We took the kids to their first day of school again this year. I really like doing this. The kids didn’t seem all that nervous, but I think they were trying to hide it… especially Taylor.

When it got time for me to take pictures of them in front of the sign, Taylor informed us that “When I am thirteen you are NOT taking pictures of me”. At that point me and her mom, Shannon just laughed and said Good luck with that!

We are pretty excited that Taylor is in the G/T (gifted & talented) program full time this year. Last year, she was only in for science and went back and forth. She never really complained about it to us, but I know it sometimes got to her when she would miss something “cool” in her other class. And, she is SO excited about the 4th grade GT teacher. (Not to mention he is a hottie!) He seemed like a great guy when we met him for the 45 seconds we were there. Aaliyah’s teacher is younger than Mrs. Lewis, last year but seems to really like the kids.

Meet the teacher night is this week, so we will have much more to say after that.

I don’t consider myself one of those hard-core environmentalist type people.  But, I do my part.  I recycle almost everything I can (cardboard, cans, bottles, plastics), I buy cards made on recycled paper as often as I can find one I like on that material, etc.  So, like I said, I do my part, but I don’t go around preaching it to everyone I know.

Though, I am going to comment on it here today…

These companies out there that are “making a difference” and “going green” are full of crap.  Not that the one I am talking about today has actually said those in any advertisements, but pretty much all of the big ones out there do say that in some form or they will have all the Hippie freaks knocking down their doors.

Today I’m speaking about receipts.  Receipts that are five miles long.  Then, the additional coupons that print next to the receipts.  Receipts that have logo’s on them that are over an inch tall.  Receipts that want you to call into an automated system to learn if you won $5000.  (Let me save you the time, no one ever wins those)…..  WASTEFUL receipts.

Adam and I went to pick up a couple of things this weekend.  We needed new air filters for the a/c unit, so we stopped into Lowe’s.  We bought ONE pack of air filters.  The receipt for this ONE item we got???  OVER 14 inches!!!  It was actually one tick mark before the 1/4 mark point.  It was a 16 mark measuring tape and I really can’t figure out what that would be…  So, if you know how to read a measuring tape, let me know.  But, yeah…  14 and one tick mark before a quarter inches long!  WHY?  Why does Lowe’s have to print an almost 14 1/4 inch receipt for ONE item????  We also went to Walgreens.  We bought four things at Walgreens.  That receipt is 12 and one tick before 3/4.  Much better than Lowe’s considering it is shorter AND we got three more items there.  I guess Walgreens needs a big “Bravo!” for saving our environment in such a way.

So, to conclude…  I’m not an environmental nut, I love to recycle and American stores need to stop printing receipts that are 4 miles long.

Rant concluded!

So…  I can’t upgrade the picture gallery plugin that I use on my website.  That is why the last post just had them plopped up there.  I really like the slideshow way that they do it though.  I have a bunch of pictures that I want to upload, but without the slideshow it will tkae up way too much space.  For now, I posted them all on Facebook.  So, I invite you all to rush on over to Facebook and check them out!!

The kids survived camp this week and loved every minute of it.  They did experiments with air, dry ice, electricity, rockets, slime & crystals.  I am sure I forgot a few things there.  Every day they came home with something they made at camp.  The teacher’s names were Professor Butterfly and Dr. Awesome.  So, clearly it was a cool camp.

Thursday we brought McDonald’s up when we picked them up and we played in the adjacent park for a while.  I had a lot of stale bread and buns so we fed the ducks and turtles too.  There were lots of baby turtles and four baby ducks.  Of course, I forgot the camera!

We took them yesterday to edfaHawaiian Falls and we all had a blast!  It is a great family park that really caters to kids and them having fun.  It is a little smaller than the big water parks but still didn’t have to wait in long lines.

The unfortunate thing came at the beginning (and carried over to the end and beyond).  We ran out of sunscreen.  I got everyone else sprayed down, but didn’t get all of my arms and back.  I am a LOBSTER today!  Well, more like a spotted lobster, because we tried to get more out of the bottle and it just spit out at me.  You can see the lovely saddest excuse for sunscreen application ever pictures here:

In other news, Adam’s job is going great.  Granted, he worked from home all last week which was a treat.  He will be back to going to the office early and staying late for the next month to month and a half, at least.  Once they get the new product launched, we hope to go back to “regular” hours.

The kids are with their mom this week, then we only have the month of August before we go back to every other weekend.  We have loved having them here so much!!  It has been great for all of us to spend so much time together.  August will be clothes shopping (Taylor’s least favorite thing to do).  We already did supplies, so we are all good there!  They start school on the 24th.

So, until then……

Hey guys…  Just wanted to let you know Adam and I are still alive!!!  We have been really busy lately and I hope to get back in regular posting really soon.

For those on either of our Facebook pages, Adam got a new job.  Actually started today.  It is really exciting for him (and us).

He had been at his last job for four and a half years.  It is the place we met, so still has special meaning to us.  Remeber last year, when I decided to quit coincidentally he got an offer for another company.  He gave his notice and they countered with a raise and a new position.  He was really excited about the position.  It was as a Software Architect, which means he got to be the designer for how they wrote the software.  Which is what he really wanted to do.

Well, as things go, it didn’t really work that way.  They gave him the title, the responsibility, the blame, but didn’t really allow him to make the changes he wanted or needed to make to make the software they were writing better.

So, we were going to wait till the kids go back to school for the summer and I was going to get a job.  He didn’t want to change jobs with me not having one, just in case it didn’t work out.  Well, as our luck has it, an opportunity fell into his lap.

It is risky though.  The company he is going to has a “reputation” out there in the developer world for not being managed all that great.  The owner has a propensity to go in and fire entire teams because they did something he didn’t like.

Well, about a month ago they hired a new CIO and Director of Development.  They got rid of the entire development team.  Which wasn’t hard because they were mostly contractors.  So, with that there was lots of inconsistencies in the software they were writing.

So, to make the LONG story short, the new CIO and DoD hired Adam to come in and they are going to completely rewrite the whole thing.  No re-working, re-writing, which is HUGE…  No fixing other people’s mistakes, just doing it right from the get go.  He is SO, SO, SO excited.  The only downside is the deadline to get it done is September 1st.  The CIO also seems to have tamed the owner too!

Anyway…  with all that going on, he has been working at night to get ready to start this job.  We have the kids in camp next week and they are really excited about that.  I’ll post next week and let you know how it goes!!