A tip Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. Then when you do criticize them you are a mile away and you have their shoes.
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I’m working on a detailed blog of our trip, but it will take more time (perhaps energy is a better word) than I can muster right now. Here is some blog shorthand:
Squirt is a natural fly fisherman. He is 2 for 3 in days that he caught more fish than his uncle.
Our Washington friends and family are gracious hosts, regardless of how late we arrive looking for shelter.
Both of my boys have fish-grins. Fish-grin is a special face formation that only occurs during and immediately after getting fish slime on their hands.
 Secret Fishing Hole The amount of clothing in my suitcase plus the available washer/dryers we’ve been allowed to use equals 25 pounds too much.
Squirt was taught smack-talking about fishing accomplishments by Roy’s long time fishing buddy. His fish are QUALITY, and PROUD, and MONSTERS. Fish caught by others are GUPPIES.
 Happiness defined We miss living in Seattle and we miss living in Boise. This does not mean we don’t love Florida!
Sleep is difficult to accumulate on the road.
Stampede Teriyaki is BY FAR my favorite restaurant, and sushi is not as bad as I thought. Mongolian Beef is beyond delicious!
Friends who take Squirt camping so we can have a peaceful night alone are priceless.
I think this box I’m looking at is Turbo blog post… lets see… just in case it works, here is a pic from Liz’s visit.  Digging for treasures
I remember what I was doing when I was eleven. We had just moved from California to Washington state. It was cold! I had a t-shirt that said I <heart> San Diego and I told my parents every day that as soon as I was 18, I was LEAVING! On my 18th birthday I was packing up and heading back to San Diego. Admittedly, snow was cool, and I liked playing in it, but all my friends were in CA. I don’t remember liking boys. I don’t even remember noticing boys. They just weren’t on my radar.
Does it make me old to compare my eleven to the eleven of today? Today’s eleven had a first quasi date last night at Skate World. I intended to rent some skates and spend my time showing off all my moves, but reality set in before I put them on. How would I get back up when I inevitably fell? :O) Instead I sat, banished to the mother’s area, watching the show while pretending I didn’t know any of them. (Isn’t eleven too young to decide it would be embarrassing if I said hello to his friends?)
Today’s eleven met his ‘girlfriend’ and her friends there. There were five eleven year old girls, four of which followed the one I named The Queen. The Queen marched from one end of the rink to the other with her subjects following along behind. She dictated who talked to whom and where the group went. My poor eleven year old is smitten with one of the Queen’s subjects and followed the group around waiting to be chosen as One Who Can Be Spoken To.
Eleven is too young to learn how cruel a group of girls can be to a lone boy and eleven is too young for a group of girls to exhibit that behavior. I’m certain this didn’t occur in my life until I was 13 or 14! The message from the royal court was clear… a different boy was the object of affection for my eleven year old’s girl.
The now broke and broken hearted one came home with me after about an hour. Clearly he inherited the generosity and big heart of his family. He said to me, ‘The worst part is, I bought her everything she wanted’. A substantial chunk of his birthday money had been selflessly lavished upon One Who Is Unworthy. (my opinion)
Eleven is too young to learn this lesson. So I question myself… was it wrong to take him where he so desperately wanted to go? Could I have spared him these lessons for a few more years? Regardless, how do you teach someone so young to treat women like treasures and buy them a soda, but don’t try to buy their affection?
Life will go on. Eleven will be come twelve, fifteen, thirty. My hope for him is that he will keep his big heart and generosity without allowing the elevens of the world to make him bitter.
Now I have to laugh at myself. If I remember correctly, the devastation of a night like last night will be soon lost and forgotten for other events, good and bad. I will remember this much longer than he will.
It looks like a great day to take a couple young boys sailing.
When the pool warms up you know the afternoon temperatures have risen over 80 degrees for several days. Overnight it’s been warm too, so the pool is just right! We’ve only been in a couple times so far… I think we are getting used to having a pool!
Roy is enjoying his new truck and is finally getting some help at work. His favorite co-worker gave up on her quest to find wrong doing by the company and quit a couple months ago. (My favorite of her ploys involved alleged harassment because she found a sign on her desk that said, simply, “Teamwork”. I had to laugh!) He has been unofficial assistant coach for the baseball team again this year and is sad the grass has started growing again.
