Here, Lindsay swings on a pony tire swing at Daniel's Farm in St. Peters.

This fall and last fall we have gone to two different pumpkin farms -- Thies Farm in Maryland Heights and Daniel's Farm in St. Peters. Which is better? That's a matter for debate.

First, I'll talk about Thies. I've gone to this farm at least once every year since Skyler was little. It's gotten bigger and better each year. This year it boasts two large slides that both children and adults can slide down. The stairs for the slides, especially for the taller one, are pretty narrow. Lindsay and I had to wait several minutes on the stairs of the larger slide. With people above us, and people below, and reckless kids wanting to go around us up and down, I was worried we would fall.

There are ziplines that look like so much fun, but are for kids only. It offers a pirate ship for kids to play in. There are two haybale mazes, both of which are pitch black, yet only one bale high, so extremely hard for adults to crawl and squeeze through. If your little one wants to go through, better bring a flashlight for him/her. (And be prepared to squeeze in and fetch 'em if they get stuck).

One of the haybale mazes goes up to a haybale tower. I've never been up there, but last year Don and Skyler went and both said it was hard to navigate. There are a few tire swings of different types.

Lindsay loved the obstacle course the most this year. It starts with a tightrope walk, then children weave their way through haybales to a couple of slides. There's also a pole for kids to slide down. Lindsay went through the obstacle course three times on our visit. She was pretty timid the first time, but I helped her through. The second time she was much more confident, and by the third time -- look out, here she comes! So it's a great confidence booster, which is a wonderful thing in any outing. We went to this farm on a warm (upper 80s) Saturday and waited about 20 minutes to go on the tractor ride. The tractor ride is included in admission and takes you through the fields. It's fun to see food growing but I would have liked to hear the narration. From our spot in the last wagon, all we could hear was "Garble, garble, garble, brocolli, garble, garble...etc.).

Lindsay and I enjoyed seeing the baby farm animals. There is a straw maze, and navigating it can be tricky. This year we didn't enter.

All in all, Thies Farm is a fun way to spend a fall day. However, I think the admission price is too high for adults. It's $5.50 for children 14 and under, $3.50 for adults. Other than watching your children play, there's not much for adults to do, so not a great value in my book.

Now to Daniel's Farm on Jungerman Road in St. Peters.

This farm has a nice mix of stuff to do for everyone. And it's even good if it's rainy and cold, as some of the activities are covered.

We went there last week with my mom and had a great time. There are adult-sized hay bale mazes to walk through with your child. A nice petting zoo with baby and smaller animals. Outside there are lots of tire swings, and plenty of tire spinners (don't know their official name). There's a little trailer that has a cute display of Halloween miniature train sets. We had fun looking at that. There is a fort, and several tube slides. All of us (mom, Lindsay and I) went down the tube slides. Access to the slides is easy. Nice broad stairs (with no line) on the fort tube slide, and a gentle hill up to the other slides. We all squeezed ourselves onto the barrel tractor ride -- and had a blast. The driver took us to a vacant area then did fast circles. It was like a tame roller coaster. I preferred it over the slow ride through the fields at Thies.

In a large greenhouse, they had several large boxes filled with dry corn for kids to play in. Lindsay spent a lot of time trying to build a castle out of the corn. There also was an area with pedal tractors. Lindsay enjoyed riding one of those. So I really like this farm a lot.

And it's a great value. Children are $5, adults $2, and I had a coupon for free adult with paid kid. The coupon can be printed from their website. The tractor ride was $2 for Lindsay, free for adults (I guess they think most adults won't go on it -- mom and I dispelled that notion!).

Both farms have their own offerings of fall fun, and I think at least one trip to each every fall is the way to go. But if we go to one again this year, it's going to be to Daniel's.

Sizing up infant clothing

Here's a photo of my Lindsay when she was crawling (probably 9 months old or so). She's wearing an outfit that buttons at the bottom, which meant it didn't ride up and show her belly while she crawled.

