Wowie

What a week.  The kids started school on Wednesday.  So far I'm very satisfied.  Both the kids have new teachers (their school has at least 6 new teachers this year).  They were very enthusiastic about how much they like them.  I'm making them buy lunches this year too.  It is part of my overall strategic plan to combat their pickiness.  Brother B is loving it because he's had chicken nuggets and pizza this week.  When I asked him, he agreed that it is much better than packing a peanut butter sandwich every day.  The other good news concerns the boy that kept chasing after Ephant last year.  He was in her class initially this year, even sitting right next to her (I quickly rectified that one), but since the other 3rd grade class was smaller they transferred him into it yesterday.  What a relief.  Ephant feels a bit sorry for him because he had to leave all his other friends too.  She is glad though to not deal with him anymore.

Wednesday night we had our Relief Society Enrichment Service Auction.  It went really well!  I was a bit nervous having a new auctioneer since Jenn did such an amazing job the last few times we did it, but our new auctioneer did great.  It was a lot of fun.  We have TONS of new student families in the ward this year so I'm hoping this was a good introduction to the ward for them.  I made a placemat bag for it and almost bid on it myself...

Thursday night we had a work party in Northwest portland at one of J's coworkers house.  They live in a humongous early 1900 house.  It was pretty neat.  I really like that section of Portland.   That's where Papa Haydns is, they have my favorite dessert of all time, Bocconi Dolce.  I tried to make it one time and miserably failed.  It is a pretty eclectic area beyond that, with little streets and small shops.

J is about ready to stain the deck today so hopefully we'll put up pictures of it soon.  It is pretty much the finishing touch for our yard.  I'm about done planting.  Our apricot tree that I posted about earlier is really determined to live too.  I chopped off all the branches way back when so that it is pretty much just a stump, but it looks like a bush now with how many suckers it has put out.  I'm tempted to leave it and see what happens with it.

We're slowly but surely working through an essential to do list before we can even consider moving.  We got quite a bit of the small stuff done over labor day weekend.