mid-june update

We took a trip to El Paso last Friday in an effort to buy a van. The trip was long and boring, El Paso is UGLY! We did not find a van that would work. They all either had too few seats, too many miles, were too much of a piece of junk, too expensive, or belonged ot people that did not want to finance us because either the van was discounted so much they couldn't finance, or we lived too far away, or our credit wasn't good enough, blah, blah, blah.

Sum it up by saying we really wasted the entire day. I never want to go to el paso again. ever. I didn't see one pretty scenic thing. It was hot, dry, and dusty.

We got to keep the truck twice this week so we could go to the pool. We went on Tuesday for about 2 hours. We went today for about 4 hours.

I have found a renewed joy in cooking in a crockpot, partly fueled by the fact that we can only use one burner on the stove here and it is hard to feed a family of nine on one burner. I even did the unthinkable and bought *gasp* a microwave.

Liam has added a few words to his vocabulary. He has stopped saying "da da" and started saying "daddy" but His latest addition was "more" used when we was not adequatly satisfied with the amount of juice Sharla had provided. Actually it was a juice box. I bought juice boxes to teach Liam how to suck out of a straw. I learned this trick many kids ago. They learn to suck out of a straw easier when you "prime the pump" so to speak by sqeezing the box. Liam is a quick learner. It took him one juice box to master the concept.

Liam's favorite new word is "meeeee". Anytime anyone askes a question, liam raises his hand and says "meeeee" just like all of the other kids. It started with "Who wants a popsicle?" Liam's answer "meeeee" and has moved to "how old are you?", "meeeeee" "Where's is your nose?" "meeeee" or anyother question or anything that might sound like a question and liam raises his hands and says "meeeeeee".

He occasionaly says "yep" while copying someone else and he has gotten into saying "hi" to every new person he sees. He is like his daddy, never met a stranger.

Sonja went off the high dive today but not voluntarily. She jumped off the highdive five times on this day and hasn't jumped off since.

The girls are working like crazy on learning information on Africa for their geography bee coming up the end of July.