Date Catch Up, We Should be Much Further Along!

Date 11/52 A Quiet Evening at Home

Date 12/52 Double Date, wine with friends

Date 13/52 The Shopping Shuffle


I have a feeling that in November and December we're going to be counting trips to the mailbox. Urgh, this is harder to fit in than we thought.

Pupdate

Charlie is fitting right in! I feel a bit like I did when Sam was a newborn. Although, I was much younger then! A newborn at my age is ROUGH and that's with the ability to put this little critter in a cage! ha!

Charlie's getting the hang of housetraining, but Old Man Pip is piddling on the housebreaking pads. Pip's also squeezing himself into the itty bitty puppy bed, which is quite funny. The smug look on his face as he settles in is priceless.

Rain rain, go away. This weather is getting old.

How Do You Get to Orchestra Hall?

Sorry the pictures are blurry, but they're the best I got out of the bunch.

How do you get to Orchestra Hall? Practice Practice Practice? (I know, old joke.)

Actually, we got there on big yellow buses.

Sam had an orchestra tour last week. I volunteered to move the drums. So, I moved them, in and out of my car NINE times. Oh, I had help, but it was a little nuts because I didn't get much direction. That's OK, I'm good at rolling with it, so I think that's why Sam's orchestra teacher asked me. It was a harried day and I hardly had the chance to chaperone my group. Thankfully, they're all good kids and so this was an easy day to be distracted.

So, their day was:

• Concert at one elementary school, with all the assorted loading, unloading, tuning, playing, packing up, and loading again.


• Concert at a second elementary school. Same as above.


• Bus ride to Orchestra Hall with a snack along the way.


• A wonderful Four Seasons concert featuring songs about the seasons geared especially towards kids. The concert featured 15 year old violin prodigy, Chad Hoopes. Chad is a local kid who was born to play. Amazing. I asked the boys after the performance what they thought of him. "Good player, but I bet he has no friends and never gets to play video games." Something to consider I suppose.


• Then on to a bowling alley for pizza and a game. I didn't get to spend much time there, though, I had to chaperone the bus for some kids that had to go back to school and take a test and then go pick up my car and the dreaded drums where I had left them.


• Back to the alley to get the kids to clean up, load up, and then back to school to unload the drums.

Somewhere along the journey, Sam's fingerboard came off his bass! Simple repair from what I understand, but at the end of this crazy day it wasn't what I wanted to hear. This is when those Mom Acting Skills come into play. Oh, I had to dig deep, and with a half hearted, "no biggie," we loaded up the broken bass and headed home.

Collapse. Couch. Blissful silence. Get your own dinner night.

All. Worth. It.

Puppy Breath Has Healing Powers

Meet our new friend, Charlie. 10 week old terrier mix from Homeward Bound, the same rescue we got Tucker from. It's a very bittersweet time. We didn't replace Tucker, that could never happen, but life marches on. This has been very good for Sam and for the Old Man Pippin (who we didn't know relied so much on another dog to help him!)

Our Tucker

Our Tucker died this morning after being poisoned. Our hope is that this was some strange accident, and not someone intentionally killing our dog. We don't buy rat poison, but the vet assured me that this was most certainly the cause.

We're devastated. Our little furry friend will be missed.