Cookie Booth News

I've been finding myself getting a little nervous lately. You see, I have 33 cases of Girl Scout cookies in my living room. We need to move them. The official word is that people just aren't buying as many cookies as they have in the past.

What makes me nervous is that if we don't sell these cookies, we'll be stuck with them. Worse than having to pay for them ourselves, either out of almost non-existent troop funds or even personal funds, we might even have to eat them all!

Taking a step in the right direction, we had our first cookie booth today. We set up at one of the the Krogers in town. They were kind enough to let us set up the cart area. We weren't nearly as frozen as we might have been had we been standing outside!

We sold 120 boxes today. If we do as well at our next two booths, we'll be okay.

In The Blink of an Eye

Thirteen and a half years ago she tried out her first car. How were we to know that those years would pass by so quickly?

All of the sudden, we're here:



A learner's permit and just 9 months to go before she gets the real thing.

For the Love of Chocolate

Dark chocolate brownies? Check.
Melted chocolate with pretzels and marshmallows? Check. Bananas? Yuck.
Peanut Butter pie with Chocolate crust? Check.
Ghirardelli Intense Dark Chocolates? Check.
Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies? Check.
Chips & homemade salsa? Check.
Starbucks Decaf Coffee? What's the point of decaf? Check.
Milk? Check.

Okay, everyone's here (except Laura who fell on her bum tubing!) so we're ready to eat. The whole point of this chocolate gathering was to eat these yummies, and then watch a movie -Chocolat with Johnny Depp not to be confused with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory -though that one is pretty good too!

Hostess Laura (not the one who fell), Katherine, Laura Faye & Rachel. We never made it to the part about watching the moive - we just ate and talked all night long. It was a good time.


I was there too. I've become one of those people who whips off her glasses in front of the camera. What else I've become is up for discussion, but only if you play nice.

Baby Goats

One of the most appealing aspects about our location is the farm at the end of our road. Since we moved here 6 years ago the kids have enjoyed visiting the horses and walking the loop. When we moved here the farm was the home to polo horses. We'd visit them, and watch them go in and out on the weekends. Then came a new owner, and for several years the farm was leased to another for riding lessons and boarding. Now though, there will be no more boarding and no more lessons. The fields are recuperating from overuse, and the wheels are in motion for a new venture. Edenbrook Farm will offer a farm therapy program.

Oh, wait! I'm completely and utterly off-track! The whole point of this post was to introduce the (very small gomomyourock blogger audience) world to Vicky's new babies! The babies were born on Monday 2/16. Here they are 2 days later. They're not even 48 hours old and already they are climbing all over everything!


Gus (short for Asparagus) is the white one and Clover is the grey.

Gus climbed and fell off of this ramp several times while we were visiting.


Here's Vicky with Gus. He's much more outgoing (so far) than his sister.


Here are the babies with their proud and protective mama, Ivy. Aren't they just the sweetest little things you've ever seen?!

Finding Wings

Katherine left DI this week with a task to do. In addition to finishing her own costume, she was charged with sewing this sparkly fabric together. I set her up with the machine, showed her how to pin the fabric together, and then let her go. No parental help is allowed in DI. It was all I could do NOT to help. What would have taken me about 5 minutes ended up consuming almost 45! Still, she did it herself and can honestly say that she didn't have any help sewing. You'll have to wait until March 7th to see what it was she was putting together!

Culture Quest!

Will's Saturday class is called Culture Quest. The kids looked at "culture in America through the lens of Native-Americans, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and each student['s]...personal experiences and traditions."

Above is Will's culture quilt: the orange picture is of him holding the dream catcher that he made the week they studied Native-Americans; The red picture is a skeleton on a skateboard (not really sure about that one!); in the white picture Will is playing soccer, eating a bowl of spaghettios; the blue picture shows something from Kwanzaa.
Will's poster: this shows Will's house, his family, Will playing outside in the snow, windows in his house with the door at the bottom, and Will playing soccer.

Here are some flags. This was part of a larger project involving three children. I'm not clear on what the purpose was here.

Today was the last day for the Saturday classes and the day we got to come and visit Will's class. We were to bring a food from Will's culture. When Morgan, Caroline and I* arrived, the kids (10 boys and 4 girls) were playing Culture Jeopardy! After they finished their game and made introductions, we were treated to a tour of their projects. Each child was also given a chance to tell what food they had brought with them to celebrate their culture.

Having no exotic culture to draw from, we brought ham biscuits!

Will ate his without the ham and without the crust.

