What's going on with us?

So how about an update? Well, Lestat started school this week. He's doing
fairly well. He did have one incident on a bus yesterday where he thought
he would make someone stop singing when they chose not to stop singing when
asked. He felt kicking that person might help. It didn't. He's also had
some recent problems with using foul language when in the presence of
adults. Kids are going to talk like they do when around their friends. As
we were kids and probably did the same thing (yeah you did.don't lie to
yourself), we grew up and learned when and with whom it's "safe" to use such
language. He hasn't learned that skill just yet. However, he was good in
school that same day. When he got home, he was told he was grounded and had
to stay in his room. However, I chose a different disciplinary strategy
when I got home. Instead of sitting in his room doing nothing, he got to go
out side!! Yay!! Yes he got to go outside and pull weeds and water the
garden and pick up junk from the yard. He also got to come out of his room
to do laundry, take out he trash, clean up the living room, and maybe one or
two other things that I made him do because I really didn't want to. I
didn't mind watching someone else do them though. Of course I did supervise
each of his actions and did help him out and actually taught him how to do
these things that he didn't know how to do. For crying out loud, he's 9
years old. He should have SOME responsibilities. Yes, he may not do some
things correctly, but the point is he tried. Even if I have to go behind
him and help him out a bit, I really don't mind so long as he did some work.


Of course, the entire time we were working, Lindrielle was right there
practically begging to help. She wants to do everything we do even though
she's obviously too little. Right now, it's enough that she thinks she's
helping. I might have her hand me some clothes from the dirty clothes bin
and then I'll put them in the washer, for example. Obviously, I could have
grabbed more clothes and got the job done a lot faster myself, but so long
as she's got the attitude that she wants to help, I'm going to encourage
that every chance I get.

Lindrielle is talking a lot and can pretty well mimic everything we say.
Unfortunately, it's not always something you want to hear from the mouth of
an over talkative 3 year old with a brain like a sponge. She has a little
difficulty with changing her routine. Since Lestat started up with school
again, we decided that both kids should follow a similar routine. They
shower one after the other and are both put to bed at the same time every
night. She struggled with this at first, but a few days into it and she
knew what was coming and really didn't seem to mind.

My sister Bobbie got married a couple weeks ago. She had a really good time
in Jamaica for her honeymoon. I gained a new nephew and a niece. Uriah
rocks out on the guitar on a regular basis. He has put together a few songs
of his own as well as does several covers of other bands. He does them
very well. I had heard that he plays quite a bit, but hadn't heard him play
until yesterday. Knowing myself and how picky I am with guitarists, and
being a fan of a particular type, I was a bit skeptical on how good he was.
I had, after all, only heard from my sister and his father about how good he
was. Family can be so nice and also be so mean in trying to be nice.
However, I checked out several videos of him playing live on YouTube and I
can honestly say I was blown away. Great job Uriah! As lame as "great job"
sounds. How about this. I'm picky. I have an ear for music and I think
you're very good.

However, I know next to nothing about the art of the guitar and you yourself
are the only one that really knows how good you are. For example, I can do
some yo yo tricks that blow people away even when I mess them up. I kick
myself for messing them up. You may have messed up a bunch of notes that I
didn't know were messed up. See what I mean? Just watching you play,
though, I can tell you know what you're doing and really have a passion for
it. If you ever hit it big one day, whatever that means for you, and you
get a band together and you're out on tour and one of your band members get
injured or sick or whatever, give me a call. I play a mean cowbell.

Maria. I know nothing about how. Forgive me for not divulging any sage
advice or encouraging your talents here. I don't know what they are.

Juanita has been doing pretty great too. She's made some really good
dinners in the last few weeks. Don't get me wrong. She always makes great
meals, but the last few times she's cooked, she's made thing she doesn't
make regularly but she's still done a knockout job. She's anxious and
scared about her near future. I won't get into that here out of respect for
her.

I'm doing good. Just working and coming home for and handling kids for the
most part. I don't mind. However, we did shake things up a bit by going
camping last weekend at the Great Sand Dunes here in Colorado. That was a
lot of fun. That was the first time I've been camping, if you can believe
it. Out in the wild with bears and coyotes and having a good time. I hiked
up to the top of the tallest Sand Dune and had a great time doing it. I
really had to push myself to get up there. I was ready to turn back several
times. Juanita nearly made it to the top but decided to head back to camp
to get dinner going. Turns out, her hike back to camp was probably more
difficult than my hike to the top of the dunes. I have a bunch of pictures
of the camping trip on my flickr page if you care to check it out.
http://www.flickr.com/ub3rn00ber. Enjoy.

Well that's all I have to share for now. I'll be back soon.