My younger sister had a baby in May, and she recently mentioned in her baby’s blog that her baby (now 4 ½ months old) is already wearing 6-month-size outfits. I want to assure her that baby Ivy is perfectly normal.
I have four years of experience working in children’s clothing store and can’t resist sharing my knowledge.
So here is

My Infant Clothing Size Primer.
Children’s sizes work something like this: In infant sizes (3 months up to 24 months), babies generally wear the clothes size that is twice the child’s actual age. So, the average 4-month-old wears a 6- to 9-month-old outfit; the average 6-month-old wears a 12 month size; a 9-month-old wears an 18 month size and so on. Between 12 months and 18 months, most babies are wearing 24 month size clothes.
A 24 month size and a 2T are generally about the same size as each other.

However, the infant sizes and the toddler sizes (2T-4 or 5T) are usually different styles, allowing for the differences between a baby and a toddler.

Infant clothes are generally one-piece outfits rather than two-piece. The one-piece design keeps the clothes from riding up when the baby is being carried or is crawling on the floor. Around 12 months (of course, it’s a couple months earlier for some babies, and a few months later for others), babies start to walk. At that point, they are able to wear separates easier – a shirt and a pair of pants for example. You don’t have to worry about the clothes riding up, thus, clothes in the toddler sizes are usually two piece outfits rather than one piece.
So there, in a nutshell, are the basics of infant clothing sizes.

McDonald's Happy Meal toys: The great quest

Ah, McDonald’s Happy Meal toys. Sometimes I’m like a kid and get into the quest for a certain McD’s toy.
But mostly I curse them. Usually the toys are characters my kids don’t like and the toys end up lying around the house until I toss them away.
But a few weeks ago, Lindsay and I were on a mission. I took her to McD’s as a special treat when Don and Skyler were out of town. The girl toys were cute, detailed little Madame Alexander dolls. Lindsay looked at the dolls in the display case and decided she wanted the Cinderella doll. But of course, when she looked in her Happy Meal bag, that’s not the doll she got.
Two days later she wanted McD’s again. I didn’t want McD’s, but I knew she really wanted the Cinderella doll and darn it if I don’t want to fulfill her wishes if possible. So I stopped and got her a Happy Meal (and we took it home so I could heat something up for myself). Again, no Cinderella doll. Not even when we asked if they had one.
A week or so ago Don got her a Happy Meal. Again, no Cinderella doll.
Now I wasn’t going to go all crazy like over getting her the doll, like I did several years ago when my son was young and we wanted the West Highland terrier Artlist Collection McD’s toy. For the month or so that they had the promotion, he and I (and me by myself) bought and ate many Happy Meals. We ended up with a bunch of Labradors and golden retrievers – which are still all over the house because they’re way too cute to toss out. We finally ended up getting the Westie about a year later, when we ordered Happy Meals and were surprised to find a Westie in each of the bags. I guess they just had it lying around?
Anyway, yesterday, Lindsay and I ended up at McD’s again. I immediately went into “Quest for Cinderella mode” and asked if they had any Cinderella dolls left. (They didn’t).
But Lindsay didn’t seem to care. She was perfectly happy with the Strawberry Shortcake doll that came with the meal, and she didn’t mention Cinderella once. And even more importantly, she didn’t look at the display of Strawberry Shortcake dolls and decide that she had to have one of them. Maybe we can eat somewhere besides McD’s for a while.

Band night!

Last night was band night at Fort Zumwalt East High School. Skyler's middle school band got to play with the high school band during the half-time show at the football game.

We had such a great time! I loved watching the cheerleaders and dancers do their routines, and it was fun to get into the spirit and excitement of the game (which our team won, 40-18!).

Lindsay had a fun time dancing around and cheering too -- although she was ready to go home and go to bed after the half-time show was over.

Skyler and the bands did a wonderful job. Skyler was the first person to march onto the field in his row, and he led them on a straight path to their mark.

Extreme makeover: Arch edition

Pictured at left: Skyler and I stand on the riverboat dock below the Arch about six years ago.

