A Good Start!

What a great beginning to summer. We visited with friends, attended a wedding, marched in a parade, did lots of swimming and had a cook out. The only thing we missed was a trip to the beach.

The boat is broke! but it is OK because we got Grampy's pool. Life is good except for the fact that I still haven't figured out how to play with my kids full time instead of going to work.

Duh!

Well, we have an answer. The registration company from which we get our domain has been notifying Heidi that our registration is due and Heidi failed to mention it or renew it. I will send them their money this evening change the contact email to mine and we will proceed from there.

I am sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. Thank you Prosper for figuring it out for me, I would have never known.

We Got a Problem!

Server Down! Server Down! Firefox can not find our server! We are not receiving emails or, more importantly, ORDERS!

This is the second time in what seems to be a short period of time that this has happened. I wonder what is going on over there at the hosting company. I am looking forward to hearing from them.

Not having any more information than this I hope the site and email is back up and running by the end of the day or first thing tomorrow.

Graduation Day

Part of me feels that they have to be kidding, graduation from pre-school warrants a ceremony? Pre-school is more of a mommy breather than something that merits a graduation. There is no home work, no tests, half the class still can't read. The "art work" that makes it back to my house shows good effort but if I were running an art school I do not think it would merit a diploma.

The other part of me feels very proud of my little girl. We have received glowing reports from her teachers about what a happy, kind, compassionate little girl she is and that they feel lucky to have gotten to know Merry the past two years.

I did not take the appropriate measures at work to make it to the big ceremony. The guilt over took me and I scrambled. I made it to the graduation and and I am glad that I did.

Merry is moving on to bigger and better things and I am glad I was there to see the end of her first

Melaleuca

I did it again, we signed up with another Direct Selling company. The income and and quality products we have enjoyed being involved with Arbonne made it much less stressful this time around.

I view this network marketing thing as the wave of the future. It cuts out huge marketing expenses for the companies involved. Tide spends $1,000,000 a day on advertising. Direct selling companies spend the money other places, quality of ingredients being the place that most of those freed up dollars go.

Direct selling allows the companies involved to skip another step that most consumable goods producers have to plan, pay and formulate for. Warehousing, products need to remain effective for longer periods of time due to the fact that they sit in warehouses. Preservatives are good for the bottom line, but in most cases are not so good for you. The time in the warehouse also costs money, remove that step and pay me or you or whomever passes it on.

Being in the Pest Control Industry I am acutely aware of the toxins surrounding us. I know that every time we do a load of laundry our clothes are being cleaned with poisons. Chlorine and formaldehyde are bad for you, worse than the pesticides I use to solve your ant problem. Plus the exposure is much greater, every time you wash your dishes you are leaving deposits of corrosive chemical's on the utensils you use to feed yourself and your family. If you could save money , cut out your exposure to poisons and potentially earn a couple bucks would you do it?

I did.

Question

This question is for the six of you who read this blog.

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW?

Parenting

I do not have much going on considering blogging about parenting. It feels almost as if this parenting trick has become routine. Thomas has not reinvented what it means to be an almost two year old boy, David is a rather predictable three year old and Merry, in my eyes, is remarkable and good.

Most of the exciting, insightful stories have been told. The diapers, snots and stories of first steps have all been told. What I got next is a chronicle of family life, that at this point in time has slipped into a comfortable routine.

David believes every toy in the house, and there are a lot of toys, belongs to him. Thomas takes great pleasure in testing Davids theory. Merry does a wonderful job of sharing and at times distracting her brothers when they attempt to get under her skin.

The nice weather has taken some of the pressure off of Heidi, the feelings of claustrophobia are subsiding, which is good for everyone. The children are outside most of the day and we all know the old adage "A good child is a tired child" or is that "dog" whatever. They, the children and the dog are happy to go to bed at the end of a day outdoors.

This may be a bit of a turning point for the Tutu Boutique, I just don't know.

SUMMER

The past 3 days have been beautiful. 80 degrees and sunny summer weather. Where have Heidi and the kids been?

THE BEACH

Tuckerman's Ravine

9:00am
Ready to hike.
11:00
From Spring to Winter
The Hermit Lake Shelter

11:33am
The Ravine

Lunch Rocks

Assent into Heaven

Over The Headwall

View from the Top

Back to Lunch Rocks

Last trip up

Preparing for Take Off

Rendez Vous at the base of the Ravine

This is where the next adventure begins. I never skied off the mountain before and it was tons of fun. This however is enough for today, it is only one third of the story.
Maybe tomorrow I will write about the motorcycle wreck/car accident that happened on our way to the mountain.

Big W

I want to take a minute to wish the Big Dubya a Happy Fortieth Birthday. When I started this blogging adventure over 305 posts ago Dubya was one of the first daddy bloggers that I found.

I reached out to him for a reciprocal link and he said sure. Then he made fun of my High School. It happens all the time, kids educated by Jesuits are jealous of us with a Xaverian education.

Happy Birthday old man, how is the view from the top of the hill? You know it is all down hill from here.

What is Happening?

Thanks for asking, not a hell of a lot. Thomas is talking in paragraphs that only his mother understands. The kid goes on and on and on. If you can't actually here him you might think what he was saying made sense. It does not, his cadence is on but his pronunciation is terrible. All of his gestures and facial expressions let the listener know that the kid has conviction, he just doesn't make any sense. He is a lot of fun to talk to.

When David isn't crying he is singing about superheroes. He comes up with all types of lyrics about his favorite crime fighters, and when he comes across a phrase he likes he repeats it over and over and over.

Meredith has learned another important lesson at pre-school. She is now an expert teaser. "Na na nana na, you can't have it" has become her mantra and she is teaching it to her brother's. It is one of Thomas' most understandable phrases.

Me, I am heading to N.H. on Thursday night and then Friday morning Tuckerman's Ravine. Should be one heck of an adventure, I am bringing the camera and will post some photo's.

The jogging has been going well. I stopped keeping track of the time because , "My name is Peter and I am a ten minute miler" that felt good. At this stage in my life it is not about how fast I go but how long. Thirty-five minutes of jogging is about all I can take and some days, like yesterday, it is more.

I picked up Jackson's ashes at the vet's the other day and it feels good having him back in the living room. He is in a discreet little wooden box that looks fine on the book shelf. Maxwell is hanging with me now. We run or walk almost everyday and he comes to the office with me. We are partners.