bennett found a perfect silent spot to finish his book.

Moves like Jagger?

July 04, 2015

The day was nonstop - including friends and tubing and kayaking and fishing and swimming and eating and lighting things on fire.

Colie and I spent the day in warren with grandma and grandpa. We had a nice visit, and grandma's new apartment is pretty sweet. She has it decorated completely, and it seems to be a perfect fit for her and Pugsy.

The rest of the crew spent the day running around Rose, drenched in sunscreen and bug spray.

The kids and I went to my new employer's District Office to drop off a bunch of paperwork.  Already, there are some pretty major perks to working for ISD 748.

       1) Family insurance will cost me $80/month.  This is with a $3500 deductible, and the district puts $3500 in an HSA account to cover the cost of the premium.  Comparing this to insurance in Milaca - which families pay close to $1000/month (seriously), and have a deductible that is double.
       2) I received a teacher issued laptop AND iPad (promising to use it responsibly, of course.)
       3) I went to work twice today, and brought the kids each time.  While I worked, they played on the "Super Greatest American Ninja Training Ground" playground.

       4) Total commute time - for TWO round trips - a total of 7 minutes.  This maybe should be number one...

Bennett found some "we totally have all the stuff for these, mom!" experiments in kitchen drawer.  Looking over the list, we determined we had everything but borax. (We must have recently ran out of our borax supply.  I'm sure I just bought some...)  So after a quick run to the market, we set up shop and first made playdough

and then bouncy balls.

The balls bounce was not super impressive, and the food coloring stains were rather painful for the Gnomeo, but Bennett was happy to get his reading in by reading a science magazine, and we discovered that we could use our borax to clean the toilets.