Bipartisan Spirit

This weekend we trekked to Dixon, Illinois for my Aunt Dorothy's memorial service. Because we were up at the crack of dawn on Saturday (thanks to the time-zone change), we had a little time on our hands before the service. Just enough time, it turned out, to visit the boyhood home of Dixon's most famous son, Ronald Reagan. So in the spirit of bipartisanship, here's a pic to counter the Hillary pic from last week.

And on the right there, you can see that Dixon, being the very respectable Land of Lincoln town that it is, also had a giant Abe statue in its riverfront Presidents Park. A two-fer for presidential photo ops in just one morning!

As for the reason for our trip, I will likely blog about that another day.... it was one of the best funerals I've been to in a long time, a real celebration of Aunt Dorothy & her life. But I'm not quite ready to go there yet today...

"I like your hat!"

"I like your hat!"--Senator Hillary Clinton, to O

After church yesterday we surprised O with a trip to Elyria to hear Hillary Clinton stump for Barack Obama.... true, this may not be what every eight year old thinks of as a fantastic way to spend a Sunday afternoon, but it is definitely this eight year old's idea of a great day! We got to hear many local "dignitaries" speak, plus the President of Puerto Rico. Muy bueno! After awhile, this got really long & boring, but he held in there through all two hours of speeches until Hillary took the stage, and that doesn't count the 45 minutes we waited in line outside to get in! We were sort of stage-left (if you consider behind the left side of the stage as stage-left), so we got to see lots of the backs of politicians' heads and lots of Secret Service activity. Pretty cool!

After Hillary's speech, we headed over stage right, where it seemed she would be exiting. Then, when she started signing autographs, we worked our way to the front of the pack. From his excellent perch on P's shoulders, O was able to get Hillary's attention. As she reached to grab the paper he was holding out, she noticed his "Seal of the President of the United States" hat that I bought him at the Ford Museum. She looked right in his little eyes and said, "I like your hat!" and gave him a big smile. And it became one of the best days EVER!!

Back to basics

We're back in the full swing of the school year here, and that means less time for things like blogging... and I miss it! I was surprised about that myself, having truly thought that I'd be a little sick of it by the end of the summer. But I really grew to enjoy it. I guess that's part of my on-going evolution, huh? Look at the old dog learning new tricks!! I know the postings will likely be less frequent for awhile, but I'm really going to try to keep it going... you know, for my loyal fans...

Anyways, in addition to the typical fall line-up of school, work, soccer, and Scouts, we have a couple of projects of note. We are still working on the guest room redo, and are hoping to start painting this weekend. Well, at least we'll spackle and maybe primer... actual paint may be overly ambitious. We have yet to reach the point of total annoyance with the state of the upstairs, so we're still moving at the get-it-done-by-Christmas pace.

We are also in the midst of trying to answer some questions that have been nagging at us for awhile... where does the money go and does it go where we want it to go? It's taken us awhile to figure out what to do to solve these head-scratchers, but we're trying a little something to at least try to gain a little insight. For the months of September, October & November our plan is to buy only what we really need, to keep track of every penny, to buy everything using cash (not even the debit card, but actually cash), and to generally try to tread lighter on the earth. So far, it's been very interesting, and not nearly as hard as one might think it would be. In just the past few weeks we've learned that...

• nothing bad will happen to you if you don't go to Target for two weeks (and you know how I love me a little Target!)
• you can negotiate with the cable company (to the tune of hundreds of dollars a year)
• shopping around for home & auto insurance rates really isn't as painful as you think it will be, and there are some really decent agents out there (most notably the guy who told me to call my existing agent back and ask a very specific question that resulted in my auto rates going down about $350 per year)
• we have a mail-order prescription plan (although the doctor has to write very specific prescriptions so you get what you think you're going to get, but either way it'll save you some bucks)
• you spend a lot less money if you always pay in cash

And as far as the treading lighter on the earth is concerned, I found out that O's school has a paper-recycling dumpster, so I can recycle all the paper that comes through the house and earn the school a little money in the process. The irony, of course, is that most of the paper is from school (homework or memos or newsletters). You gotta wonder if they would need the recycling fundraiser if they would just send less junk home??

The final project to report on is that O & I beat the Lego Indiana Jones game for PS2 that he got for his birthday. We rock!!! Here's the photo evidence....

Time flies...

How is it possibly September?? Our summer-o-fun simply flew by too quickly! We squeezed in one last trip to the pool today on the last day of the season, topping off a fabulous Labor Day weekend. O even made several great dives off the side of the pool, something he's been working really hard to master this summer. Yeah! Here's what else the Labor Day Weekend held for us...

The weekend began with my fabulous husband arriving home from work on Friday with an industrial-strength wallpaper steamer that he rented from Home Depot. Now that's true love! Friday evening while O was out with friends and again for most of the day Saturday, we steamed, and scraped, and steamed some more. I still have some bits & pieces to tackle this week, but for the most part the walls are clear. Hoo-stinking-ray!! We are even feeling so good about our progress that we bought paint today... a lovely shade of yellow called "Pale Daffodil."

Yesterday we spent the day at the Toledo Zoo with our Michigan buddies the Boersts. It was a visit that was long overdue. It was a beautiful day and the kids had a blast exploring the zoo together while we parents sort of tagged along behind chatting. For those of you who met these guys years ago when we were still in Ypsi, you won't believe how grown-up Margaret is now. I still remember the day she was born like it was yesterday. She would have you know that she'll be 11 this year! Crazy how time flies, and flies, and flies... Here's a picture of the girls & O and then a great family shot that P took of them.

On the way home, we stopped in Milan to see if the Edison's Birthplace Museum was open (for the edification of the self-proclaimed "history buff" with whom we travel). It was not, but we stumbled upon the Milan Melon Festival and just couldn't pass that one by. It was the quintessential Ohio small-town festival. We did some world-class people-watching while we munched our kettlecorn, then O rode the most spinniest ride he could find, got a skull tattoo, and it was back on the road. As a side note, can you imagine being the Milan Melon Queen? A delicate moniker you'd have to explain to anyone outside the metropolis of Milan, I'm sure...

That brings us back to today. In addition to the pool outing, P&O rode 10 miles on the towpath this morning while I went to work for awhile. Yep, it's back to life, back to reality around here! While Melissa & I cleaned and organized at school this morning, we talked awhile about the incredible summers we had... She had set out to have no regrets this summer, to have done all she & her boys wanted to do. I had declared this the "Summer of Fun." We would have as much fun as we possibly could, every day. We both agreed it was a terrific success of a summer, and that it sure is hard to see it come to an end. Somehow declaring this season the "Fall of Fun" just doesn't sound the same!