Did It Really Reach 60 Degrees This Week??

It's amazing. We've actually had at least a couple of days this past week where it's exceeded 60 degrees, yet we still have a modest snowbank remaining in our back yard. The rest of the city is devoid of snow and we actually have some green lawn, not all brown like some lawns get in Washington. We headed out to the hardware store, Andrew and I, last Friday and picked up a new rake and a child-size rake and shovel. I had intended to use the little rake and shovel for dog doo duty, but within minutes of returning home, Daniel had commandeered it with his older buddy, Tyler, and took over the raking assignment of the front lawn. While he was doing that, Andrew and I went to Super One and Andrew picked out some juicy ribeye steaks and steak fries and we had the barbecue on Friday night. We put the BBQ out on the front sidewalk that leads from the house to the street and just grilled them right there with some hamburgers. It was quite the tasty feast.

The next day, Saturday, the neighbors with the boys, the Widerski's, asked if they could trade babysitting duty with us as they wanted to get out for dinner at the Best Western and figured it would be cheaper for all involved if we did that from time to time, so I had six boys in the house Saturday night. They were all pretty well behaved, though, watching Shark Tale and playing pretty quietly, so I was actually able to get some transcription work done with little difficulty.

We made it out to K-mart on Sunday and I picked out a Darth Vader voice-changing helmet for Daniel's birthday along with a light-up sound effect Darth Vader light saber. Daniel was quite the imposing figure with his new mask and was even more popular with the Widerski boys when he got home. We got those toys (and a light saber for Aaron) as the Widerskis had them and I figured the boys should have their own so they can all play together with noone being left out. We went to Handy Farms for dinner, but an hour after we had eaten our appetizers, our dinner was nowhere in sight, so we ended up at McDonald's instead.

The boys spent all but about 10 minutes from the time they got off the bus to about 6:15 pm playing with the Widerskis tonight. They apparently were having a "battle with the 6th graders" today, something to do with water fights. Daniel got some more bike riding in too today. Aaron turned his dad's alarm clock off (again) this morning, so he ended up missing his bus this morning. He rode Daniel's bus with him to Challenger this afternoon. I'll be heading to his school tomorrow afternoon to discuss the results of his educational testing and determine how they will proceed with his educational plan from this point forward.

That's all the news that's fit to print since last Friday. We'll see what happens this weekend... :o)