I just finished reading an article in the Post-Dispatch about a competition for making over the St. Louis riverfront and Arch grounds.
There are five different design companies vying for the redesign job. The idea is to make people want to go to the riverfront and Arch and stay a while.
Most of the design ideas were, to say the least, out of the box. One features glass-enclosed gondolas soaring over the river from the Missouri side to the Illinois side. At least two include outdoor live entertainment venues – one is floating. Another wants to remove a viewing area on the Illinois side and build something else. It’s a viewing area that just opened last year. And it had cost $5 million to build.
I think it’s wonderful that the city seems serious about changes. The Arch area definitely needs improvement. And if we’re pondering it, we might as well think really really big.
But I have to wonder if all their imaginative ideas are really necessary. Do we really need another outdoor entertainment venue? There’s no word of who would be entertaining at the proposed venues. I guess it would just be there in case someone wanted to entertain outside in a public venue. And glass gondolas soaring over the river? Really? Basically it’s the same concept as going up to the Arch, except you’re going to the other side of the river.
So here are my suggestions for improving the riverfront – for making it a place tourists will enjoy, and that locals will want to visit too.
First, the design companies all got one thing right. We gotta connect the Arch grounds with the rest of the city. It’s crazy that you can’t walk from the Arch to Kiener Plaza, the Old Courthouse, the hotels, etc.
So my proposal is pretty much the same as the designers: Put a cap over the highway, which would allow people to go from the Arch grounds, to all the stuff in the city.
In my plan, the cap would be pretty big. I envision something that would extend north to allow people to walk from the Dome after a football game to Laclede’s Landing for a drink.
An outdoor ice rink when weather permits would be fun too. At least one of the designs included that. Picturesque lakes with water-spouting sculptures and fountains would be nice also.
I would also like to see some outdoor vendors, selling food and souvenirs. What’s a tourist attraction if you can’t buy a hotdog and a cheap T-shirt from outdoor vendors? People who wanted to run vending businesses would have to apply, and meet stringent regulations.
Now, I’ll turn my attention to the museum under the Arch. It’s a total redo.
For starters, it needs light. Sure it’s underground, but does it have to look like you’re walking into a bomb shelter? My plan would add skylights to the museum, and people walking on the ground above would be able to walk on those skylights and see into the museum from above. Cool.
And take all the dead stuffed animals out of there. Ditto for the creepy talking animatronic historic people. Instead, put in interactive displays that show people what westward expansion was like.
Let people prepare for the expedition with Lewis and Clark. Show people what we did and didn't know about the land before Lewis and Clark journeyed west.
Bring in a couple of Conestoga wagons that people can get in and pretend to drive. Put up displays of what all people would need to take on their journey, and let them figure out how to get it all into the wagon. Show them how treacherous making the westward journey was by giving each person a card with the name of an actual settler on it. At the end of the display, the visitor finds out how their settler fared, and if the person even survived the journey.
Next, you gotta address food. Currently the museum has no restaurant. Get hungry while you’re visiting the Arch? You can leave the museum and hike to Laclede’s Landing, or you can go to the riverfront and eat stale cheese-covered nachos from a little snack bar. Ridiculous. The museum begs for a restaurant and/or a sandwich place.
I’m a fan of the riverboats, so I wouldn’t change much of that, except to make it more of a learning experience – include more history information during the ride.
Yes, compared with the grand ideas the design companies came up with, mine are simplistic. But very often, simple is best.

My top 10 favorites of this summer

The summer is winding down. Skyler goes back to school tomorrow and I’m pretty sure that the worst of the hot weather is behind us (I’m hoping anyway). It’s a good time to reflect on the best of this summer. So here it is. My top 10 list of favorites of this summer.

1. Instant tanning lotion. I discovered this stuff a few years ago and love it. I’ve never tanned well and it’s always bothered me to be so white white during the summer. Now I can have a tan, and it’s healthy (or at least it is until they find that some chemical in the lotion is bad for us).

2. Our big, shady backyard. I’m thankful for this all year, but never more so than during this hot summer. In the morning, a big oak and a maple tree block the sun’s rays. In the evening, trees on the other side of the yard provide shade. The trees also provided places for us to hide during evening games of hide-and-seek – Lindsay’s favorite outdoor game this year.

3. Skyler earned money this summer from other people. He mowed the lawn for two neighbors. He also took care of a neighbor’s two dogs and two cats for a week. That required him to go to their house three times a day to let the dogs out, and to make sure the pets had food and water. I am very proud of him for demonstrating the responsibility to work for others.

4. Coffee drinks that I could make at home with just the mix and some hot water (Hill’s Brothers white chocolate with caramel is my favorite). Also, McDonald’s caramel frappes, and Kool-Aid.