*Katherine was at her own class, and David was near Appomattox running a 50K. He ran it last year, and decided that once was not enough, so he headed over there again last night! I have no doubt that he's going to post about it so you can check out his blog in a day or two when he wakes up and can move around a little! This is what he had to say about it last year.

Festival 2009

Our second stop of the morning (the first being tending to Doc) was the annual CMTA Festival at First Presbyterian Church. With a 10:00 start time I was already worried that we were going to cut it close for getting to the Saturday classes on time. We got to the Festival site at 9:30 and waited. We waited and waited and waited. The 9:00 group in Caroline's room ran over by almost 20 minutes - I was so sure that we'd be late that I told the judge we'd probably leave right after Caroline played her pieces. I wasn't stressed about it, I just didn't want the other kids to be late for their classes. As it turned out, our judges worked much more quickly than the 9:00 judges because they had us out of there on time despite the 20 minute delay! We made it to stop #3 with time to spare!

Oh, and Caroline played beautifully!

Friday the 13th

On this the first of the three Friday the 13ths of 2009 we celebrated the three worst things to happen in our house.

Will came home from school after spending only an hour - that's one hour this whole week! He was lucky enough to snag his valentines first!

We had afternoon car races in the kitchen - twelve cars all gunning their engines at the same time and no earplugs to be found!

I realized that after distributing all of the pre-ordered cookies to my girls (23 cases to 4 girls), my booth cases (33 additional cases) will be a fixture in my living room through the end of March. Oh, for the garage that could have been!

Aminals

This is a picture for Granddaddy so naturally I had to get a shot before it left the house! Will and I took turns drawing animals while we waited for our food this afternoon. He was very good at telling me what to draw and how to color my animals! Will was particularly pleased with his tiger and his mouse!

Trying

Today Katherine tried to teach her little brother how to tie his own shoes. Will really was trying to learn how to tie his own shoes. He got frustrated and then she got frustrated! Trying to teach someone something new is almost as trying as trying to learn something new!

Black and White

Tonight these girls got together for a black and white party. They wore black and white, they ate black and white, and they watched black and white. They watched Psycho, which most of them deemed funny, cheesy, and not creepy! I remember the first time I saw that movie - I thought it was waaay scary!

And what girl party is complete without a little brother hanging about!?

PACEM 2009

This year our church hosted the PACEM men again. We made sure they had warm places to sleep, hot showers, clean laundry and good hot food. We also talked and played games with them. We enjoyed it.

My participation this year was a bit different than in prior years. I'd always helped cook dinner a couple of nights and I always did a huge amount of laundry, but this year I helped to manage the evenings. The kids enjoyed being with the men so much that on the nights that I said they could not come with me, they got upset. In the end we were there ten of the fourteen nights! It was exhausting, but so rewarding.

The more we were there, the more the men got to know us and trust us, and realize that we were there to help them and not to judge them.

Tonight there was an art show at one of the UVA dining halls. The artist, UVA student James Dean Erickson, had been painting and drawing the homeless for years and his work culminated in tonight's show. His work is amazing. He captured these men as we know them. The show was not widely publicized, but when we heard about it from one of the men we knew we had to go. Kathy (my co-evening manager), the kids and I went to the dining hall and were greeted by, not only our friend James a.k.a. Mountain Man, but also bigger than life portraits of some of our other PACEM friends.

This is the artist in grey. The portrait behind him is of our late PACEM friend Tommy Parker. Tommy was a regular not only at PACEM but at our church on Sunday mornings. He frequented one our Bible Study classes and became dear to many of us. He died last spring.

Here's James...he reminds me a lot of Tommy. Perhaps it's because he's so friendly. He endeared himself to us and to the kids immediately. On the first night he asked Will to draw a picture for his daughter. By the second night he knew Morgan would get him his milk whenever he needed it. His portrait, like the others, is painted on cardboard pieces.

James a.k.a. Mountain Man

Seven

Kathy and James in front of Tommy's portrait

The Day After

Last night's snow was beautiful. This morning there was a school delay but it mattered not to my little family! Nope. Three stayed home yesterday and the fourth joined them today! Hope it doesn't last long!

More Beautiful Snow!

Super Bowl Party!

The Super Bowl party at the Mun-dale's was a little less crowded this year! First, David was nowhere to be found! Second, the Youth people partied elsewhere. That left a whole lot of little boys and Katherine and Ben. That's it. Boy are they glad they get to be Youth peoples next year! The only picture from our Super Bowl party is of Will and Carter marching with the military penguins. Every year they make sure it's still there and just have to push the start button each time they walk through the room!

Here they are two years ago when the penguins were brand new but no more exciting than they were today!