A Trip To Lake Lawn!

Last weekend our family went on a small vacation to Lake Lawn Resort. It was in Wisconsin, and we had lots of fun. I really liked it because instead of us just doing everything together like we would normaly do on a vacation, we got to do what we wanted to do. Mom and dad mostly went on walks by the lake, but me and John did the fun stuff. We went swimming in the pool, played basketball, and played minature golf. We also went to Manny's Deli and ice cream, went to the game room, and we played shuffle board. All this in only one and a half days! My favorite things were minature golf and swimming. Overall it was a really fun break, and it was cool because we left on Friday, so it was the first thing of Spring Break that we did. Another interesting thing was that dad had gone there when he was a kid! The picture is one I took of Mom, Dad, and John, sitting at a table, and another one I took of dad in our room.

Caught On Camera!!!

I caught our dog, Taz, on the couch. He is not allowed on the couch or the chairs, but sometimes he does it anyway even though he knows he's not supposed to. I took a picture of him to prove that he is sometimes naughty, but mostly becasue it was cute. There isn't much of a story, but I just really like the picture.

Cuckoo GIft Shop Lady

Last Friday our class went on a field trip to the Brookfield Zoo. Unfortunately, it was because we are studying ecology, not just for pure enjoyment. That said, we had to fill out a worksheet observing the behavior of a few different animals. Sadly, I forgot to bring a pen. After the we observed the first animal, we went to lunch and I decided to take the opportunity to buy a pen from the gift shop next door. I got the least expensive one they had (it conveniently had butterflies on it) and proceeded to the checkout. Apparently, the little old lady at the register was new, and when I gave her $5 she couldn't open the register and give me my $4 change. After staring blankly at the computer screen for a few minutes, (no doubt hoping a new button would magically present itself), she went to go get her manager. After the transaction was finally completed, I went back to lunch. Of course, when I tested out the pen on my piece of paper it didn't work (inevitably). So, I went back to the gift shop and told the lady that it didn't work. She told me I should have tried it out before I left (I thought to myself, "How about selling pens that actually work?"). I tried out all of the other pens of the same kind, and wouldn't ya know, none of them worked. So I took the next least expensive pen ($3). When we got back to the counter, the lady tried to subtract the $2.95 for the second pen from the 92 cents for the first one. She did it by hand on the back of the reciept. Somehow, she managed to get $1.03 instead of $2.03 (dang 1st grade teachers! Never teach you anything!). My guess is that even though there was no treacherous "carrying" to mess her up, she accidentally turned the 2 into a 1 when she brought it down. I gave her my dollar and my friend lent me a nickel. Naturally, when she was just about to give me my 2 cents back, the phone rang. That was when I left, hoping to avoid the inevitable futile attempt at opening the cash register, hoping to save a good five minutes.

Jazz Concert At the American Legion!

The jazz band had a concert! It was last night at the American Legion. We gave them a concert because they donate some money to the band program each year.
It was really fun, and I think we did a good job. I had a solo in one of the songs and didn't make any mistakes. It was a written out solo. A lot of the songs we played were Latin because we're going to have a Latin inspired concert later in the year. We played a song called The Best Of Basie, with mix of songs by Count Basie. We played a funk song called Chameleon, and another jazz song called That Old Black Magic. The rest of the songs were Latin. I had a lot of fun playing in the concert, and it made me feel good because the veterans really liked hearing us play. After the concert there was free hot dogs.

Girls basketball state championship

This evening I plan to watch Fenwick play in the high school girls state championship (on TV). I started taking Clare to our local high school games once a year when she was in about second grade, so she could see the big girls play. This year, I was tried on a couple of occasions to get her to go watch Fenwick play. We had seen them last year. I was surprised to learn from a fellow soccer parent that those stars I saw last year were only juniors. They were back, and the team was among the top teams nationally (according to those in the dubious business of national rankings of high school teams). Clare never wanted to go, and when I pestered her, said, "Why don't you just go without me?"

So when I I looked that the state tournament brackets and saw that Fenwick was in the Sectional hosted by a high school just 10 minutes from our house, I started the pushing Clare. Still not interested. This time I went without her, with Chris. We were surprised and happy to see a packed gym and loads of energy for gils hoops. Fenwick has the Sun-Times player of the year and two players who made McDonald's All-Americans. Tonight when they play on TV, Clare will watch with me.