TEXAS

Usually Mimi will say that she is "relaxing in Mexico". Lately she has been on a cowboy kick. She will dress dad up to be a cowboy or she will put on her bandana and yell "Yee Haw cowboy!" all around the house. Yesterday while at Remlinger Farms, she no sooner rode off into the sunset on her pony, she turned to mom and dad saying "I'm go'in to Texas!" Without skipping a beat, dad yells back to her "Say hello to o'le George for us!"

FAMILY FUN DAY AT REMLINGER FARMS

This past weekend was spent with trips to the farm. Mimi absolutely loves having fun with her friends. So mom decided that Saturday would be spent with her friends at Maris Farms. It is a little more subdued there than it is at Remlinger's. Our Mimi bless her little heart still has oodles and oodles of energy. Plus she can and does bring out the energy that is in her friends not that they don't have any themselves, they just have more when Mimi is around them.

Yesterday after the ESD (elementary school division) meeting at the Seattle Culture Center, mom and dad decided to surprise Mimi and take her to Remlinger Farms as part of our weekly family fun day. If you believe in the after life, our Mimi is soooo much like her grandma (mom's mother). She has to know everything. Mimi kept asking "where are we going after lunch?" All we would tell her is that "We Are Taking Care of Business" like the song says. We even had her watch the dvd in the car in order to distract her from looking out the window. When we finally arrived at our destination Mimi exclaimed "Are we at Remlinger Farms? WE ARE!!! WE ARE!!!" She was totally surprised. Mom loves to surprise the people she loves. We all had a blast. It is a great place for the little ones and their families. Mimi rode on all of the rides, then while riding on the steam engine train, we saw a real live black bear on the other side of the river that outlines the farm. We all got a real kick out of that one. As the park was coming to a close, it got real chilly so mom decided that she would wait for Mimi and dad in the market where it was a little warmer while they finished up on the rides. When we all met up with each other, dad shared this story. It seems that the pumpkin ride was getting ready to close for the day and was in the process of lettting the kids off the ride. Our Mimi entered through the exit and had a talk with the operator and he was so charmed by her that he let her on the ride plus a couple of other kids that were there also. Like I said, Mimi is just like her grandma. Mom's mother was a real charmer too.

MARIS FARMS

While our friends the Fratkins were having a grand time at Disneyland today, Mimi and her friends Blake and Halle (and their families) were enjoying themselves up here at Maris Farms. It's a great place for the little tykes. The roasted corn and kettle corn are so yummy as usual. The kids had a blast riding the cow train, going down a tube slide and playing in the pile of corn kernels. Wade, Keri and Bailey left early so that Wade could get home in time to watch the Nascar Races. Wade is the manager for Lowe's and so everytime Jimmy Johnson wins a race, Lowe's employees get a nice bonus since Lowe's is one of the sponser's. Therefore Blake hung out with us and as usual we made a stop at Wally's on the way home. A good time was had by all.

EVERYDAY MATH

Since the beginning of the school year, Mimi has been coming home every Friday with a whole bunch of papers in her backpack. Usually it is stuff that she has done in the classroom, or clubs that kids can join such as the birthday book club (which mom signed her up for that one), basketball (which we did not sign up for as she already is busy with other extracurricular activities), plus the parents have to pay for everything including PTA or PTSA (as it is called here) membership. I say that one may as well hand over the checkbook to the school once the kid starts cause you (the parents) end up paying for a whole lot of odds and ends. This is not to mention the stuff we parents now have to sell to help the school make money. Is there anyone who would like to buy some Christmas stuff such as chocolates right about now?????

Last Friday amongst all the usual papers, the teacher sent home a paper that talks about the stuff that the students are doing in class at this particular point in time. The kids are now using a computer math program called Everyday Math and we the parent can play these games at home along with kids. It is called http://www.everydaymathonline.com Mom and Mimi played a couple of the games this morning and it was not too bad. A little boring for mom though. I guess that we will continue doing this since this is what they are learning in school.

MOTHER/DAUGHTER DAY

Today there was no school for Mimi due to the fact that it is staff developement day. Mom decided that she would make it into a mother/daughter day. Therefore since we are now in the 'po' house this month, mom tried to come up with ideas of things that we could do on a dime. First we slept in (at least mom did, Mimi played on the computer), had a late breakfast when Mimi noticed that there was a leak in our downstair guest bathroom. Sure enough there was a huge puddle so the plumber had to come out and fix the leak. There goes our day mom thought. A while back, mom had noticed a stain on the ceiling and made mention of it to dad. He noticed it too. Then things got rather crazy busy around the Putney household and dad forgot all about it until last Friday when mom told him to go into the bathroom and take a look at the ceiling. Something to the effect of "Oh my god!" came out of his mouth. The ceiling plaster to where the stain was broke through. Dad called the plumber and he came out to the house on Monday morning and sure enough the leak was due to the shower in the master bathroom upstairs. Apparently there was work done to the shower prior to our moving in last year June and the seal that was used was made of plastic instead of brass therefore it broke. This time the plumber put in a brass seal but did not put it in tight, that is why we had the leak again today. So again the plumber had to come out and fix our leak. I kind of feel like the people in the movie "The Money Pit". The whole process cost us $465.00 and that is not to mention that we still have to get the dry wall done to where a nice size hole was drilled into the ceiling. Mom nearly had to give dad CPR when he found out how much it all cost. This is right after coming back from Virginia where Mimi had a parking lot accident. We had gone back to Joe's house to give Mari her travel pillow that she forgot in our car. Mimi, who is in the process of learning to open doors carefully, opened her door not so carefully at the time whacked the car that was parked next to us and put a small dent into it. Fortunately for us we knew the person who owned the car. The owner turned out to be one of Mari's friends by the name of Ryan. Justine (Ryan's fiance and Mari's best friend) said that we did not need to pay for it. Both mom and dad felt real bad about it and felt that it was our responsibility so we did give them a check to get it fixed. Blake called this afternoon and so Mimi is over there now. Poor, poor mom, she got dropped like a hot potatoe. So much for our mother/daughter day. We will definitely make up for it though on Sunday maybe.

THE HEAT IS ON

Brrrrr!!! Is it cold!!! Top number is the inside of the house and the bottom is the temperature outside of the house at this time (8:53 am). I think it will be a great idea to go turn the heat on in the house. Don't you???

A DOZEN RED ROSES

Tonight dad came home and surprised mom with a dozen red roses. Why??? You may ask??? It's because 13 years ago we got hitched together for life. Thirteen years ago was also when mom went out to the local pet store and adopted our two kitties Ollie and Stanley. Five years ago today, we were in China filling out more paperwork for our Mimi October is a very auspicious month for us Putney's.