Remotely managing the administration duties in Pompano Beach, FL, has been most of my world lately. This is our newest branch and they have just six employees so far. They don’t want to take on another person yet who won’t have a full 40 hours of work to do and they asked if I would handle it. Of course I will! Next week I’ll fly down for a couple days again and will continue short trips once or twice a month for the next six months or so. It is a fun project! I needed some extra work so this is a good thing all around.
Squirt has been busy. His baseball team is doing great, winning more than they lose. His spring concert is next week and he has a short solo on the saxophone. As excited as he is about that, each morning he says he can’t wait for it to be over so he won’t have to carry that giant box back and forth to school. I’ll have to get a picture of that in the morning… between the back pack and the sax, there is more stuff to carry than there is kid to carry it. We’re proud of him for sticking to it. He wanted to quit back in the fall but we insisted he see it through.
His grades are good! He is three little points away from making A/B honor roll for the second time this year! We’re proud of him for that too!
Science projects are due next week. This time he chose water filtration as his subject, and he finished early (yay!). It goes something like this:
Take 1 cup of dirt, 1 tsp of soap and 1 cup of water. Mix well. Do this three times. Set up three mason jars with three filtration systems. Cotton, foil and plastic. Poke holes in the foil and plastic. He correctly theorized that the cotton would do the best cleaning of the mud. Here are some photos for your enjoyment:
 Setting it up
 Testing theories
 The finished product. From left: Plastic, foil and cotton
Let’s see… life is continuing on as usual. Squirt starred in his own drama called “When Baseball Meets Brand New Truck”. It will be awhile before he works off that $500…
Went to the beach last weekend for the first time this year. The water was still chilly but it didn’t keep the kids from wave diving. Afterwards they tried to make a better sand castle than mine. I think mine was better but I only took one picture off my phone.
Enjoy your week!
 Build it better...
Or was it the neighbor? Ever since Midnight went to live with Matt, we’ve enjoyed not having to step over the baby gate when doing laundry. We like not having to get a sitter when we leave town. We talked about it. We were sure we didn’t want another dog.
Yet it took just one event to invalidate all our practical reasonings. The neighbor’s got a chihuahua a few weeks ago (ChiChi). Today, their daughter caught Squirt in the yard and told him her predicament. She has ChiChi’s sister, who doesn’t get along with their other dog. Would we take her?
Meet Cocoa and her very excited new owner:
 Cocoa
Last night Squirt had one of his best friends sleep over. This morning they made blueberry muffins and ate like they hadn’t eaten in a week. They each had six muffins, two pieces of toast, two scrambled eggs, and a big pancake! Wow!
While they were eating, they debated a very important theoretical problem. If the house was crammed full of pancake, what would you do? John said he would just “work his way through it” which we all thought was a good plan. Squirt changed the food to shrimp and crab, and we agreed we would take the long way to the front door. When John changed the food to fudge covered brownies, he claimed to have ”reservations” in the living room and kitchen. I had to admit I’d make a bee line for the door or risk getting very sick.
So what kind of food would you cram into your house and what would be your plan for getting through it?
Update: Here are a couple pictures… Squirt with his tomato plant and showing off his moves with the hula hoop!
 Looks good so far!
 Making it look easy
Why doesn’t it post for itself? Certainly it hasn’t been that long since the last one…
It seems I’ve exposed one of my biggest, baddest personality traits… that I severely dislike HAVING to do anything. Even when I’ve set the rules myself (I will post once a week…) it becomes nearly impossible for me to comply. It makes me laugh even though I am not proud of it.
This post is a test to see if I have any readers left. If everyone has stopped hoping that the page would change, I will totally understand!
As a side note, we’re all doing great. The boys are well into basketball, Squirt is 75% through the Florida standardized testing for his grade, and I’ve been avoiding obeying myself (to write a new post). That’s about it! <grin>
New rule… I don’t have to post, ever. I can write, or not, at my whim and my own discretion.
Here’s hoping that works!
Some tape and imagination make…. a bow and arrow! It’s been cold here….brrrr… so “big yellow” had to come out of the closet. Amazing he’s been wearing that coat since he came to live with us! Next year it will probably be too small… he’s growing like a weed.
 Robin Hood
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Good Advice Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
-Regina Brett, "45 Lessons Life Taught Me"
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