5. In June, Lindsay made me proud in her dance recital debut. She worried me during rehearsals, becoming teary for the photo and barely participating in the dance rehearsal. But she pulled it together for the actual show, doing all the dance moves like a pro – or at least like a 4-year-old dancing on stage for the first time. I was very proud of her.

6. Skyler made me proud in his band concert debut, playing the trombone. Although technically this didn’t happen in the summer (it was at the end of the school year in May), I feel compelled to include it anyway. He’ll continue to play band this school year. I was fortunate to find an inexpensive second trombone for him so he won’t have to carry the trombone on the bus everyday.

7. Facebook. Don got a job offer as a result of reconnecting with an old friend on this social network site. And I have had the fun of reconnecting with old friends (and I’m still hoping it will pay off for me with a job too!).

8. My mother’s birthday party. My sisters and their families, and me and my family surprised my mother at the Olive Garden for her 65th birthday. My mom thought she was going out to eat with her husband. It was fun to see the happy look on her face when she saw all of us sitting in the restaurant waiting for them. Plus I really enjoyed seeing everyone.

9. I earned a little money by working at a temp job. The schedule offered one of the few perks of the job. I could miss traffic by going in and leaving very early. I also got to listen to the radio streaming online. Plus, as long as I left a list of things for him to do, Don and the kids did the housework.

10. Apples. They come in so many different varieties and are so tasty. They’re good for me, and they taste good too. Something I can partake of without guilt. Now that’s what summer’s all about.

Summer of cicadas

Walk into our backyard at anytime of day or night, and you'll hear their sound. It sounds somewhat like a dozen rattlesnakes all shaking their rattles at the same time, and seems to come from everywhere.
It's the sound of cicadas -- those scary-looking bugs that look like giant-sized flies.
I love to hear their sound. It's the sound of summer.
And this year they've provided me with some entertaining moments.
There was the cicada I saw while on a walk with the dogs a week or so ago. It was on its back, seemingly dead. I gave it a little nudge with my foot, and it suddenly burst to life, making its rattly sound. Both me and my younger dog jumped at the same time.
A few days ago I was outside in the backyard with both kids and a resting cicada came to life -- surprising 12-year-old Skyler. Before I knew what was happening, he was yelling "Aaaahhh!" and nearly knocked me down trying to get away from the giant rattling bug. Hehehe.
And last night, Lindsay had an encounter with one of the bugs. We were in the part of the backyard she calls the "deep dark woods," which is actually just under the canopy of a big oak tree. I was looking into the distance, contemplating life, when Lindsay let out an ear-piercing scream. My first thought was to save her from whatever had scared her. That's when I heard and saw the cicada. Once again it had apparently been waiting for one of the members of my family to come along before making its noise for maximum scare effect.
I grabbed Lindsay as she screamed and removed her from the deep dark woods. As her screams changed to crying, I explained to her it was just a cicada. She calmed down and we had a good laugh. We even went back to look at it.
If we'd seen it, I'm sure we both would have screamed. Again.

A wonderful visit to Grant's Farm

While speculation looms about whether or not the Busch family will sell Grant's Farm I thought it a good idea for Lindsay and I to visit the attraction while it's still open.

We went yesterday and had a wonderful time. Rainclouds built up in the sky as we drove, but it didn't rain while we were there. Instead, we had an overcast sky that kept the temperature in the upper 80s -- not bad for a St. Louis summer day.

Lindsay loved the tram ride. She was excited to see deer, cows and horses and all the other animals.

Feeding the goats was frustrating as usual. We'd pick out a small skinny-looking goat that we wanted to feed, and within seconds of it grabbing the bottle, a big bully goat would start pushing and butting the smaller one away. They are so mean to each other!

We rode the carousel twice. Lindsay loves carousels. The first time, she rode on a seahorse. The second time, she wanted to ride in the chair with me next to her.

We walked around and looked at the other animals. Lindsay liked the capybaras. She thought they looked like squirrels, which they do somewhat. I can just imagine Clover chasing one of those capybaras in our backyard though. The capybaras were at least a third bigger than she is.

We enjoyed the animal show. After the show, I bought Lindsay cotton candy. She'd asked for it before we even got to the farm. We sat and ate that for a while, then got snowcones. We ate those while watching the elephant show.

Lindsay was getting tired and hungry, so we went through the horse and carriage stables quickly and rode the tram back to the entrance.

