230: School Shopping: Phase One

I took the boys school shopping today–which mainly meant getting some shoes. (We also made one more stop for a couple pairs of pants and t-shirts since neither of the boys has been school shopping for a couple years, but that wasn't nearly as interesting as shoes and it was torture trying to get them to try anything on.) So mostly the first part of the afternoon was like this picture: Lex a bit crazy and completely indecisive about the 15 pairs of red shoes he was trying on while Zoran was exasperated by Lex's slow pace and lack of civility. (Lex is the most particular person I know when it come to clothes.)  Then we took a break and went to a movie. Afterwards, Zoran had a breakdown because I wouldn't buy him basketball cards and he'd forgotten his money and couldn't buy them himself. So he made us miserable the last hour or so since his life was clearly awful. But, they're both ready to go and school doesn't even start for a few more weeks!

224: a bunch of my favorite 7th graders

A few of Azia's friends won't be in Mission for school this fall, so they all wanted to hang out a little before people started settling in to their new places for the new school year. She has such a great group of friends–hopefully some of them end up back in her class again.

223: early morning on the river

The ambulance was called in the middle of the night for a possible bear attack. There didn't ever seem to actually be a bear attack, but it took a good five hours or so to sort that all out. The lack of bear attack was definitely a good thing, but if I'm going to be up all night driving around Dixon and exploring along the river, I wish I would have at least had my camera. Sunrise on the river was beautiful and the moon was huge all night and morning.

217: Paul McCartney!

213: Rough Day

Everyone else went camping and she had to stay home with me and clean and do paperwork. And someone put that ridiculous Yankee outfit on her. Sometimes life is so hard.

June: iphone

114: taking flight

Zoran's project did make it to school, but for future reference, a sand hill crane will not fit in my car if it insists on riding with its wings extended. . .

107: Two Zs in a Tub

105: Show & Tell!

Zoran has been wanting to bring his sister in for "official" show and tell since the beginning of the year. (She's actually been to his classroom a few times, but not as the center of attention.) He was pretty excited to show her off, and his class is such a great group of kids, they were just as excited to meet her. After he told them about her he walked around from desk to desk letting everyone say hello.

102: "Do you want to build a snowman?"

This is Montana. We always have at least one good snowstorm in April--usually just after we've had some 70 degree days and start to think maybe it's spring after all.

Also, Frozen songs are being sung on a continual loop around here--today it was the 16-year-old inspired by the weather to sing snowman building requests to anyone in earshot.

101: after school boys' club

100: Zayda's First Doll

I felt a little bad when I saw her playing with this at our ambulance meeting tonight and realized she  doesn't even have any dolls.

Poor little girl's first doll is a CPR dummy. This is one of those things you endure when you're born into a family of EMTs.

99: Diet coke at 2:00 am

I'm probably a little too excited that we actually have once again somewhere in town that doesn't close down by 9:00 pm.

Sometimes it's hard being a night person in rural Montana.

82: First Weekend of Spring

We left 85 degree sunshine and palm trees and came back to Montana for the first weekend of spring.

Wonder how many more of these snow days we have left before July?

79: morning, after no real night

back in Montana, just a few hours from home

I didn't want the kids to have to spend the whole day in the car driving back to Montana, so we ended up leaving Utah at about 11:30pm so I could just drive through the night and they could sleep. It worked pretty well, though we didn't quite get back in time for school. Azia and Zoran at least made it in for half the day. Zoran wanted to go to his spring luau. Lex simply told me he wasn't going to school. He tells me this nearly every day but it didn't seem worth arguing about for a few hours of kindergarten. Israel was the one I wanted to make sure made it since he always has real work and always is behind, but apparently he didn't walk up to the school while I was getting the other kids ready. He went into his room and fell asleep. For the entire day. Until like 6:00pm. Because apparently sleeping all night in a car is exhausting for a teenager.

At least they were all home and ready to start yet another 3-day weekend! No school yet again on Friday.

78: evening visit

After a long drive from Las Vegas all the way to Salt Lake we all enjoyed spending the evening hanging out with a whole bunch of Utah cousins. Our family is sort of awesome. I knew they were all busy with school and work and everything else we all do during a regular school year week so I didn't want them to rearrange things to see us, so I didn't really plan any family visits into our roaming. But the kids really wanted to stop, so I sent a text to my cousin an hour or so before we got to Salt Lake to see if they were around  & we were welcomed with dinner, great conversation, and offers of places to sleep or to stay as long as we wanted. Every half hour or so another family would show up to say hi once they heard we were in town, till we had a whole house full (three generations of our Utah family). I wish we lived closer to these guys!

77: driving the strip

72: and we're off...

Not even done with finals week, but I stayed up late every night this week getting grading done, told the kids to pack for a week (and didn't have time to check what they actually threw in their bags), and told the kids to remind me to finish payroll from wherever we happen to be tomorrow night...let the adventure begin.

62: an excess of snow

So they've been pretty good at clearing the roads in town, but now there really are very few places to park--hardly any on street parking. I doubt we have the budget to actually remove the snow like most bigger towns are doing, so in keeping it off the streets we've sort of created pathways through five to ten-foot high snow piles.  It's going to be very wet around here when all this stuff starts to melt!

61: celebrating snow...and an already announced 2-hour delay for the start of school tomorrow

I did shovel a path from the other door, but it was more fun to "swim" from here over to the hot tub.