HAVING FUN ON A FRIDAY NIGHT

What do you do for fun on a Friday night?

Is it your 4th grade son's Science Fair Project?
(Then your project must have been due on Monday, too!)

Joshua wanted to find out which brand of paper towels is the strongest (when comparing Albertson's store brand, Bounty, Brawny, and Viva paper towels).
He placed penny rolls on paper towel strips, and counted the number of rolls each held until they "Let 'er rip!"

First he did a dry run.

Then wet.

What can I say? The boy is brilliant.

Friday night homework is awesome.

And Viva, by the way, is strongest.

RANDOMLY PICTURESQUE. . .AGAIN

More pictures of our /(hopefully) for your enjoyment:

Fish heads, fish heads. . .

Roly-poly fish heads. . .


Fish heads, fish heads. . .


Eat them up,

YUM!!

These were pictures taken on our excursion to Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo, Japan. This is where the restauranteers, shop owners, hotels, etc. come to purchase their fish for the day.

Michael was fascinated. I was flabbergasted--I didn't even know so many types of fish existed, let alone were "edible."

My favorite part, though, was the sign we read as we left the market:

Occasional injuries, it seems, are quite acceptable!

RANDOMLY PICTURESQUE. . .

Today's picture comes to us from Island Park, Idaho, summer 2008. More specifically, this picture was taken at Yellowstone National Park last August. We were visiting the park with the entire Vance-clan, and made other (perhaps the less fashion-conscious?) family members laugh when we, the Michael Vance family, all hopped out of the car dressed in plaid shorts. Five-plaid-people was not planned, but it sure made for a pretty picture!
Now that I think of it, this should have been our family picture for those 2008 Christmas cards I never sent out. . .Happy Holidays!

II BORING

Today was much the same as yesterday.

Substitute chiropractor for the orthodontist, and fried potatoes for the chicken, and you pretty much have my day.

What you don't have is this picture (I've decided to post a random pictures until my life gets more exciting):

This was taken after our 2008 Easter Egg hunt.

Every year (5 years running now) we get together with our friends and have an Easter Egg hunt. You can see that our kids are much older than theirs, so the dads make sure to level the "hunting" field. It is very, very entertaining. Very, very not boring. I can hardly wait for April now!

And in closing...today's wittiness (care of Lane): What do you call a lady with one leg shorter than the other?
Eileen.

Ha! Like you've never heard that one before!

DELINQUENT

Blog? What blog?

Oh, you mean that one where I'm supposed to write updates every now and then, hopefully with something clever and witty to keep a reader coming back? And, if not that, at least a picture or two for looks?

Oh, yeah. That.

I would gladly update all my followers (apparently I have one--thanks, Colin, I'm flattered!), and be witty and picturesque to boot, but...frankly...my life is rather boring.

For example, today I:

• Went to the orthodontist (remember that retainer I get to wear?). Very boring. Unless, of course, you're the orthodontist--which you are not--and get to look into my mouth, or the receptionist who thought my striped boots were awfully cute--which they are.
• Went grocery shopping and bought chicken. Similarly boring. However, I did get to see the mile and three quarters long line next door at Denny's since there was many a hungry soul wanting their free Grand Slam breakfast until 2:00 deal. No breakfast is worth standing outside. Ever. Free shoes, on the other hand, would probably entice me. Free shoes would also be something very exciting to write about.
• Went to visit a sick friend. Not boring, but not noteworthy, either. I did give her a piece of fruit leather as a treat, though. That's noteworthy. It's also all I could find in my purse. Oh, and cough drops.
  
• Did the dishes. So boring. So very, very boring.
• Made dinner. Chicken. Boring.
• Picked up Joshua from school. He's not boring, but he is a little naughty, and he escaped my sight and walked home instead of to Cub Scouts. Bother.
• Got Joshua from home and walked him to Cub Scouts. Bother, bother.
• Decided to once again revive my ancient past-time of blogging. Boring, for you. A stretch of the imagination for me.
• Oh, yeah. I also made Lane practice and Evan clean up his snack. So there you go. I'm predictable, too. And so are they.

So that's that. I updated.

Here's wittiness: (from the latest Cub Scout Pack Meeting)

Two cows were standing together in a field. One said, "Moo."
"Hey! I was about to say that!"

And, to finish things off with a bang, a picture to fulfill my blogging duties:

My father-in-law
(granted, it was taken at Halloween, but still my father-in-law)

And, because I cannot resist:

My husband and his Momma.

Yes, we're sad the kids don't take after me...delinquency notwithstanding.

BREATHING DEEPLY

A few pictures of my walk outside this morning:

This is smog, folks. No blue sky around here.

The air quality is so bad, kids aren't allowed to play outside at school--poor kids, and poor teachers--for the past 5 days! Blurbs on the news urge everyone to avoid exercising (I'm SO good with that), drive less (like, not to the gym, right?), and not use their wood-burning stoves (again, since ours has a T.V. balanced on top of it, I think we will obey).

As we walked to school today, sleeve covering Joshua's mouth, I told him how this was just the way the sky looks in Tokyo.

"Guess you wasted a lot of money going over there, then," was his quick reply.

Guess not!

GOLDEN

We're all familiar with this, surely. I know my children, at least, should be.

I've tried hard to help them understand the way we should treat others, and that home is a great place to practice it.
Apparently, we've still got some practicing to do...

For example, I fold my children's laundry when I find it left in the dryer.

But I find my laundry like this:

I play nursemaid to the sickies, such as poor Lane, who just had his wisdom teeth removed.

But Lane, upon hearing me cough up a lung, said, "Geez, Mom, it sounds like you're coughing up a lung, or throwing up or something."
"Thanks for not coming to see if I'm all right, Angel of Mercy."
"Yeah, well, I listened. You didn't fall down or anything."

Touching. Typical.

Then, in one beautiful, golden moment, I found this:

An emptied dishwasher,

done by someone other than myself. Yes, golden. Glorious, even.

Of course, as we reviewed for a test today I asked the golden child/dishwasher-do-gooder to give me an example of a comparative adjective.
"Okay," he quickly replied. "I am cuter than you."

Oh, Robert Frost, how well you said it..."and Eden sinks to grief" (otherwise read as, and Keri goes back to business as usual!)...