Nerd in training

This child is 6 years old.  Reading the newspaper.  With his legs crossed.  Watch out world.  A new king nerd is blooming.

On our Teton's trip last August he lost his second front tooth.  He really lost it.  Somewhere in the truck. It was a panicky time, involving lots of tears.  We SEARCHED that truck and eventually found the tooth, which we quickly bagged up so the tooth fairy could do her thing. So...we found the tooth, unlike Jordan's keys.  That's another story.

Making pennies scream

We raised our kids on a tight budget.  Very tight.  More than once John-boy would wear holes through the bottom of his shoes (he was a very active kid) and we'd turn him lose barefoot until we could afford to replace his shoes.   When Pauly-pocket was ready to graduate from high school we took him and Tonto-wanto-beans out for dinner, for the first time that either of them remember.  The waitress said: "Do you want soup-or-salad."  Pauly-pocket said, "Yes." The waitress asked again, "Do you want super-salad?" and Paul answered, emphatically, "YES."  Poor child.  He had no experience with the typical eat-out menu.   

So, it should be no surprise that we still pinch those pennies until they scream, roll over, and crawl into a crack.  On our spring break we stayed at this stellar establishment in Green River, Utah.

Here we are fixing breakfast on the grill on the patio.  The breakfast was delicious.  

The importance of toilet paper

When I was a teenager there was a huge push at church for family preparedness in case of emergencies. Families were challenged to go for a month without any shopping to see how well they would fare in surviving on their storage. My mom and dad accepted the challenge! It is a tribute to my mom's awesome cooking that we ate well and that she could whip up an amazing meal from simple ingredients found in our store room. HOWEVER, we quickly found out how much toilet paper a family of 7 kids and 2 parents would could run through. I remember some pretty serious discussions at family meetings about using one square. Near the end of the month my folks were encouraging us to go play with our friends and please use their bathrooms before coming home.
My own children probably wonder why every available drawer in each bathroom is stuffed with toilet paper, and why an entire shelf in our store room is devoted to toilet paper. Now you know. 
The other thing I will never run out of is.....