We ate a picnic lunch in the car. She loves eating in the car, perhaps because I let her sit in the front passenger seat.

We headed to the Clydesdale stable. We saw several Clydesdales in their stables, and she petted a couple of colts standing next to the fence in the pasture.

It was a great visit. I hope it's not our last.

A cellphone rant

I apparently have old-fashioned ideas about phone use.
In the not-so-distant past, telephones were secondary means of communication and the person physically standing in front of you, came first.
Phones have changed so drastically in the past 15 or so years. They’ve gone from something that you could only use in your own house – while completely stationary – to something that we keep in our pockets, ready to whip out anytime, anywhere.
And many people think this gives them a license to be rude to people they’re actually with.
When I was growing up in the 70s, we had two phone in the house. The main one was in the kitchen. It was a minty green color, had a rotary dial, and a cord that could stretch to about 10 feet long. No extra-long cord for our family. If you wanted to talk on the phone, you could either stand in that corner of the kitchen, or, if you stretched the cord out just so, you could stand or sit on the floor in the hallway around the corner.
When I was a teenager, we moved to a newer house and I had a phone jack in my room. (It seemed like such a luxury at the time!) One of my first purchases in that house was a phone to have in my room. Of course, it was another corded phone and was not a separate line (too expensive!), but I could talk in the privacy of my own room.
Now that phones are mobile, they intrude on our lives, no matter where we are.
For starters, it seems perfectly acceptable now to talk on the phone no matter who you’re with. There are many occasions when of course you have to answer the phone or send the text message. But there are even more times when you should wait until .
For instance, one day at the job where I worked for a few months, I was sitting by myself in the lunchroom reading a newspaper. A 20ish girl that I worked with came in and sat down directly across from me. I gladly put my newspaper down and talked to her. While we were talking, I noticed that she was looking at her cell phone, texting. Maybe I’m an old fuddy duddy, but I thought it was rude. Just as rude as it would have been of me to pick up my newspaper and start reading during our conversation.
Another pet peeve is when people visit my house and then talk on their cell phone to other people. It would be fine if it were necessary. But one person I know – who doesn’t visit us very often – has a fairly lengthy (15 or so minutes) conversation with another person every time she comes. Basically they update each other on what they’ve done since they talked earlier in the day. In the meantime, my kids are vying for this person’s attention. She’s only here for two or three hours at a time, couldn’t she wait until she leaves to talk on the cell to someone else?
And lastly, and I know I’m in the minority here, but I think it’s rude to take a call when you’re talking with someone else. My husband has done this while we’ve had dinner in restaurants (and he’s gotten an earful from me about it!). This happened also often happened when Lindsay was in dance class. I’d be talking with a mom, trying to get to know her, and her cell phone would ring. She’d stop talking to me and talk to the phone. It was hard not to develop a complex over it.
So there you have my cell phone pet peeves.

Baby birds on our porch...aahhhh -- Now get out!

