Sno cones

What is Summer without sno cones? I think it must be called an English Summer because I can't remember ever having a sno cone when I was growing up. Our family all loved Walls choc ices-they were our Summer treat. However, over here, there is a huge following of shaved ice covered in sugary syrup in bright colours and accompanied by some vague artificial flavour. Yes, you can tell I have never developed a taste for them!!!
However, Ben and Maggie, being the American children that they are, have never experienced the wonders of a Walls choc ice and consequently they love sno cones. Now, when I say they love sno cones, I mean they LOVE sno cones!!!! Adventure Club sells them on Thursdays and the week that Ben's class was in charge of taking the money etc, Ben made me leave him there, skipped gymnastics and come back and get him later!!!!
There is a sno cone stand opposite Maggie's old day care & we quite often have to run by there to get one. They have installed a new playground at the park, so there is a double incentive!!!

Well, after the latest trip to the sno cone stand & the Adventure club event, Ben decided that his latest venture should involve selling sno cones. So, yesterday we went to the store to find syrup, cups, spoons and straws. He figured out how much we spent so that he knew how much to charge & he was ready to go. By the time, we were organized, it was after 6 on Saturday evening, but he would not be swayed from setting his stand up at the end of the driveway. We told him it was futile, but he had to try selling just to prove us wrong. Of course, he made $6.50 in the short time it took Sam to make dinner (corn & pork steaks-yum) and the only reason he stopped was because we ran out of ice. The highlight of his evening was listening to the ice maker dropping more ice into the bucket-must sound like dollar bills to him!!!

Of course, he enlisted Maggie's help and here he is showing her what to do....

She seems pretty happy about it anyway

Here's "Mr Entrepreneur" holding up his proceeds. I told him that he has to give the profit to Charity and he chose the Children's Home Society at the end of our street.....

New baby!!!!

Born at the zoo yesterday. Can't wait to see her.....
Was the front page lead story in the paper this morning. So much better than all the war news, crime updates, economy, etc....

Busy Saturday

We had two events going on yesterday and we wanted to attend both of them, plus avoid the storms. We had a huge storm in the morning and I had a horrible feeling that the whole day was going to be rained out, but things worked out wonderfully. We went to the Enterprise Family Day first. It is always brilliant, they have a lot of fun things for the kids to do, plus free food & entertainment. It was perfect weather-overcast and almost cool when we got there. The kids wanted to make the wax hands before anything else and they were very patriotic with the colouring.
The rappelling wall was new this year and so of course they had to try it.


Maggie got the hang of it immediately and was really good. She was the only child that I saw got it on the first try. She never ceases to amaze me
After we had eaten lunch & listened to the Elvis impersonator, we went to Scout Day at Circus Flora. They put on a great show as usual and we had the best seats this year. They had a dog act that the kids liked best of all. Ben sat and laughed through the whole thing and his face was lit up like Christmas....
And, finally, if you can see this, or this, it'll make you laugh!!!!
Oh, and p.s., the wax hands melted in Dad's car while we were at the circus because the day turned into HOT and SUNNY!!!!!

Maggie stories

Out of the blue, Maggie decided to try riding her bike yesterday. It's sat in the garage for about 2 years and she's refused to have a go at riding it. Last night, I asked her what she was doing outside & she told me she was trying to ride her bike. I wasn't really sure what she was talking about, so I went to look and, sure enough, she was messing around with the red bike on the neighbour's driveway. He came home then, so I told her to come round the back with me. After a little while, she asked me if she could go to the church car park to ride her bike, so I told her I'd go with her. I told her I'd hold the bike while she got going & then I let go. She just took off riding and she never stopped. She rode it like she's been riding for ever & then spent the next hour riding around the car park while constantly talking to herself!! She really is amazing....

On another note, I had to talk to several of the Adventure Club ladies yesterday because apparently one of the teachers had been telling Maggie that she needs to wear girl clothes. They were very upset by it and were afraid that her feelings had been hurt. I told them that she was probably OK because we have had several conversations with her about clothes already. However, it's very different when a teacher says it rather than Mum, who doesn't know anything anyway. I talked to Maggie about it and she said one of the teachers had said that she should wear girls clothes and she just said OK. I told her that she should wear whatever she wanted to and that she didn't have to listen to anyone else. It didn't seem to hurt her feelings at all, I hope not.....

I don't care what she wears as long as she is comfortable, I'm just happy if she remembers underwear every day!!!!

Walk to Madrid

SLU is doing the Walk to Madrid program again this Summer. They have changed it a little bit & now you have to have teams of 8 members and the program will run over 8 weeks. Last year, we had 8 members, but the teams could be any size. We decided to do it again and we have some different people on the team. Last Summer, they had way more interest in the program than they had expected and we walked to Madrid earlier than planned-the goal was that the walkers would collectively walk to Madrid by the end of the 12 week program. Our team did pretty well and we were 24th out of a total of 95 teams. This year, there are 120 teams and the goal is that each team will walk to Madrid by the end of the program. They have incentives where you can double your steps, so I bet we will make it.

I kept a record of my steps since I started the program last year and I had taken 5,803,447 steps, which converts to 2,901 miles, so I walked quite a way in the past year, almost home....

Just what we need, another garden!!!!

Well, after a lot of procrastination, we decided to plant a garden at the school. We had gone back and forth on it, but then I was talking to another parent who had one of the plots and wasn't going to use it. She told me that we could use it, so we bought some plants from Lowe's and planted it yesterday.
We had to pull out all the old stuff that was in there first. Ben & Maggie were a lot of help and pulled out most of it. Dad had bought them gardening gloves and they were very excited to be able to use them at last (at least for their true purpose anyway)

We planted a whole bunch of things-tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, peppers, watermelon and basil. I'm not sure if we will get anything out of it after the rabbits and squirrels get through with it, but it's worth the challenge

Is she or isn't she?

Me: Maggie, are you wearing underwear?
Maggie: No
Me: OK, you need to get some before you go out
Maggie: Mum, never mind. False alarm. I AM wearing underwear......