Allergy Season

When summer vacation started, I determined that we would not waste away the summer in front of the TV, so in order to earn 30 minutes of TV time, my kids had to do about 20 minutes of work to earn a "TV BUCK." Well, the first couple of days, everything went smoothly, but the other day, Ellie asked if she could watch a show, and I told her she needed to get her work done first. She picked up a Q-Tip, and started to slowly "dust" her bed. When she saw me turn to look at her, she said "Atchoo! Mom, I simply can't clean my room because I'm allergic to dust, I think."

Who other than Ellie would claim to be allergic to work, I would like to know!

Frere Jaques

This morning, Sarah was serenading Rachel with her glow worm that plays songs. She sang "Twinkle Twinkle," and "Hush Little Baby" to her little sister when "Frere Jaques" came on and she started singing the Spanish version. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, here are her lyrics:
"Where is Paco? Where is Paco? He is missing! He is missing! Ring Ring Ring Ring--Ring, Ring Ring Ring--It's a bell! It's a bell!"

I think it is destined to become a classic!

Pop-Pop Fizz-Fizz

As I was driving home yesterday (Greg, not Heather fortunately) I heard the car start making a clicking noise and then suddenly a loud pop and nice cloud of burning oil smoke. Luckily I was in the right hand lane and just coasted off the side of the freeway. When I opened the hood to see if I could possibly put my technological prowess to mechanical uses it became clear that this way beyond the help of mere mortals. You could quite easily fit a golf ball through the hole in the top of the engine.

As horrible as I feel about losing the engine, I do very very blessed that everything happened the way it did. I heard the clicking noise and had time to slow down and get ready to get off the freeway as well as my brother (who conveniently moved to Bountiful over the weekend) hadn't left work yet so I just called his desk and he picked me up on his way home. The cell phone was blessing as I was able to arrange for a mechanic to look at it and have a tow truck come pick it up before arriving at home. All things considered it couldn't have been better.

Note: I uploaded the full size photo so if click it you can really get a clear picture of the damage.