warning: this post may bore you

My kids had a whole week of early out (meaning the get out of school at 1:25 instead of 3:25) last week, and that just seemed to throw my schedule out of whack. I don't think I did a whole lot that whole week, but the point of the early outs was so the teachers would have time to do SEP conferences. These aren't like the old parent/teacher conferences my parents used to go to, where they'd sit around and talk about the kid. The kids are invited to these (therefore, the STUDENT, EDUCATOR, PARENT conference). And don't even get me started on how they separate parent and educator, like parents don't educate their children! In any event, we had good conferences. We had to do Sophie's the week before, because her teacher had to be out of town that week. And Sophie had the "meanest substitute ever!" I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, but when I was at the school and saw her I actually had to agree. OK, maybe not the meanest EVER, but she didn't seem very nice.

So, back to the conferences, they have to set goals. Sophie's teacher pretty much left it up to us a family to work on. Chloe's teacher had already set some goals for Chloe, but then we added one of our own -- to work on piano lessons. So, yesterday I worked on getting some material together for it. I'm going to give Jon Schmidt's approach a try. He has this "67 Fun Songs" book that is supposed to teach 2 years of note reading in 10 weeks. So, I sat down a made a CD for Chloe of the 67 fun songs. He doesn't recommend starting them before age 8, so that's why I put it off, but she seems very ready and isn't that far off.

Oh, which brings me to her 8th birthday. I think we've been talking about her trip for 3-4 years now, but for those who may be out of the loop we're taking her to Nauvoo (and Liberty, Independence, Far West, Adam-Ondi-Ahman, Carthage, Hannibal and St. Louis). I've had every detail of the trip worked out since her last birthday, but have been waiting to get plane tickets. You wanted to hear the long version of this, right? So, the airlines only sell tickets like 330 days in advance, so once I reached that day I started watching them. I soon realized I could get a way better deal on Frontier than I could any other airline, but they don't live by the 330 day rule. They don't seem to have a rule, as far as I can tell. But one day they FINALLY put their tickets on sale -- for the day we wanted to LEAVE. Unfortunately, the weren't ready to sell tickets for our return flight. I didn't want to buy the one ticket, and then be left without a return ticket, so I waited. I watched almost daily for 2 months as flights just seemed to be getting more and more expensive (not the direction I wanted them to go in). Then one day, just as I was thinking me may have to give up and drive, something magical happened. Frontier put our return flight on sale -- and lowered the other flight over $50 a ticket! I was so ecstatic, I purchased them right away (with some slight consultation from Brandon while he cleaned the carpets). And that put us $500 under budget. I guess our trip was meant to happen after all.

Brandon hurt his back again a couple weeks ago. That's another reason that whole week was kind of messed up. I took him to the doctor Monday morning (and learned some interesting things about that guy), but he just gave Brandon MORE medicine. I don't think that's what Brandon wanted to hear. He'd really like to do something to get it taken care of, but nobody seems to think surgery is a good idea for him. The doctor sent another guy over to our house to deliver a "shocking machine" that he's been using every night. He doesn't like it much, but he is improving. Last week he made it to work one day (and another day he drove all the way down there, only to discover he couldn't walk from his car to the office so he turned around and drove home). This week he's gone in every day!

I had those tickets to "Disney On Ice" for last Friday, but the way Brandon was feeling there was no way he could sit through it, so he offered his ticket to one of Sophie's friends. We took Kiera along with us. It was so fun. The girls were really cute, and well behaved! Kiera was a little hesitant to leave her mom, but once we got in the car they were having a good time. Chloe had been at a birthday party, but I had to pick her up early to leave. She brought a big 'ol bag of candy home from that they shared in the car. That may have added to the excitement. So, about 5 minutes into the show the girls are just mesmerized. I looked over and Kiera was giving me a thumbs up. I said, "You like it, huh?" And she just goes, "Better than I expected!" I even have a picture to go along:

I haven't been very good at getting my camera out lately. My "daily pictures" project is going down the drain. I did have a photo shoot last Saturday, and another one today, but I didn't get any of Brandon lying in bed. He'll probably forgive me. If you've read this far, "CONGRATULATIONS!" This is what you get when I don't blog for awhile. I'll try to be better at updating more often.