Not our usual workout

My good pal, Lisa, and I walk about three or four times a week.  We are proud of the fact that we keep a good pace while entertaining ourselves with our conversation.  Today, however, I needed a big favor.  I got Steve a rather large and heavy present that needed to be picked up, and the minivan was just too small.  So I had to rent a truck from Menard's.  Sweet Lisa was willing to go along with me on this awkward, not so pleasant excursion.  FYI, if you need to rent a Menard's truck, do not set your expectations too high.  I.e. no knobs on heat/cooling system, and you just deal with the seat reclining as it is, sister.  Don't let the no smoking signs on the windows fool you, either.  But for $18.95 for 75 minutes, hey, what did I expect?  Lisa was an absolute trooper helping me get the box into my garage which took three men at the store, and then she helped me wrap it.  She's a real friend, and I am grateful to her.

TaeKwonDo Belt Test

The kids have been working for five months now on this level of TaeKwonDo.  When they are tested, they are checked that they know their form and they break boards.  They only have two practices for the board breaking, so there is a bit of pressure on test day to do it right.  Although Josh is at a different level from Eliza and Ben, they all had to break boards three separate ways.  Josh had to do a variety of kicks each time breaking the boards.  In Ben's picture, you'll see that he had to kick and punch at the same time breaking boards simultaneously, and then he had to do a running kick.  I couldn't seem to get any great shots of Eliza on this day, but you'll have to believe me, she was just as impressive as the boys.  ; )

Post Halloween carving

Okay, so we didn't exactly have time to carve them before Halloween.  So what if it was November 1st?  Josh's says, "Why so serious?" with an evil smile on the other side.  Maggie was very proud of her spider web.

Halloween

Kong followed Maggie from Chicago or New York.  

Found: 1 Awesome pot!

That's right!  Ben found it!  In his backpack the whole time.  He's really outdone himself this time.  It stands on four marbles and has all these cool textures.  I'll have to take a picture at a later time.  In other pot news, here's my kid smoking--not pot nor tobacco for that matter.

"Uh, Mom, someone stole my pot today."

Ben's pottery.  What were you thinking?  Although he is really disappointed as he was really proud of his artwork, we had a little laugh at the end of this long day.  

Josh won a raffle at school recently ($12 in tickets will win things for you) and got to be the principal for the day.  He decided the menu in the cafeteria, he attended and spoke at a PTO meeting, and got to sit in on a few classes--one of which happened to be Ben's.  

Fake bombs

I'm one of twenty women on the props committee for Josh's school play.  It's a police dramedy.  They need tables, chairs, coffee pot, cups, typewriters, and bombs--fake, of course.  All the easy stuff gets brought in the first day, and of course, after weeks the bombs are still needed.  I ask the director what exactly she envisions.  She says one "mound of dynamite with an old fashioned clock with a ticker".  Then after I create the mound and start my search for the perfect clock, I realize it wasn't so easy.  Clocks don't tick anymore.  People are discarding digital clocks, not analog ones.  Finding ones with arms is a real trick.  Three Goodwill store trips later, I ask her again if it has to tick, she tells me, no, that they can use special effects.  The next day I loving hand her my babies, beaming with pride.  And she smiles and says,  "Um, we really do need an old fashioned kind of clock that will tick."  So we head off to the mall last night and hit a different Goodwill store.  And discover the perfect clock--or so I thought.  What do you think this was?