I’m still working on posts for the July 4th weekend. As part of the festivities, Jeremy made Korean BBQ! Jeremy made this on an indoor grill which was given to him by a Korean friend, so the grill was going back to its roots.
Edda doesn’t seem incredibly excited, but she did enjoy the bulgogi.
There are tax-related propositions this November for the States of Washington & Oregon. In Washington, there is a proposed income tax for families making $200,000.00 or more. In Oregon, there is a proposed sales tax for out-of-state visitors.
We live along the state line in Washington. If passed, I am sure that $200,000.00 limit will be lowered gradually every year until it catches 80% of all the population. And as the sales tax is concerned, Oregon is trying to balance its budgets with some extra income. It may work and it may not. It all depends on how expensive gasoline will cost.
In November, we are going to vote “NO” in Washington State 🙂
This long weekend, we dogsat Sweet Pea, Ruby’s dog cousin. Sweet Pea is a French poodle and is a very proper lady. She was a little nervous staying at our house, always on the lookout for trouble.
We took the two dogs and two kids to the dog park where Ruby got a spa treatment. We left a huge pile of dog hair behind.
Sweet Pea’s family had gone to Hershey Park and they came back with the world’s largest Hershey’s kiss!
Some one is excited.
Jeremy does not like fireworks. I like fireworks – but because Jeremy doesn’t like them (and I don’t like going places with difficult parking situations by myself), I have not gone to a 4th of July fireworks extravaganza in fifteen years! I can’t believe it has been that long.
This was the year that Vince finally asked to go see fireworks. As fireworks were after Edda’s bedtime, she and Jeremy stayed at home. We did not go to DC, opting for the one a mile from our house. Jeremy and Edda drove us and dropped us off, we walked back.
Vince is not a patient wait-er:
My lame firework photo (to see an amazing firework photo: click here):
Vince loving it:
We had a really nice long weekend – now it’s back to work for all of us, Edda finally joins us for scheduled fun, she starts summer school tomorrow! It’s going to be a hot week!
After a few nasty falls, we finally decided to put a helmet on Edda. I’ve been avoiding the helmet strictly based on vanity (which may get me docked points on my parenting report card) because nothing screams DISABLED more than a helmeted head. But I guess safety trumps vanity in the end.
Edda spends a lot of the day pacing the house and a lot of the time, we are in the same general vicinity of her, but certainly not close enough to catch her when she falls. I’ve tried to keep the pacing area clean (difficult for my messy tribe), (small toys esp. the ones with wheels, misplaced shoes and the sleeping dog are all hazards), but sometimes Edda just stumbles over her own two feet or misses an attempt to sit on the couch and bonkers her head.
And often enough, we (or the school staff) are shadowing her (right next to her side) and she tumbles and even though theoretically one could catch her, it is actually pretty hard to have the lightning reflexes necessary to catch her each time. And as she grows taller and heavier, she the falls are getting harder on her poor head.
As soon as we decided that vanity was not going to win out, we stuck a Dora bike helmet on her while we decided which helmet to order. We searched for a helmet that wasn’t too ugly, too big, or too expensive and we found, the Playmaker Headgear. We found it on Rehabmart for $81.86 – down 36% from $126.06, we found it on Amazon for $50 – but Jeremy wanted it in red in size small. We finally called the manufacturer, Playmaker, and explained the situation and they had it in stock and were willing to sell it to us for $37! And they upgraded shipping for us! Awesome company :).
So here’s her new helmet (is soft padded, no hard shell), it is a rugby helmet (sized small – it does come in x-small, are there any 3-year-old rugby players?):
The second day that she had it, Eliana surprised me and pulled Edda’s hair in two pony tails and pulled them through some holes in the helmet (I just about fell over laughing):
How cool are we with our head protection? Damn cool.
We finally got Vince’s hip hop performance downloaded and edited down to just his performance. I know you have been on the edge of your seats waiting for the video. Enjoy (he’s the 2nd from the right)!
A few days ago, we wrote up a list of summer chores. Jeremy got a lot of kitchen chores, Vincent is trying to work on spelling word wall words and taking out the trash, I’m in charge of lawn mowing and laundry, Edda’s chores are to go on at least one neighborhood walk a week and to get used to going to the pool. I was thinking today that I should just cross off Edda’s chore list and just say that her summer chore is to get tan! That will mean that she’s outside a lot and moving her body or just enjoying the outside world.
Edda on her neighborhood walk this morning – out at the dog park!
Ruby is not very good at living up to her name – “RETRIEVER”. She chases the ball, gets the ball and sits down and chews on the ball. No retrieving this morning.
Edda all fancy behind a fence.
Finally, I got all my car tags in order. Small town has its advantage, no rush, fewer people in line, more common sense approach & friendly services.
Our backyard grass was waist tall. No more, I cut it down gradually with the gas-powered trimmer. Some of the tall grass with wild flowers are really lovely to watch. Mom would like to save some.
Well, yesterday we just got our 42″ TV with an antenna of course, not cable. The reception is better than ours in Washington DC. We also ordered to intall a two door garage door opener. Our house together with Mom & Dad, is on the road to modernize, not high tech yet 🙂