Well, the boys and Jared only have 3 more days. Tomorrow I get to go to Maxwell's Author's Tea for his Summative and on Thursday we go to Elijah's Summative. Tonight we go to Xander first Cub Scout Meeting. It is a Pack Meeting so we all get (have) to go.

I can't believe how much my boys are growing up. We had a lot of fun this weekend with Grandma and Grandpa Landon. I went on one bike ride and everyone else went on two. The weather only cooperated with our outdoor plans for two of the days they were here. On Sunday we wanted to go to Papago Park but it was cloudy and rainy all day. Fortunately Grandma and Grandpa seem to have taken all the yucky grey, chilly weather home with them. It has been highs in the 70s and sunny since they left.

We celebrated Xander's 8th birthday with an elaborate dinner of Alfredo, caesar salad, cucumber slices, and fresh baked bread followed by a lemon cake with strawberries and strawberry ice cream. Xander was really excited by his turquoise turtle necklace, moon sand, pocket knife, money, Elf(the movie), and semi-precious gemstones. He was far less excited, for some strange reason, about his two new ties and belt for church.

While I was trying to prepare the birthday feast, everyone went on a bike ride to leave me to my work and have some fun. Because of a flat tire, I had to rescue them with tools and a tube for a "quick" tire change. That put me a lot behind schedule so we ended up eating at 7.

Xander had to wear his turtle necklace to school to show his girlfriends. He wasn't able to wear it yesterday since he had already broken it and I had to fix it.

We looked at another house this weekend and put what we believe to be a sufficiently aggressive offer on it. It has the best layout thus far of all the houses we have looked at with a great yard split in half with a nice big pool on one side and a grassy yard on the other. The neighborhood isn't even close to our preference as far as bike trails and green space goes, but it is all about compromise at this point. As far as location goes it is still in northwest Chandler which is plenty desirable. We would need to change the carpeting and paint before we moved in but it comes with a small carpet allowance to help with that. We saw a house today in Ahwatukee with a crappy layout but it had the preferable location. We aren't even going to make an offer on it. If we don't get the first house we may low ball on the house we looked at today but probably not.

Jared and I even dallied in trying to get a dog this weekend. We contacted some Adoption Nazi lady who insulted us when we didn't want to provide her with our life story, etc. to adopt a rather cute, gorgeous, abandoned mini-pin. She said we should go through county because they will adopt to anyone and we would still be saving a life. Jared and I would like to try to find a mini-pin or Italian greyhound. Maybe I will start visiting county when we are settled if we ever succeed at settling. Maybe we will be more willing to have background checks done to get a dog after that. Jared, Jean, and I were all thoroughly entertained by the email exchanges with this lady.