About a month ago a pair of housefinches built a nest in the space between the wall and the porch light. At first I was delighted with their choice of home site. We would get to see their babies grow from eggs to nestlings. What fun.
But after a couple of days of opening the front door and suddenly seeing a bird fly from the porch to a nearby tree -- startling me in the process -- I decided I didn't like these new neighbors as much as I thought I would. And then I saw the bird droppings all over the porch. I'm certainly not a neatnick who cleans and scrubs the house for hours every day. And I've lived with cats and dogs my entire life and seen and cleaned up some pretty disgusting messes. But the bird poop all over "their" side of the porch grossed me out.
Couple that with the birds flying away and startling me every time I opened the door, and, let's say I was in a hurry for them to go. These birds would even fly away when we peeked out the curtain in the foyer. I mean, what's the fun of having birds nesting on your porch if you can't see them? And I worried that their wandering from the nest would hurt the babies.
About a week after they moved in I used a mirror to see if there were eggs in the nest. Sure enough, I could see three tiny blue speckled eggs. Of course we had to leave the nest there now. I learned the babies should be hatched and out of the nest within three weeks or so. I looked forward to the day when they'd move out.
In the meantime, I learned to open the front door slowly and to be prepared to see a bird fly off the porch. And I learned that I if I hosed down the porch and let the water soak in for a couple of minutes before hosing again, the bird poo washed away fairly easily. Unfortunately there was nothing I could do to neaten the nest itself. I'll just say that these birds are very, very messy housekeepers.
So we finally heard little tweats coming from the nest. For the most part we let the new family have its privacy.
But one morning Lindsay and I were in the foyer when we heard the raucious sounds of the baby birds. We peeked out and saw the daddy bird standing on the porch light. Three skinny baby birds strained toward him with open beaks as he placed the food in each of their mouths. It was an exciting moment. I was glad that Lindsay was there to see it.
Within a week I saw a baby bird sitting on the nest as I came home. He/she looked at me as I stood on the porch ready to open the door and walk in.
"Hello there," I said softly. "You take care of yourself." The bird blinked and gazed at me with a contented look in its eyes. I hope that bird has a happy life.
Later that day I picked Lindsay up and we peeked at the bird family through foyer window. I pointed out the baby birds, and I think she saw them.
It was nice to share that piece of nature with Lindsay. It was nice to show her that, even though the birds were a bit of an inconvenience to us, that we still should be nice to them and co-exist with them.
A day or two later, the birds were gone. The poo-covered nest was empty.
I admire the bird parents. They took such good care of their babies, watching over the eggs for a couple of weeks, and feeding the clamoring babies. Then watching those babies go out on their own.
I'm glad they chose our porch to make their nest. But as soon as I knew they were gone for good, I took the nest down and cleaned the poo off the porch.
A few days ago a bird flew off the porch as I opened the door. I looked up at the porch light and saw a half-finished nest. I contemplated letting the birds raise another nest of babies on our porch. We would once again see babies grow from eggs to nestlings. But that thought quickly left my mind. I used a mirror to peer into the nest. No eggs yet. I took the nest down. Raise your babies in a tree or on someone else's porch, I told the birds.
After all, I don't want to be selfish. Other people want to see nature up close too.

So happy 80's music is hip again

I've always heard that it takes about 20 years for people to appreciate a time period. It had seemed true for me and my generation. When I was a teen in the 80's, there was a resurgence of interest in and excitement about the 60's. My friends and I thought we were so cool to see the Monkees in concert.
But when we left the 80's, that time period -- and the music -- seemed so gone, over and out, I thought it would never be considered cool again. The 90's came with its grunge look, and then its goth look, and I looked at the young people of that day and thought that these saggy-pants-wearing kids with their dyed black hair, nose rings and tattoos would never embrace my beloved 80's rockers and pop stars. I figured the 80's were gone forever, except of course on cassette tapes I play in my minivan.
But lately I've found new hope that the 80's music is getting its second go-round, and may even become classic and never go out of style.
My first taste of this happened a couple of years ago when my 20-something hairdresser said that she loved "these old 80's songs." At first her comment made me feel incredibly old, but then I had to smile that she was appreciating "my" music.
Since then I'd noticed more radio stations playing songs from the 80's in their line up. The Rock Band game has many fun 80's songs. I love to sing vocals to the Go Go's "Vacation," while doing the goofy feet-kicking 80's dance.
And it certainly didn't hurt the 80's when the hip "Glee" TV show covered many 80's songs, introducing those songs to the next generation and making totally cool again. I no longer need be embarrassed when I've got Rick Springfield cranked up in the minivan.
My son (who I'll make clear is not a "Glee" fan) loves 80's music. Thanks to RB knows all the words to many 80's songs including "Livin' on a prayer" and "Hungry like the wolf."
For me, and I'd imagine all my fellow 80's lovers, it's like a vacation all I ever wanted, and a new moon on Monday all rolled up into one affair of the heart.

