Magic

Ryan: Mom, I want to do a magic trick for you in my room.

Me: Okay.

Ryan: Sit down here. See this coin? I'm going to make it go in my ear. Excuse me for a second. ::disappears behind bed:: Don't look!
A few seconds pass..."Abracadabra". He emerges from behind the bed, head tilted to the side. The coin falls from the upper ear almost before I could even see it there.

Ryan: Did you see that? It feel out of my ear. I'm amazing, aren't I?!

hmmm

I can't help but wonder if it is someone [from the children's cartoon company that shall remain nameless]'s idea of a joke to create the chorus "Shake, shake, shake your peanuts!" for a show geared toward an age group that generally doesn't pronounce its 't's. This keeps reoccurring to me each time I hear my innocent little Lily around the house singing this line over and over without the "t" sound. It's just not right.

Nuts

I'm sitting here snacking on some mixed nuts and I decide to look at the ingredients to see how much other stuff I'm eating (plus I kind of want to find out what the big nut is). So I see peanuts, cashews, almonds, Brazil nuts, hazelnuts, pecans, peanut and/or cottonseed oil, salt. Cool not too much "extra" stuff. Then the big bold lettering just below the ingredients jumps out at me...contains: peanut, cashew, almonds, Brazil nut, hazelnut, pecan. Well, duh, I just read the ingredients. It makes me want to go check my milk label to see if it says, "Contains: MILK." While I'm in the fridge I'll check to see if the egg carton says, "Contains: EGGS." Now I'm all for allergy labeling. I've found it helpful on several occasions, but I just think it's a little silly to list allergy ingredients that are practically the only ingredients. If I'm buying nuts I know there are nuts.

All About the Cars

Our Father's Day was all about cars. Jay loves cars, so this is a fitting tribute to him as a dad. We started the day with breakfast at Jay's favorite breakfast restaurant. Then we went to church. Conveniently our church has a Father's Day car show every year, so we stayed to check out all the cool cars. It's amazing to me that our church can actually put on such a great car show. The first year we went I thought it was going to be some rinky dink little thing where we look at a couple cars and go home. I was pleasantly surprised that first year and each year it has gotten even bigger and better.

Here is our crew (minus me of course because I'm taking the picture) in front of a cool Mustang.

The guy who owns this Model T let my kids crank it:-) He was so nice.

Those were my two favorite cars of the show, but I'm partial to Mustangs and old fashioned cars. There was an old Bel Air there that my kids commented "looks just like Flo." It's kind of funny that they relate old cars to a cartoon movie. I guess that shows what a good job the artists did. Jay and Ryan were in their element. Jay must have excitedly called, "Ryan come look at this!" 50 times or more. Some of the things you would have heard if you were with us at the car show..."This car has a parachute to slow it down because it goes so fast!"; "There's no engine in the front of this car! What do you think happened to it?! Oh, look it's in the back."; "Look how the doors on this car open!"; "Look at that big engine!"; Lily saying, "Look! A monser twuck!"

After all the excitement of the Car show I took the wheel to take the family to Jay's surprise Father's Day outing. We went to this really cool place called Ride Makerz. The best way I can describe it is like Build a Bear for cars. You pick out a chassis, wheels, rims and accessories. You even get to make a certificate that comes with a personalized license plate for your car.

Here is Jay putting his car together.

Here he helps Zach do his.

This one is Jay helping Ryan attach his monster truck accessories.

Lily loved putting these "skins" on her Mini.


Of course as soon as we got home it was time to find batteries and test out the new cars. That lasted quite a while. Then Jay's parents came over for dinner and the kids got to stay up a little late to visit which is always special for them. All in all a pretty fun day. I hope Jay enjoyed his day because we sure enjoy him being the dad in our family.

PS Just so you don't think I forgot my dad, I did call him after dinner and the kids called him while we were waiting to be seated for breakfast.

Bagger

Dear Bagger at the local grocery store,

When someone spends a dollar each on cloth bags it might be a clue that they are environmentally conscious. It is almost certainly an indication that they want you to use them, especially if they send them down the conveyor first. The fact that you asked if I wanted you to bag in them is fine. The fact that you only filled them half full and then proceeded to use an inordinate number of blue plastic bags is not fine. I thought when you asked me if it was okay to put 2 milks in one bag that you got it, but when you double bag the two milks what is the point really. While I grant you that the cashier's suggestion that you double bag something that heavy was probably wise, if you are going to use two bags just put one in each- two milks in one bag is kind of heavy. Before I even left the store I removed the bagels from the bag with two loaves of bread because well, I don't like my bread squished. Lucky for me there was lots of room right on top in my new eco-friendly bags. I was struck by the irony of your bagging practices when I got home and discovered a bag with one package of Oreos. Another bag had just one bottle of juice- this I can understand depending on when else there is to bag. Still another bag had two boxes of snacks, this one would have easily fit the Oreos. About 10 yogurts were spread between 3 bags, all containing something else, but none close to full. In short, I think you need some bagging lessons.

Sincerely,
Jen- a customer who cares about the environment, but still would like to get my groceries home in good condition.