Took the boys out shopping last week to spend some gift cards and return a couple Christmas items (from the late January family gathering). Mr. Tightwad, my oldest son Fox, actually pulled some cash to invest in his own new computer. I was shocked but excited for him. He bought a tower and is still using his old monitor, now all his computer games work much faster and we see him even less than before (wink). For his birthday I'll hook him up with a new streamlined monitor.
Ethan and Ben made the choice to return their "fully-automatic" Nerf machine guns they got from their uncle after realizing they both took 6 C-batteries and 2 AAs to operate, plus it took ANOTHER type of bullets than we already had a supply of and these were so small that 18 were lost on the first time they tried the gun. Seriously, we have yet to find them, maybe the dog ate them? Thankfully they had only opened one to test it. I think they made great trades, ending up with a Draw to Life DS game, Plants vs Zombies DS game, 2 Star Wars Lego kits, 1 Pirates of the Caribbean Lego kit, a free Anakin Skywalker Pod, and a Lego Police set. 
Puppy training is going well, at least when I'm in charge of her, she hasn't been having any accidents in the house. However when I'm not here and the boys are in charge it's a totally different story..... She even went for her first "big girl" walk with Jake and I to the back of the property and LOVED IT. Couldn't even keep her on the leash because she wanted to run with her big brother so I let her go but she stayed by us the whole time and had a blast romping around in the snow. I must be getting soft in my old age because I've been letting her sleep in my room at night, she stays quiet instead of whining all night long in the crate, and makes it until my alarm goes off in the morning to go outside and take care of business. During the day she is crated most of the time with designated outside and play breaks.
Know what these are? Now I do. Had my first ever "well-woman" mammogram, I'm sure they're going to be the best lookin' slides they've ever seen! All blood work came back excellent. I've also lost 10lbs since my doctor visit....woot! well, according to my scale that is. Rob, the calibration expert, tells me don't trust the doctor's office scales anyway because more times than not they aren't calibrated correctly....not sure how to take that. Fox got his braces on, but I haven't even attempted to grab a snap of him yet with them. You can see from the above picture that he wasn't to keen on me sneaking into his room to surprise him for a picture....teenagers!
It has been a meeting-filled couple of weeks for me. I have been very blessed to be in talks with superintendents from three school districts in the area to discuss offering virtual and elective classes to homeschoolers. Although my kids are full-time enrolled at public school I have always hoped for a way to merge the two styles of education and with the state now allowing more flexibility many schools are moving toward opening their student base. One district I was in talks with has always been open to working with homeschoolers in various capacities, which is thankfully my home district and is, without much pomp and circumstance, letting people know they are still willing to do so. When Benjamin was little we took advantage of the speech therapy program even though we homeschooled and had no problems from the powers that be. When I went to register Alexandra for high school they were very accommodating and non-judgemental, however that has not been the case with alternative students in many other districts in the area. Another Super is working diligently to put together a complete and comprehensive partnership program which will prove to be a very exciting option when it all comes together. The last one was from a pretty small district comparatively and in my opinion the least informed on the ideals and philosophy of homeschoolers and how to capture them into their district. Since we continue to yearly assess the kids' education I'm glad to keep in the loop about options especially since Ethan has continually brought up returning to homeschooling. He does fine academically but there are social issues that tend to bring him down a bit. We're going to take a tour at the Chatfield School hopefully next week to investigate that avenue more fully. Also met with the high school counselor about Fox's schedule and was able to get him out of the Critical Reading class (the kid is in AP English and reads 'Society of Mind' for fun) with the blessing of the English department head and instead he'll take Intro Macrobiology which is usually a 10th grade class. 
In addition to all that I had a sit-down with our Superintendent about putting together some afterschool enrichment classes. He was very interested and although I had a target start for next Fall he encouraged me to see what I could offer during the summer. Made a few initial calls and emails, updates to follow. Last night was a fun night out with my "choir buddies", several of whom are those I am looking forward to working with on the enrichment classes idea. We went to the Redwood Lodge for dinner, I had the fantastic Salmon Oscar, then over to the Flint Institute of Music for an incredible free faculty concert featuring jazz pianist Roger Jones, drummer extraordinaire Nate Winn, and talented bassist Nick Calandro. Truly a good time with good people.One of the ladies recently attended a seminar about green burial and gave us an update during dinner. When I announced gleefully to Robert this afternoon that I found out when he kicks the bucket I can bury him in the backyard he was a little surprised. lol But seriously I'm going to look into claiming an acre as a family cemetery, from what she explained it's very simple to do.
Happy early Valentine's Day people, hope it's filled with sweetness inside and out!