Skyler's rocking the trombone

Last week Skyler had his first concert band concert with his trombone. His learning to play the trombone has been a rocky ride this school year. He took it because my husband and I recommended that he take it (we didn't make him take it, but we definitely pushed him). We felt it would help him in many areas of life -- from making friends to learning and practicing diligence. He didn't necessarily want to take it because let's face it, learning an instrument is hard. And it requires practice time, which cuts into a kid's time to do whatever else he wants to do. But he did it anyway.
And way back in August after we bought this shiny new instrument, class began. He met the teacher and realized quickly that she's no pushover. Ms. Coffer expects her students to do their best every day, and if she thinks they're not giving it, she lets them know. This can be hard for a sensitive person like Skyler.
So about halfway through the school year, Skyler was begging to get out of the class. He thought the teacher didn't like him, etc., etc. I talked to the teacher and she assured me that she liked him very much, but (just as I suspected) she wanted him to do his best. So Skyler stuck with playing. And a month later, when he had to decide whether or not to stay in band in seventh grade, he decided he would take it another year. He had made friends in the class, and I think he even liked knowing how to play.
As he and his trombone classmates prepared for last week's concert he even got excited about the songs they were to play. And during rehearsal when it was all the instruments playing together, he said it sounded awesome.
And he was right. We (myself, husband, Lindsay and three grandparents) enjoyed the concert last week so much. The sixth-grade band sounded amazing. As did the seventh grade. And the eighth grade performed one song with the lights out, and some of them got up in the dark and walked out into the audience. It was very cool.
Hopefully Skyler will stick with it for another few years. I want him to have all the benefits of playing an instrument and being in band, but I also want an excuse to go to the band performances. There can never be enough music in life.

Thoughts on car model names

At my temp job I have the privilege to see lots of car model names (I won't bore you with the details of what the job is). In the past few weeks of doing the job I've seen the myriad names car makers are giving to cars. It's been nine years since I've last bought a car. Apparently I haven't paid attention to car names much since then because most of the names are new to me. This got me to thinking. I think that the names that new cars are given reflects the current state of the culture.
So based on the car names I see, here are my thoughts about the state of our current popular culture.
First of all, where did the originality go? Many of the car names are just letters or numbers. There's the Mazda 3 and 6. There's the snootier BMW 328i (that lowercase "i" really adds a certain appeal, doesn't it?). There's the Audi 93. I could go on, but I can't remember all the makes and numbers. Couldn't they bother to come up with a word to describe these cars? Or perhaps this is what people think is modern and futuristic. Like we're in the Jettsons' age, but without the flying space cars, robots to do the housework, and that cool conveyer belt that would get George ready for work while he wasn't even awake.
Then there are other car names that make me giggle. There's the Navigator. I suppose that's supposed to make the driver feel like he/she won't get lost. Yeah, right.
There's the Pilot. I guess that one's for all the wannabe pilots out there.
There's the Trailblazer. I love that name. I suppose it's meant to make the driver feel like he/she is blazing trails across the wilderness. Of course, most likely you'll just be shuttling back and forth to work (or the unemployment office whichever the case may be), but you can imagine that you're Lewis and Clark on your own expedition.
How about the Lacrosse. There's an exciting name. For me, it conjures up a highly popular sport where the players, um, they play with sticks or bats or something.
There's the Avalanche. Oooh. That's a good one. It makes me imagine I'm on a mountainside swooshing down the slope. Until the snow breaks loose and comes crashing down over me.
There's the Armada. This one always makes me think of the Spanish Armada. And looking up the definition, it does mean a large fleet, and also the Spanish Armada. I guess this car is supposed to appeal to war mongers, or guys with "little dog syndrome," or both.
I have to go now, but I'm not done with this subject. Perhaps I'll make up some car model names of my own.

Our family rocks at trivia night!

Last night we went to a fund-raising trivia night at my mother's church. "We" being my husband, my 12-year-old son, my 4-year-old daughter (who was in childcare for most of the event) and myself. My mother and sister had donated for an entire table. At our table there was my mother, my younger sister and her husband, my older sister and her two adult daughters, and my aforementioned family.
To be sure, we wanted -- and hoped -- to win. Both to win back some of the money my sister and mother had donated, and for the honor. We had a great mix of people that have a wide variety of interests and ages. We felt confident that we would do well. And we did. We earned third place table, narrowly missing second place.
But the real winning came in the fun that we had. We laughed, we cheered, we shouted. We had a fantastic time together. I'm so fortunate to have the family members that I have, and I'm so glad that my children are able to see how much fun families can have together.

Fun in the snow

In the past couple of weeks it has snowed a few times. Despite some really cold weather that came with the snow, there were a few days that were warm enough for the kids to get out and play in it for a bit.

Skyler and Lindsay use an incline at the back of our house to sled down. When there's ice with the snow, a sledder can go all the way to the back of the yard when sledding. The sledding wasn't that good this time, but they still had a good time.