Short, sweet, and long overdue

I don't have much time this morning, but I figured I should at least write a line or two. (yes, we all know how that is going to turn out!) This way, if you are someone who peeks at my blog every once in a while to see what we are up to you can see that I'm still around.

What's new?

Audrey looks like a mutant bunny. Her top two teeth are loose and one is loose enough that it hasn't been aligned with the rest of her teeth in quite a while, and it kind of sticks out at an angle. Of course I'm completely and utterly grossed out by the protuberance and it's wiggly-ness.

A couple weekends ago we went to a "cabin" in Plain (near Leavenworth) for two nights with a bunch of people Justin works with. There were a total of 12 of us (including the four kids). We kept saying the word "cabin", but it was really a big house. I have some pictures of the kids (and yes, that does include those male children over the age of 30) sledding down the shed roof. Also a couple pictures of the group during our snowmobile ride. The weekend was a lot of fun. The only downside was the dinner. Holy cow!! $160 for the four of us to have below average buffet, two hot chocolates, a glass of wine, and a beer. So if you are ever in Plain, don't have dinner at Mountain Springs Lodge. Yikes!!

We starting to plan our Spring Break trip. Of course the girls were begging for Disneyland, until we explained that Daddy just needs a relaxing time, and spending hours in line with thousands of people just to ride a ride is not his idea of relaxing. The girls have taken this very well. We are currently considering the Oregon Coast. I wanted to go back to Jerome, Arizona but I looked at flights and they were around $700 each. We could drive, but it is just far enough, that with kids the travel time would eat into our "vacation" time a lot. So I guess we'll have to forget about a warm vacation spot and go for pretty and closer to home. We'll see where this takes us. We're thinking that Spring Break 2009 will be somewhere like Jamaica. That gives us a year to save, plan, and diet.

I discovered yesterday that the people who used to have our phone number not only didn't change their number with the school, credit card companies, emergency contacts, but they are also using it to order stuff online. I looked at my phone bill yesterday and it was double the normal amount. There were two charges on it for third party companies. I finally got through to one of them. I told her I had a charge I was unsure about and so she told me that their company provided Internet voicemail, etc etc. I had already been wondering if this was some scam to either get people to blindly pay or to sell them services when they call to dispute it. I said something like that to this woman but she told me that it had been ordered. She told me the name and I came unglued. So that one is cancelled and I'll deal with the other one today---I'm sure it's the same kind of deal. Every once in a while I read through the Ephrata High School bulletin online (I started doing that after the big Orange E Carnival---one of those fun things that doesn't get advertised because it's a tradition that has survived for eons and therefore everybody knows about it) and noticed that in the announcement that if any parents want to help plan the Senior Trip they should contact a certain person via email. Guess who? Yep, the same woman I keep getting phone calls for. I may just have to send her a little email. If only I had just gone ahead and picked up her check at H&R Block after they called.....maybe then she'd figure out what needed to be done.

Speaking of Ephrata High School.....Emma and Audrey performed at half-time of the boys' basketball game last Saturday. They had attended a Cheer Camp that morning and learned a dance and two cheers. So all 50 or so kids performed that night. They split the kids into K-2 and 3-6 to learn different dances, but they all did the two cheers together. They had props for the dances and got to keep them. They had a good time and Justin and I enjoyed watching them. Of course, halfway there I realized my camera was still in the house. Not that I could have gotten very good pictures anyway.

Ohhhkaaayyy....there goes "short and sweet"! But we all knew that would happen, right? Time to shower and head to the school.

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting? ~Stephen Levine

Look out---you may not have their updated number!