Week in Review

1. Tomorrow Caleb and Jonathan have another soccer game at 9:00. Bob is the coach of their team, so at least they will go. Last week they were supposed to have their team pictures taken before the game--at 6:45 A.M.! Well, that's when they were supposed to be there; the pictures were to be taken at 7:00. I wondered how this would work, since it's still dark here at 7:00. Bob pitched the idea to the team that, seeing as how we are living in this digital age, he just take pictures of everyone on our camera, make discs, and then people can get their own prints, buttons, magnets, whatever, at reasonable prices from Sams or Snapfish or wherever, as opposed to the outrageous ones charged by those sports photo businesses. That was a winner of an idea, so they did that at the civilized hour of 8:45, and he handed out the discs at practice on Thursday. We had gotten an email from the league saying they were having a make-up picture day during practice next Thursday night for those teams that couldn't get their pictures done. One of the other team moms heard someone on another team say their pictures hadn't turned out at all because--get this--it was too dark, so they needed to retake them. Yeah, I know--it's hard to see that coming, what with all the uncertainty of when the sun rises each day and whatnot. Anyhow, we were feeling good about that.

2. It was our turn to do the family presentation at the beginning of Classical Conversations on Thursday. We're supposed to do something relating to one of the 8 history timeline cards we memorize each week, so we chose to do a Greek myth, which related to the card "Homer and Greek Mythology". We did "Theseus and the Minotaur", which was very well-received. Nathan was our brave hero Theseus, Caleb was King Aegeus, the king of Athens, Jonathan was an unnamed Athenian sailing to Minos to be a victim of the Minotaur along with Theseus, Anna was Ariadne, King Minos' beautiful daughter who gave Theseus the golden spool of magical thread, and Luke was the Minotaur. We had to get a monster mask from the dollar store from him. Since it had crossed eyes, it was more goofy than scary, so it was perfect.

3. Bob was driving the big van to work on Thursday so that he could pick up the running boards he ordered over lunch. At a stop light, he got rear-ended! I know--it's so hard to see the tiny Ford 350 van. Turn it sideways, and you can hardly tell it's there! LOL! The lady actually told Bob she was late to work, in a hurry, and she looked down for "just a second"! All the things your insurance tells you not to say. Her license plate (in vanity plate-happy VA) was "XLER3". I guess someone took the 8 before she could get there, LOL. There's not too much damage to the big van, although now our backups sensor lights don't work, so there's no beeping when you get close to things. I liked that. This is actually the second time this year Bob has gotten rear-ended. Lucky him!

4. I've been gradually working on potty-training Grace, and she's been doing well. The only fly in the ointment has been that we are gone Tuesdays and Thursdays for co-ops, so there isn't a long chunk of days where we don't go anywhere to really cement everything. Instead, shell do well in underwear for one day, then I'll put her back in a diaper for CC or whatever, and she'll happily go in there. and she's definitely not at the point where she would tell someone else she needs to go. I still have to remind her often to go, or she will have an accident. Today was not a good day, however. She pooped in her panties not long after she got up, she had a pee accident before lunch, and after lunch she pooped in her panties again! What in the world was that all about?! We don't have our Tuesday co-op the day after Columbus Day, so I'm hoping that week will be the week where it all comes together for her. And I'm hoping the pooping thing does not become an issue! (Maybe she and Emily talked about it, Melinda?!)

5. I had mentioned back in July that one thing that made selling our house and PCSing attractive was this military homeowners' assistance program that was in the stimulus package. it was supposed to pay the military person back 90% of the difference between what they bought the house at and what they could sell it for. In an area like ours, that is a significant amount. But then we never heard anything official, and in fact, stuff had even been taken off the official website talking about the program at all! We thought, that's not a good sign . . . . Moving was a lot less attractive. But then yesterday we got a phone call from a friend in CO and an email from E out here saying that things are a go, and it's about to get officially entered in the congressional register. Right now, the deal is for people who have orders by Dec. 09, with a report date no later than 28 Feb. 10, but they could extend that up to 2012 if there are sufficient funds. Hmmm. So we're back to leaning towards going. We haven't actually heard anything from the guy at Andersen (Guam) or the AFPC guy, so we were wondering what was going on, but Bob has been busy, so he hasn't called them either. I told that to Carolyn, the one with 7 kids that is over there already, and she said her husband had been given a request for him to be our sponsor, so she had assumed Bob had gotten the job! How funny that she knows more than we do! Please keep praying that we make the right decisions here, and that the Lord will make His will very clear for us.

Well, that's where we're at! I hope you all had a good week too!